crystals, or on a rugose base, the cross-section presents a
zigzag pattern, rather like the plan of a fortress with salient
and retiring angles, whence the stone is termed fortification
agate. If the section shows concentric circles, due either to
stalactitic growth or to deposition in the form of bosses and
beads on the floor, the stone is known as ring agate or eye
agate. A Mexican agate, showing only a single eye, has
received the name of ``cyclops.'' Included matter of a green
colour, like fragments of ``green earth,'' embedded in
the chalcedony and disposed in filaments and other forms
suggestive of vegetable growth, gives rise to moss agate.
These inorganic enclosures in the agate have been sometimes
described, even after microscopic examination, as true vegetable
structures. Dendritic markings of black or brown colour, due
to infiltration of oxides of manganese and iron, produce the
variety of agate known as Mocha stone. Agates of exceptional
beauty often pass in trade under the name of Oriental agate.
Certain stones, when examined in thin sections by transmitted
light, show a diffraction spectrum, due to the extreme delicacy
of the successive bands, whence they are termed rainbow agates.
On the disintegration of the matrix in which the agates are
embedded, they are set free, and, being by their siliceous
nature extremely resistant to the action of air and water,
remain as nodules in the soil and gravel, or become rolled as
pebbles in the streams. Such is the origin of the ``Scotch
pebbles,'' used as ornamental stones. They are agates derived
from the andesitic lavas of Old Red Sandstone age, chiefly
in the Ochils and the Sidlaws. In like manner, the South
American agates, so largely cut and polished at the present
time, are found mostly as boulders in the beds of rivers.
An enormous trade in agate-working is carried on in a small
district in Germany, around Oberstein on the Nahe, a tributary
of the Rhine at Bingen. Here the industry was located many
centuries ago, in consequence of the abundant occurrence
of agates in the amygdaloidal melaphyre of the district,
notably in the Galgenberg, or Steinkaulenberg, overlooking
the village of Idar, on the Idar Bach, about two miles from
Oberstein. The abundant water-power in the neighbourhood
had also a share in the determination of the industrial
site. At the present time, however, steam power and even
electricity are employed in the mills of the Oberstein
district. Although the agateindustry is still carried on
there, especially at Idar, the stones operated on are
not of indigenous origin, but are imported mostly from
Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul) and from Uruguay, where they
were discovered in 1827. Agate-working is also carried
on to a limited extent at Waldkirch in the Black Forest.
Most commercial agate is artificially stained, so that stones
naturally unattractive by their dull grey tints come to be
valuable for ornamental purposes. The art of staining the
stone is believed to be very ancient. Possibly referred to
by Pliny (bk. xxxvii. cap. 75), it was certainly practised
at an early date by the Italian cameo-workers, and from
Italy a knowledge of the art--long kept secret and practised
traditionally--passed in the early part of the 19th century to
the agate-workers in Germany, by whom it has since been greatly
developed. The colouring matter is absorbed by the porosity
of the stone, but different stones and even different layers
in the same stone exhibit great variation in absorptive
power. The Brazilian agates lend themselves readily to
coloration, while the German agates are much less receptive.
To produce a dark brown or black colour, the stone is kept perhaps
for two or three weeks in a saccharine solution, or in olive
oil, at a moderate temperature. After removal from this medium,
the agate is well washed and then digested for a short time in
sulphuric acid, which entering the pores chars or carbonizes
the absorbed sugar or oil. Certain layers of chalcedony are
practically impermeable, and these consequently remain uncoloured,
so that an alternation of dark and white bands is obtained,
thus giving rise to an onyx. If stained too dark, the colour
may be ``drawn,'' or lightened, by the action of nitric acid.
Agate is stained red, so as to form carnelian and sardonyx,
by means of ferric oxide. This may be derived from any iron
compound naturally present in the stone, especially from limonite
by dehydration on baking. Some stones are ``burnt'' by mere
exposure to the heat of the sun, whereby the brown colour passes to
red. Usually, however, an iron-salt, like ferrous sulphate,
is artificially introduced in solution and then decomposed
by heat, so as to form in the pores a rich red pigment.
A blue colour, supposed to render the agate rather like lapis
lazuli, is produced by using first an iron salt and then
a solution of ferrocyanide or ferricyanide of potassium;
a green colour, like that of chrysoprase, is obtained
by means of salts of nickel or of chromium; and a yellow
tint is developed by the action of hydrochloric acid.
Among the uses to which agate is applied may be mentioned the
formation of knife-edges of delicate balances, small mortars
and pestles for chemical work, burnishers and writing styles,
umbrella-handles, paper-knives, seals, brooches and other trivial
ornaments. Most of these are cut and polished in the Oberstein
district, at a very cheap rate, from South American stones.
Numerous localities in the United States and Canada yield
agates, as described by Dr G. F. Kunz. They are abundant in
the trap rocks of the Lake Superior region, some of the finest
coming from Michipicoten Island, Ontario. A locality on the
shore of the lake is called Agate Bay. Wood agate, or agatized
wood, is not infrequently found in Colorado, California and
elsewhere in the West, the most notable locality being the
famous ``silicified forest'' known as Chalcedony Park, in Apache
county, Arizona. Here there are vast numbers of water-rolled
logs of silicified wood, in rocks of Triassic age, but only
a small quantity of the wood is fine enough for ornamental
purposes. The cellular tissue of the vegetable matter is
filled, or even replaced, by various siliceous minerals like
chalcedony, jasper, crystalline quartz and semi-opal, the silica
having probably been introduced by thermal waters. Some of the
agate shows the microscopic structure of araucarian wood. The
agatized wood is sometimes known by the Indian name of shinarump.
In India agates occur abundantly in the amygdaloidal varieties of
the Deccan and Rajmahal traps, and as pebbles in the detritus
derived from these rocks. Some of the finest are found in the
agate-gravels near Ratanpur, in Rajpipla. The trade in agates
has been carried on from early times at Cambay, where the stones
are cut and polished. Agates are also worked at Jubbulpore.
In many parts of New South Wales, agates, resulting from the
disintegration of trap rocks, are common in the river-beds and old
drifts. They occur also in Queensland, as at Agate Creek, running
into the Gilbert river. South Africa likewise yields numerous
agates, especially in the gravels of the Orange and Vaal rivers.
It should be noted that in England agates are found not
only in old lavas, like the andesites of the Cheviots, but
also to a limited extent in the Dolomitic Conglomerate,
an old beachdeposit of Triassic age in the Mendips and
the neighbourhood of Bristol. They are also found as
weathered pebbles in the drift of Lichfield in Staffordshire.
For Scottish agates see M. F. Heddle, ``On the Structure of
Agates,'' Trans. Geolog. Soc. Glasgow, vol. xi. part ii.,
1900, p. 153; and Mineralogy of Scotland (1901), vol. i.
p. 58; J. G. Goodchild, Proc. Phys. Soc. Edinburgh, vol.
xiv., 1899, p. 191. For the agate-industry see G. Lange, Die
Halbedelsteine (Kreuznach, 1868). For American agates, G. F.
Kunz, Gems and Precious Stones of North America (1890), p.
128. For agates in general see Max Bauer's Precious Stones,
translated by L. J. Spencer (London, 1904). (F. W. R.n)
AGATHA, SAINT, the patron saint of Catania, Sicily, where
her festival is celebrated on the 5th of February. The legend
is that she was a native of Sicily (probably of Catania,
though Palermo also claims her), of noble birth and great
beauty. She repelled the advances of the Roman prefect sent
by the emperor Decius to govern Sicily, and was by his orders
brutally tortured and finally sent to the stake. As soon as
the fire was lighted, an earthquake occurred, and the people
insisted on her release. She died in prison on the 5th
of February 251. The rescue of Catania from fire during an
eruption of Mount Etna was later attributed to St Agatha's veil.
AGATHANGELUS, AGATHANGE or AKATHANKELOS, Armenian
historian, lived during the 4th century, and wrote a History
of the Reign of Dertad, or Tiridates, and of the Preaching
of St Gregory the Illuminator. The text of this history
has been considerably altered, but it has always been in
high favour with the Armenians. It has been translated
into several languages, and Greek and Latin translations
are found in the Acta Sanctorum Bollandistarum, tome
viii. As known to us the history consists of three parts,
a history of St Gregory and his companions, the doctrine of
Gregory, and the conversion of Armenia to Christianity.
See V. Langlois, Collection des historiens
anciens et modernes de l'Armenie (Paris, 1868).
AGATHARCHIDES, or AGATHARCHUS, of Cnidus, Greek historian
and geographer, lived in the time of Ptolemy Philometor
(181-146 B.C.) and his successors. Amongst other works,
he wrote treatises on Asia, Europe and The Red Sea.
Interesting extracts from the last, of some length, are
preserved in Photius (cod. 213), who praises the style
of the author, which was modelled on that of Thucydides.
See H. Leopoldi, De Agatharchide Cnidio Dissertatio
(1892); C. W. Muller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum,
iii., and Geographi Graeci Minores, i.; E. H.
Bunbury, Hist. of Ancient Geography, ii. (1879).
AGATHARCHUS, an Athenian painter of the 5th century B.C.
He is said by Vitruvius to have been the first to paint a scene
for the acting of tragedies. Hence some writers, such as Karl
Woermann, have supposed that he introduced perspective and
illusion into painting. This is a mistaken view, for ancient
writers know nothing of canvas scenes; the background painted
by Agatharchus was the wooden front of the stage building,
and it was painted, not with reference to any particular
play, but as a permanent decorative background, representing
no doubt a palace or temple. Agatharchus is said to have
been seized by Alcibiades and compelled by him to paint the
interior of his house, which shows that at the time (about
435 B.C.) decorative painting of rooms was the fashion.
AGATHIAS (c. A.D. 536-582), of Myrina in Aeolis,
Greek poet and historian. He studied law at Alexandria,
completed his training at Constantinople and practised as
an advocate (scholasticus) in the courts. Literature,
however, was his favourite pursuit. He wrote a number of
short love-poems in epic metre, called Daphniaca. He next
put together a kind of anthology, containing epigrams by
earlier and contemporary poets and himself, under the title
of a Cycle of new Epigrams. About a hundred epigrams by
Agathias have been preserved in the Greek Anthology and
show considerable taste and elegance. After the death of
Justinian (565), some of Agathias's friends persuaded him
to write the history of his own times. This work, in five
books, begins where Procopius ends, and is the chief authority
for the period 552-558. It deals chiefly with the struggles
of the Byzantine army, under the command of the eunuch
Narses, against the Goths, Vandals, Franks and Persians. The
author prides himself on his honesty and impartiality, but
he is lacking in judgment and knowledge of facts; the work,
however, is valuable from the importance of the events of
which it treats. Gibbon contrasts Agathias as ``a poet and
rhetorician'' with Procopius ``a statesman and soldier.''
AUTHORITIES.--Editio princeps, by B. Vulcanius (1594); in
the Bonn Corpus Scriptorum Byz. Hist., by B. G. Niebuhr
(1828); in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, lxxxviii.; L. Dindorf,
Historici Graeci Minores (1871); W. S. Teuffel, ``Agathias
von Myrine,'' in Philolegus (i. 1846); C. Krumbacher,
Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (2nd ed. 1897).
AGATHO, pope from 678 to 681, was born in Sicily. He is
noteworthy as the pope who ordered St Wilfrid to be restored
to his bishopric at York in 679, and as the first to cease
payment of the tribute hitherto paid on election to the
emperor at Constantinople. It was during his pontificate
that the 6th oecumenical council was held at Constantinople,
to which he sent his legates and those from a Roman council
held in 679. Agatho died on the 10th of January 681.
AGATHOCLES (361-289 B.C.), tyrant of Syracuse, was
born at Thermae Himeraeae (mod. Termini Imerese) in
Sicily. The son of a potter who had removed to Syracuse,
he learned his father's trade, but afterwards entered the
army. In 333 he married the widow of his patron Damas, a
distinguished and wealthy citizen. He was twice banished for
attempting to overthrow the oligarchical party in Syracuse
(q.v.); in 317 he returned with an army of mercenaries under
a solemn oath to observe the democratic constitution which
was then set up. Having banished or murdered some 10,000
citizens, and thus made himself master of Syracuse, he created
a strong army and fleet and subdued the greater part of
Sicily. War with Carthage followed. In 310 Agathocles,
defeated and besieged in Syracuse, took the desperate resolve
of breaking through the blockade and attacking the enemy in
Africa. After several victories he was at last completely
defeated (306) and fled secretly to Sicily. After concluding
peace with Carthage, Agathocles styled himself king of
Sicily, and established his rule over the Greek cities of
the island more firmly than ever. Even in his old age he
displayed the same restless energy, and is said to have been
meditating a fresh attack on Carthage at the time of his
death. His last years were harassed by ill-health and the
turbulence of his grandson Archagathus, at whose instigation
he is said to have been poisoned; according to others, he
died a natural death. He was a born leader of mercenaries,
and, although he did not shrink from cruelty to gain his ends,
he afterwards showed himself a mild and popular ``tyrant.''
See Justin xxii., xxiii.; Diodorus Siculus xix., xxi., xxii.
(follows generally Timaeus who had a special grudge against
Agathocles); Polybius ix. 23; Schubert, Geschichte des
Agathokles (1887); Grote, History of Greece, ch. 97; also
SICILY, History. AGATHODAEMON; in Greek mythology, the
``good spirit'' of cornfields and vineyards. It was the custom
of the Greeks to drink a cup of pure wine in his honour at
the end of each meal (Aristophanes, Equites, 106). He was
also regarded as the protecting spirit of the state and of
individuals. He was often accompanied by 'Agathe Tuche
(good fortune), and in this aspect may be compared with
the Roman Bonus Eventus (Pliny, Nat Hist. xxxvi. 23), and
Genius. He is represented in works of art in the form of a
serpent, or of a young man with a cornucopia and a bowl
in one hand, and a poppy and ears of corn in the other.
See Gerhard, Uber Agathodamon und Bona Dea (Berlin, 1849).
AGATHODAEMON, of Alexandria, map designer, probably lived
in the 2nd century A.D. Some MSS. of the Geography of
Ptolemy contain twenty-seven maps, which are stated to have
been drawn by Agathodaemon of Alexandria, who ``delineated
the whole world according to the eight books of Ptolemy's
geography.'' As Ptolemy speaks of IIinakes to accompany his
treatise, these maps were probably the work of a contemporary
acting under his instructions. About 1470 Nicolaus Doris,
a Benedictine monk, brought out a revised edition of
them, the names being inserted in Latin instead of Greek.
See Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, ii.
AGATHON (c. 448-400 B.C.), Athenian tragic poet, friend of
Euripides and Plato, best known from his mention by Aristophanes
(Thesmophoriazusae) and in Plato's Symposium, which describes
the banquet given to celebrate his obtaining a prize for a tragedy
(416). He probably died at the court of Archelaus, king of
Macedonia. He introduced certain innovations, and Aristotle
(Poetica, 9) tells us that the plot of his 0Antho1 was
original, not, as usually, borrowed from mythological subjects.
See Aristophanes, Thesmoph. 59, 106, Eccles. 100; Plato, Symp.
198 c; Plutarch, Symp. 3; Aelian, Var. Hist. xiv. 13; Ritsch,
Opuscula, i.; fragments in Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta.
AGATHYRSI, a people of Thracian origin, who in the earliest
historical times occupied the plain of the Maris (Maros), in
the region now known as Transylvania. Thyrsi is supposed to
be a Scythian form of Trausoi (Trausi), a Thracian tribe
mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium. They are described
by Herodotus (iv. 104) as of luxurious habits, wearing gold
ornaments (the district is still auriferous) and having wives in
common. They tattooed their bodies (picti, Aeneid iv. 136),
degrees of rank being indicated by the manner in which this
was done, and coloured their hair dark blue. Like the Gallic
Druids, they recited their laws in a kind of sing-song to
prevent their being forgotten, a practice still in existence
in the days of Aristotle (Problemata, xix. 28). Valerius
Flaccus (Argonautica, vi. 135) calls them Thyrsagetae,
probably in reference to their celebration of orgiastic rites
in honour of some divinity akin to the Thracian Dionysus.
In later times the Agathyrsi were driven farther north, and
their name was unknown to the Romans in their original home.
[26]. 88; Pomponius Mela ii. 1. 10: W. Tomaschek, ``Die alten
Thraker,'' in Sitzungsber. der philosophisch-historischen
Klasse der kaiserl. Akad. der Wiss. cxxviii. (Vienna, 1893).
AGAVE, a large botanical genus of the natural order Amaryllidaceae,
chiefly Mexican, but occurring also in the southern and western
United States and in central and tropical South America. The
plants have a large rosette of thick fleshy leaves generally
ending in a sharp point and with a spiny margin; the stout
stem is usually short, the leaves apparently springing from the
root. They grow slowly and flower but once after a number of
years, when a tall stem or ``mast'' grows from the centre of
the leaf rosette and bears a large number of shortly tubular
flowers. After development of fruit the plant dies down,
but suckers are frequently produced from the base of the
stem which become new plants. The most familiar species is
Agave americana (see fig.), a native of tropical America,
the so-called century plant or American aloe (the maguey of
Mexico). The number of years before flowering occurs depends
on the vigour of the individual, the richness of the soil
and the climate; during these years the plant is storing in
its fleshy leaves the nourishment required for the effort of
flowering. During the development of the inflorescence there
is a rush of sap to the base of the young flowerstalk. In
the case of A. americana and other species this is used by
the Mexicans to make their national beverage, pulque; the
flower shoot is cut out and the sap collected and subsequently
fermented. By distillation a spirit called mescal is
prepared. The leaves of several species yield fibre, as for
instance, A. rigida var. sisalana, sisal hemp (q.v.),
A. decipiens, false sisal hemp; A. americana is the
source of pita fibre, and is used as a fibre plant in
Mexico, the West Indies and southern Europe. The flowering
stem of the last named, dried and cut in slices, forms
Agave americana, Century plant or American aloe. About
1/40 nat. size. 1, Flower; 2, same flower split open above the
ovary; 3, ovary cut across; 1, 2, and 3, about 1/2 nat. size.
From the Botanical Magazine, by permission of Lovell Reeve and Co.
natural razor strops, and the expressed juice of the leaves
will lather in water like soap. In the Madras Presidency
the plant is extensively used for hedges along railroads.
Agave americana, century plant, was introduced into Europe
about the middle of the 16th century and is now widely
cultivated for its handsome appearance; in the variegated
forms the leaf has a white or yellow marginal or central
stripe from base to apex. As the leaves unfold from the
centre of the rosette the impression of the marginal spines
is very conspicuous on the still erect younger leaves. The
plants are usually grown in tubs and put out in the summer
months, but in the winter require to be protected from
frost. They mature very slowly and die after flowering, but
are easily propagated by the offsets from the base of the stem.
AGDE, a town of southern France, in the department of Herault,
on the left bank of the river of that name, 2 1/2 m. from the
Mediterranean Sea and 32 m. S.W. of Montpellier on the Southern
railway. Pop. (1906) 7146. The town lies at the foot of
an extinct volcano, the Montagne St Loup, and is built of
black volcanic basalt, which gives it a gloomy appearance.
Overlooking the river is the church of St Andre, which dates
partly from the 12th century, and, till the Revolution, was a
cathedral. It is a plain and massive structure with crenelated
walls, and has the aspect of a fortress rather than of a
church. The exterior is diversified by arched recesses forming
machicolations, and the same architectural feature is reproduced
in the square tower which rises like a donjon above the
building. The Canal du Midi, or Languedoc canal, uniting the
Garonne with the Mediterranean, passes under the walls of the
town, and the mouth of the Herault forms a harbour which is
protected by a fort. The maritime commerce of the town has
declined, owing partly to the neighbourhood of Cette, partly
to the shallowness of the Herault. The fishing industry
is, however, still active. The chief public institutions
are the tribunal of commerce and the communal college.
Agde is a place of great antiquity and is said to have
been founded under the name of agathe polis (Good
City) by the Phocaeans. The bishopric was established
about the year 400 and was suppressed in 1790.
SYNOD OF AGDE (Concilium Agathense.)--With the permission
of the West Goth Alaric II. thirty-five bishops of southern
Gaul assembled in person or sent deputies to Agde on the 11th
of September 506. Caesarius, bishop of Arles, presided. The
forty seven genuine canons of the synod deal with discipline,
church life, the alienation of ecclesiastical property and
the treatment of Jews. While favouring sacerdotal celibacy
the council laid rather rigid restrictions on monasticism. It
commanded that the laity communicate at Christmas, Easter and
Whitsuntide. The canons of Agde are based in part on earlier
Gallic, African and Spanish legislation; and some of them
were re-enacted by later councils, and found their way into
collections such as the Hispana, Pseudo-Isidore and Gratian.
See Mansi viii. 319 ff.; Hefele, Conciliengeschichte,
2nd edition, ii. 649 ff. (English translation, iv.
76 ff.); Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie, i. 242.
AGE (Fr. age, through late Lat. aetaticum, from
aetas), a term used (1) of the divisions into which it
is suggested that human history may be divided, whether
regarded from the geological, cultural or moral aspects,
e.g. the palaeolithic age, the bronze age, the dark ages;
(2) of an historic epoch or generation; (3) of any period
or stage in the physical life of a person, animal or thing;
(4) of that time of life at which the law attributes full
responsibility for his or her acts to the individual.
(1) From the earliest times there would appear to have been
the belief that the history of the earth and of mankind
falls naturally into periods or ages. Classical mythology
popularized the idea. Hesiod, for example, in his poem Works
and Days, describes minutely five successive ages, during
each of which the earth was peopled by an entirely distinct
race. The first or golden race lived in perfect happiness
on the fruits of the untilled earth, suffered from no bodily
infirmity, passed away in a gentle sleep, and became after
death guardian daemons of this world. The second or silver
race was degenerate, and refusing to worship the immortal
gods, was buried by Jove in the earth. The third or brazen
race, still more degraded, was warlike and cruel, and perished
at last by internal violence. The fourth or heroic race
was a marked advance upon the preceding, its members being
the heroes or demi-gods who fought at Troy and Thebes, and who
were rewarded after death by being permitted to reap thrice
a year the free produce of the earth. The fifth or iron
race, to which the poet supposes himself to belong, is the
most degenerate of all, sunk so low in every vice that any new
change must be for the better. Ovid, in his Metamorphoses,
follows Hesiod exactly as to nomenclature and very closely as to
substance. He makes the degeneracy continuous, however,
by omitting the heroic race or age, which, as Grote points
out, was probably introduced by Hesiod, not as part of his
didactic plan, but from a desire to conciliate popular feeling
by including in his poem the chief myths that were already
current among the Greeks. Varro recognized three ages: (1)
from the beginning of mankind to the Deluge, a quite indefinite
period; (2) from the Deluge to the First Olympiad, called the
Mythical Period; (3) from the First Olympiad to his own time,
called the Historic Period. Lucretius divided man's history
into three cultural periods: (1) the Age of Stone; (2) the
Age of Bronze; (3) the Age of Iron. He thus anticipated the
conclusions of some of the greatest of modern archaeologists.
(2) A definite period in history, distinguished by some
special characteristic, such as great literary activity, is
generally styled, with some appropriate epithet, an age. It
is usual, for example, to speak of the Age of Pericles, the
Augustan, the Elizabethan or the Victorian Ages; of the Age
of the Crusades, the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, the Age of
Steam. Such isolated periods, with no continuity or necessary
connexion of any kind, are obviously quite distinct from the
ages or organically related periods into which philosophers have
divided the whole course of human history. Auguste Comte, for
instance, distinguishes three ages according to the state of
knowledge in each, and he supposes that we are now entering
upon the third of these. In the first age of his scheme
knowledge is supernatural or fictitious; in the second it is
metaphysical or abstract; in the third it is positive or
scientific. Schemes somewhat similar have been proposed by other
philosophers, chiefly of France and Germany, and seem to be
regarded by them as essential to any complete science of history.
(3) The subject of the duration of human and animal life
does not fall within the scope of this article, and the
reader is referred to LONGEVITY. But the word ``age''
has been used by physiologists to express certain natural
divisions in human development and decay. These are usually
regarded as numbering five, viz. infancy, lasting to the
seventh year; childhood to the fourteenth; youth to
the twenty-first; adult life till fifty; and old age.
(4) The division of human life into periods for legal purposes
is naturally more sharp and definite than in physiology. It
would be unscientific in the physiologist to name any precise
year for the transition from one of his stages to another,
inasmuch as that differs very considerably among different
nations, and even to some extent among different individuals
of the same nation. But the law must necessarily be fixed and
uniform, and even where it professes to proceed according to
nature, must be more precise than nature. The Roman law divided
human life for its purposes into four chief periods, which
had their subdivisions--(1) infantia, lasting till the close
of the seventh year; (2) the period between infantia and
pubertas, males becoming puberes at fourteen and females
at twelve; (3) adolescentia, the period between puberty
and majority; and (4) the period after the twenty-fifth year,
when males became majores. The first period was one of total
legal incapacity; in the second period a person could lawfully
do certain specified acts, but only with the sanction of his
tutor or guardian; in the third the restrictions were fewer,
males being permitted to manage their own property, contract
marriage and make a will; but majority was not reached until
the age of twenty-five. By English law there are two great
periods into which life is divided--infancy, which lasts
in both sexes until the twenty-first year, and manhood or
womanhood. The period of infancy, again, is divided into several
stages, marked by the growing development both of rights and
obligations. Thus at twelve years of age a male may take
the oath of allegiance; at fourteen both sexes are held
to have arrived at years of discretion, and may therefore
choose guardians, give evidence and consent or disagree to a
marriage. A female has the last privilege from the twelfth
year, but the marriage cannot be celebrated until the majority
of the parties without the consent of parents or guardians. At
fourteen, too, both sexes are fully responsible to the criminal
law. Between seven and fourteen there is responsibility only
if the accused be proved doli capax, capable of discerning
between right and wrong, the principle in that case being that
malitia supplet aetatem. At twenty-one both males and females
obtain their full legal rights, and become liable to all legal
obligations. A seat in the British parliament may be taken at
twenty-one. Certain professions, however, demand as a
qualification in entrants a more advanced age than that of
legal man. hood. In the Church of England a candidate for
deacon's orders must be twenty-three (in the Roman Catholic
Church, twenty-two) and for priest's orders twenty-four years
of age; and no clergyman is eligible for a bishopric under
thirty. In Scotland infancy is not a legal term. The time
previous to majority, which, as in England, is reached by both
sexes at twenty-one, is divided into two stages: pupilage
lasts until the attainment of puberty, which the law fixes
at fourteen in males and twelve in females; minority lasts
from these ages respectively until twenty-one. Minority
obviously corresponds in some degree to the English years of
discretion, but a Scottish minor has more personal rights
than an English infant in the last stage of his infancy, e.g
he may dispose by will of movable property, make contracts,
carry on trade, and, as a necessary consequence, is liable
to be declared a bankrupt. In France the year of majority
is twenty-one, and the nubile age eighteen for males and
fifteen for females, with a restriction as to the consent of
guardians. Age qualification for the chamber of deputies
is twenty-five and for the senate forty years. In Germany,
majority is reached at twenty-one, the nubile age is twenty
for males and sixteen for females, subject to the consent of
parents. Without the consent of parents, the age is
twenty-five for males and twenty-four for females. The
age qualification for the Reichstag is twenty-five. In
Austria the age of majority is twenty-four, and the nubile
age fourteen for either sex, subject to the consent of the
parents. In Denmark, qualified majority is reached at eighteen
and full majority at twenty-five. The nubile age is twenty
for males and sixteen for females. In Spain, majority is
reached at twenty-three; the nubile age is eighteen for males
and sixteen for females. In Greece the age of majority is
twenty-one, and the nubile age sixteen for males and fourteen
for females. In Holland the age of majority is twenty-one,
and the nubile age eighteen for males and sixteen for
females. In Italy, majority is reached at twenty-one; the
nubile age is eighteen for males and fifteen for females. In
Switzerland the age of majority is twenty, and the nubile age
is eighteen for males and sixteen for females. In the United
States the age qualification for a president is thirty-five,
for a senator thirty and for a representative twenty-five.
AGELADAS, or (as the name is spelt in an inscription)
HAGELAIDAS, a great Argive sculptor, who flourished in the
latter part of the 6th and the early part of the 5th century
B.C. He was specially noted for his statues of Olympic victors
(of 520, 516, 508 B.C.); also for a statue at Messene of
Zeus, copied on the coins of that city. Ageladas was said to
have been the teacher of Myron, Phidias and Polyclitus; this
tradition is a testimony to his wide fame, though historically
doubtful. We have no work of Ageladas surviving; but we have
an inscription which contains the name of his son Argeiadas.
AGEN, a city of south-western France, capital of the
department of Lot-et-Garonne, 84 m. S.E. of Bordeaux by the
Southern railway between Bordeaux and Toulouse. Pop. (1906)
18,640. It is skirted on the west by the Garonne itself, and
on the north by its lateral canal. The river is crossed by
a stone bridge, by a suspension bridge for foot-passengers,
and by a fine canal bridge, carrying the lateral canal.
Pleasant promenades stretch for some distance along the right
bank. The town is a medley of old narrow streets contrasting
with the wide modern boulevards which cross it at intervals.
The chief building in Agen is the cathedral of St Caprais,
the most interesting portion of which is the apse of the
12th century with its three apse-chapels; the transept dates
from the 12th and 13th centuries, the nave from the 14th to
the 16th centuries; the tower flanking the south facade is
modern. The interior is decorated with modern paintings and
frescoes. There are several other churches, among them the
church of the Jacobins, a brick building of the 13th century,
and the church of St Hilaire of the 16th century, which has
a modern tower. In the prefecture, a building of the 18th
century, once the bishop's palace, is a collection of historical
portraits. The hotel de ville occupies the former Hotel du
Presidial, an obsolete tribunal, and contains the municipal
library. Two houses of the 16th century, the Hotel d'Estrades
and the Hotel de Vaurs, are used as the museum, which has
a rich collection of fossils, prehistoric and Roman remains,
and other antiquities and curiosities. The poet Jacques
Jasmin was a native of the town, which has erected a statue to
him. Through its excellent water communication it affords
an outlet for the agricultural produce of the district,
and forms an entrepot of trade between Bordeaux and
Toulouse. Agen is the seat of a bishop. It is the seat of
a court of appeal and a court of assizes, and has tribunals
of first instance and of commerce and a chamber of commerce.
There are also ecclesiastical seminaries, lycees for boys and
girls, training-colleges, a school of commerce and industry,
and a branch of the Bank of France. Agen is the market for
a rich agricultural region. The chief articles of commerce
are fattened poultry, prunes (pruneaux d'Agen) and other
fruit, cork, wine, vegetables and cattle. Manufactures
include flour, dried plums, pate de foie gras and other
delicacies, hardware, manures, brooms, drugs, woven goods tiles.
Agen (Aginnum) was the capital Of the Celtic tribe of the
Nitiobroges, and the discovery of extensive ruins attests
its importance under the Romans. In later times it was the
capital of the Agenais. Its bishopric was founded in the 4th
century. Agen changed hands more than once in the course of the
Albigensian wars, and at their close a tribunal of inquisition
was established in the town and inflicted cruel persecution on the
heretics. During the religious wars of the 16th century Agen took
the part of the Catholics and openly joined the League in 1589.
See Labenazie, Histoire de la ville d'Agen et pays
d'Agenois, ed. by A.-G. de Dampierre (1888); A. Ducom, La
Commune d'Agen: essai sur son histoire et son organisation
depuis son origine jusqu'au traite de Bretigny (1892).
AGENAIS, or AGENOIS, a former province of France. In
ancient Gaul it was the country of the Nitiobroges with Aginnum
for its capital, and in the 4th century it was the Civitas
Agennensium which was a part of Aquitania Secunda and
which formed the diocese of Agen. Having in general shared the
fortunes of Aquitaine during the Merovingian and Carolingian
periods, Agenais next became an hereditary countship in the part
of the country now called Gascony (Vasconia.) In 1038 this
countship was purchased by the dukes of Aquitaine and counts of
Poitiers. The marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine with Henry
Plantagenet in 1152 brought it under the sway of England; but
when Richard Coeur-de-Lion married his sister Joan to Raymund
VI., count of Toulouse, in 1196, Agenais formed part of the
princess's dowry; and with the other estates of the last
independent count of Toulouse it lapsed to the crown of France in
1271. This, however, was not for long; the king of France
had to recognize the prior rights of the king of England to
the possession of the countship, and restored it to him in
1279. During the wars between the English and the French
in the 14th and 15th centuries, Agenais was frequently taken
and retaken, the final retreat of the English in 1453 at
last leaving the king of France in peaceable possession.
Thenceforth Agenais was no more than an administrative
term. At the end of the ancien regime it formed part
of the ``Gouvernement'' of Guienne, and at the Revolution
it was incorporated in the department of Lot-et-Garonne, of
which it constitutes nearly the whole. The title of count
of Agenais, which the kings of England had allowed to fall
into desuetude, was revived by the kings of France, and
in 1789 was held by the family of the dukes of Richelieu.
There is no good history of Agenais; that published by Jules
Andrieu in 1893 (Histoire de l'Agenais, 2 vols.) being quite
inadequate. The Bibliographie generale de l'Agenais, by the
same author (1886-1891, 3 vols.), may be found useful. (C. B.n)
AGENT (from Lat. agere, to act), a name applied generally
to, any person who acts for another. It has probably been
adopted from France, as its function in modern civil law was
otherwise expressed in Roman jurisprudence. Ducange (s.v.
Agentes) tells us that in the later Roman empire the officers
who collected the grain in the provinces for the troops and
the household, and afterwards extended their functions so
as to include those of government postmasters or spies, came
to be called agentes in rebus, their earlier name having
been frumentarii. In law an agent is a person authorized,
expressedly or impliedly, to act for another, who is thence
called the principal, and who is, in consequence of, and to
the extent of, the authority delegated by him, bound by the
acts of his agent. (See PRINCIPAL AND AGENT; FACTOR, &c.)
In Scotland the procurators or solicitors who act in the preparation of
cases in the various law-courts are called agents. (See SOLICITOR.)
In France the agents de change were formerly the class
generally licensed for conducting all negotiations, as
they were termed, whether in commerce or the money market.
The term has, however, become practically limited to those
who conduct transactions in public stock. The laws and
regulations as to courtiers, or those whose functions were
more distinctly confined to transactions in merchandise, have
been mixed up with those applicable to agents de change.
Down to the year 1572 both functions were free; but at that
period, partly for financial reasons, a system of licensing
was adopted at the suggestion of the chancellor, l'Hopital.
Among the other revolutionary measures of the year 1791, the
professions of agent and courtier were again opened to the
public. Many of the financial convulsions of the ensuing years,
which were due to more serious causes, were attributed to this
indiscriminate removal of restrictions, and they were reimposed in
1801. From that period regulations have been made from time
to time as to the qualifications of agents, the security to be
found by them and the like. They are now regarded as public
officers, appointed, with certain privileges and duties,
by the government to act as intermediaries in negotiating
transfers of public funds and commercial stocks and for dealing
in metallic currency. (See STOCK EXCHANGE: France.)
In diplomacy the term ``agent'' was originally applied to all
``diplomatic agents,'' including ambassadors. With the evolution
of the diplomatic hierarchy, however, the term gradually sank
until it was technically applied only to the lowest class of
``diplomatic agents,'' without a representative character and
of a status and character so dubious that, by the regulation
of the congress of Vienna, they were wholly excluded from
the immunities of the diplomatic service. (See DIPLOMACY.)
AGENT-GENERAL, the term given to a representative in England
of one of the self-governing British colonies. Agents-general
may be said to hold a position mid-way between agents of
provinces and ambassadors of foreign countries. They are
appointed, and their expenses and salaries provided, by the
governments of the colonies they represent, viz. Cape of
Good Hope, Natal, the Transvaal, New South Wales, Queensland,
South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, New
Zealand and Canada (whose representatives are termed high
commissioners). Their duties are to look after the political
and economic interests of their colonies in London, to
assist in all financial and commercial matters in which their
colonies may be concerned, such as shipping arrangements and
rates of freight, cable communications and rates, tenders for
public works, &c., and to make known the products of their
colonies. Those colonies which are not under responsible
government are represented in London by crown agents.
AGESANDER, a Rhodian sculptor, whose title to fame is
that he is mentioned by Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 37) as
author (with Polydorus and Athenodorus) of the group of the
Laocoon. Inscriptions recently found at Lindus in Rhodes
date Agesander and Athenodorus to the period 42-21 B.C. The
date of the Laocoon seems thus finally settled, after long
controversy. It represents the culmination of a sentimental
or pathetic tendency in art, which is prominent in the
somewhat earlier sculpture of Pergamum. (See GREEK ART.)
AGESILAUS II., king of Sparta, of the Eurypontid family,
was the son of Archidamus II. and Eupolia, and younger
step-brother of Agis II., whom he succeeded about 401 B.C.
Agis had, indeed, a son Leotychides, but he was set aside as
illegitimate, current rumour representing him as the son of
Alcibiades. Agesilaus' success was largely due to Lysander,
who hoped to find in him a willing tool for the furtherance
of his political designs; in this hope, however, Lysander war
disappointed, and the increasing power of Agesilaus soon
led to his downfall. In 396 Agesilaus was sent to Asia
with a force of 2000 Neodamodes (enfranchized Helots) and
6000 allies to secure the Greek cities against a Persian
attack. On the eve of sailing from Aulis he attempted to
offer a sacrifice, as Agamemnon had done before the Trojan
expedition, but the Thebans intervened to prevent it, an
insult for which he never forgave them. On his arrival at
Ephesus a three months' truce was concluded with Tissaphernes,
the satrap of Lydia and Caria, but negotiations conducted
during that time proved fruitless, and on its termination
Agesilaus raided Phrygia, where he easily won immense booty
since Tissaphernes had concentrated his troops in Carla.
After spending the winter in organizing a cavalry force, he
made a successful incursion into Lydia in the spring of 395.
Tithraustes was thereupon sent to replace Tissaphernes, who
paid with his life for his continued failure. An armistice
was concluded between Tithraustes and Agesilaus, who left the
southern satrapy and again invaded Phrygia, which he ravaged
until the following spring. He then came to an agreement
with the satrap Pharnabazus and once more turned southward.
It was said that he was planning a campaign in the interior,
or even an attack on Artaxerxes himself, when he was recalled
to Greece owing to the war between Sparta and the combined
forces of Athens, Thebes, Corinth, Argos and several minor
states. A rapid march through Thrace and Macedonia brought
him to Thessaly, where he repulsed the Thessalian cavalry who
tried to impede him. Reinforced by Phocian and Orchomenian
troops and a Spartan army, he met the confederate forces
at Coronea in Boeotia, and in a hotly contested battle was
technically victorious, but the success was a barren one
and he had to retire by way of Delphi to the Peloponnese.
Shortly before this battle the Spartan navy, of which he had
received the supreme command, was totally defeated off Cnidus
by a powerful Persian fleet under Conon and Pharnabazus.
Subsequently Agesilaus took a prominent part in the Corinthian
war, making several successful expeditions into Corinthian
territory and capturing Lechaeum and Piraeum. The loss,
however, of a mora, which was destroyed by Iphicrates,
neutralized these successes, and Agesilaus returned to
Sparta. In 389 he conducted a campaign in Acarnania, but
two years later the Peace of Antalcidas, which was warmly
supported by Agesilaus, put an end to hostilities. When war
broke out afresh with Thebes the king twice invaded Boeotia
(378, 377), and it was on his advice that Cleombrotus was
ordered to march against Thebes in 371. Cleombrotus was
defeated at Leuctra and the Spartan supremacy overthrown.
In 370 Agesilaus tried to restore Spartan prestige by an
invasion of Mantinean territory, and his prudence and heroism
saved Sparta when her enemies, led by Epaminondas, penetrated
Laconia that same year, and again in 362 when they all but
succeeded in seizing the city by a rapid and unexpected
march. The battle of Mantinea (362), in which Agesilaus took
no part, was followed by a general peace: Sparta, however,
stood aloof, hoping even yet to recover her supremacy.
In order to gain money for prosecuting the war Agesilaus
had supported the revolted satraps, and in 361 he went to
Egypt at the head of a mercenary force to aid Tachos against
Persia. He soon transferred his services to Tachos's cousin
and rival Nectanabis, who, in return for his help, gave
him a sum of over 200 talents. On his way home Agesilaus
died at the age of 84, after a reign of some 41 years.
A man of small stature and unimpressive appearance, he was
somewhat lame from birth, a fact which was used as an argument
against his succession, an oracle having warned Sparta against
a ``lame reign.'' He was a successful leader in guerilla
warfare, alert and quick, yet cautious--a man, moreover, whose
personal bravery was unquestioned. As a statesman he won
himself both enthusiastic adherents and bitter enemies, but
of his patriotism there can be no doubt. He lived in the most
frugal style alike at home and in the field, and though his
campaigns were undertaken largely to secure booty, he was content
to enrich the state and his friends and to return as poor as
he had set forth. . The worst trait in his character is his
implacable hatred of Thebes, which led directly to the battle
of Leuctra and Sparta's fall from her position of supremacy.
See lives of Agesilaus by Xenophon (the panegyric of a friend),
Cornelius Nepos and Plutarch; Xenophon's Hellenica and Diodorus
xiv., xv. Among modern authorities, besides the general
histories of Greece, J. C. F. Manso, Sparta, iii. 39 ff.; G. F.
Hertzberg, Das Leben des Konigs Agesilaos II. von Sparta
(1856); Buttmann, Agesilaus Sohn des Archidamus (1872); C.
Haupt, Agesilaus in Asien (1874); E. von Stern, Geschichte der
spartanischen und thebanischen Hegemonie (1884). (M. N. T.)
AGGLOMERATE (from the Lat. agglomerare, to form into a ball,
glomus, glomeris), a term used in botany, meaning crowded
in a close cluster or head, and, in geology, applied to the
accumulations of coarse volcanic ejectamenta such as frequently
occur near extinct or active volcanoes. Agglomerates in the
geological sense, with which this article is concerned, consist
typically of blocks of various igneous rocks, mixed often
with more or less material of rudimentary origin and embedded
in a finer-grained matrix, similar in nature to the coarser
fragments. As distinguished from ordinary ash beds or tuffs,
they are essentially coarser, less frequently well-bedded;
they are less persistent and tend to occur locally, but
may attain a very great thickness. Showers of fine ash may
be distributed over a wide area of country and will form
thin layers of great extent. Coarser accumulations gather
only near the actual foci of eruption (craters, fissures,
&c.). When the activity of a volcanic vent comes to an
end, the orifice is often choked by masses of debris, which
will in time become compacted into firm agglomerates. Hence
rocks of this type very commonly mark the sites of necks, the
remains of once-active volcanic craters. In this connexion
they are of especial interest to geologists, as it is always
important to be able to locate the exact points at which
volcanic products, such as lavas and ash-beds, were emitted.
The blocks in agglomerates vary greatly in size. Some
are thirty or forty feet in diameter, and weigh many tons;
these are usually pieces of the strata through which the
volcano has forced an outlet. They are never far from the
crater; most of them, in fact, lie within its boundaries,
and cases are known in which enormous masses of this kind
(half an acre in area) have been found in such situations.
They are masses which have been dislodged, by fissures and
landslides, from the crater's walls and have tumbled into the
cavity. Pieces of sandstone, limestone and shale occur in
the agglomerates mixed with volcanic materials, and very
often have been baked and partly recrystallized by contact
with the hot igneous rocks and the gases discharged by the
volcano. At Vesuvius such blocks of altered limestone
are rich in new minerals and are well known to collectors.
Agglomerates also are usually full of volcanic bombs. These
are spongy globular masses of lava which have been shot from
the crater at a time when liquid molten lava was exposed in
it, and was frequently shattered by the sudden outbursts of
steam. These bombs were more or less viscous at the moment of
ejection and by rotation in the air acquired their spheroidal
form. They are commonly one or two feet in diameter,
but specimens as large as nine or twelve feet have been
observed. There is less variety in their composition at any
volcanic centre than in the case of the foreign blocks above
described. They correspond in nature to the lava which at
the time fills the crater of the volcano, and as this varies
only very slowly the bombs belong mostly to only a few kinds
of rock and are similar in composition to the lava flows.
Crystalline masses of a different kind occur in some
numbers in certain agglomerates. They consist of volcanic
minerals very much the same as those formed in the lavas,
but exhibiting certain peculiarities which indicate that
they have formed slowly under pressure at considerable
depths. Hence they bear a resemblance to plutonic igneous
rocks, but are more correctly to be regarded as agglomerations
of crystals formed within the liquid lava as it slowly rose
towards the surface, and at a subsequent period cast out
by violent steam explosions. The sanidinites of the Eifel
belong to this group. At Vesuvius, Ascension, St Vincent
and many other volcanoes, they form a not inconsiderable
part of the coarser ash-beds. Their commonest minerals are
olivine, anorthite, hornblende, augite, biotite and leucite.
Agglomerates occur wherever volcanoes are known. In many
parts of Britain they attain a great development either in
beds alternating with lavas or as the material occupying
necks. In the latter case they are often penetrated by
dikes. They also show a steep, angular, funnel-shaped
dip (e.g. Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh), and may contain
thin layers of clay or ashy sand-stone, which gathered
in the crater during intervals of repose. (J. S. F.)
AGGLUTINATION (Lat. ad, and gluten, glutinare, literally
to fasten together with glue), a term used technically in
philology for the method of word-formation by which two
significant words or roots are joined together in a single
word to express a combination of the two meanings each of
which retains its force. This juxtaposition or conjoining
of roots is characteristic of languages such as the Turkish
and Japanese, which are therefore known as agglutinative,
as opposed to others, known generically as inflexional,
in which differences of termination or combinations in
which all separate identity disappears are predominant.
The term was also formerly used by associationist
philosophers for those mental associations which were
regarded as peculiarly close. Combination in its
simplest form has been called Agglutination by W. Wundt.
AGGRAVATION (from Lat. ad, increasing, and gravis,
heavy), the making anything graver or more serious, especially
of offences; also used as synonymous with ``irritation.'' In the
canon law ``aggravation'' was a form of ecclesiastical censure,
threatening excommunication after three disregarded admonitions.
AGGREGATION (from the Lat. ad, to, gregare, to collect
together), in physics, a collective term for the forms or
states in which matter exists. Three primary ``states of
aggregation'' are recognized--gaseous, liquid and solid.
Generally, if a solid be heated to a certain temperature, it
melts or fuses, assuming the liquid condition (see FUSION);
if the heating be continued the liquid boils and becomes
a vapour (see VAPORIZATION.) On the other hand, if a gas
be sufficiently cooled and compressed, it liquefies; this
transition is treated theoretically in the article CONDENSATION
OF GASES, and experimentally in the article LIQUID GASES.
AGGTELEK, a village of Hungary, in the county of Gomor,
situated to the south of Rozsnyo, on the road from Budapest to
Dobsina. Pop. (1900) 557. In the neighbourhood is the
celebrated Aggtelek or Baradla cavern, one of the largest
and most remarkable stalactite grottos in Europe. It has a
length, together with its ramifications, of over 5 miles, and
is formed of two caverns--one known for several centuries,
and another discovered by the naturalist Adolf Schmidl in
1856. Two entrances give access to the grotto, an old one
extremely narrow, and a new one, made in 1890, through which
the exploration of the cavern can be made in about 8 hours,
half the time it took before. The cavern is composed of
a labyrinth of passages and large and small halls, and is
traversed by a stream. In these caverns there are numerous
stalactite structures, which, from their curious and fantastic
shapes, have received such names as the Image of the Virgin,
the Mosaic Altar, &c. The principal parts are the Paradies
with the finest stalactites, the Astronomical Tower and the
Beinhaus. Rats, frogs and bats form actually the only
animal life in the caves, but a great number of antediluvian
animal bones have been found here, as well as human bones
and numerous remains of prehistoric human settlements.
AGINCOURT (AZINCOURT), a village of northern France in
the department of Pas de Calais, 14 m. N.W. of St Pol by
road, famous on account of the victory, on the 25th of October
1415, of Henry V. of England over the French. The battle
was fought in the defile formed by the wood of Agincourt and
that of Tramecourt, at the northern exit of which the army
under d'Albret, constable of France, had placed itself so
as to bar the way to Calais against the English forces which
had been campaigning on the Somme. The night of the 24th
of October was spent by the two armies on the ground, and
the English had but little shelter from the heavy rain which
fell. Early on the 25th, St Crispin's day, Henry arrayed
his little army (about 1000 men-at-arms, 6000 archers, and a
few thousands of other foot). It is probable that the usual
three ``battles'' were drawn up in line, each with its archers
on the flanks and the dismounted men-at-arms in the centre;
the archers being thrown forward in wedge-shaped salients,
almost exactly as at Crecy (q.v..) The French, on the other
hand, were drawn up in three lines, each line formed in deep
masses. They were at least four times more numerous than the
English, but restricted by the nature of the ground to the
same extent of front, they were unable to use their full
weight (cf. Bannockburn); further, the deep mud prevented
their artillery from taking part, and the crossbowmen were as
usual relegated to the rear of the knights and men-at-arms.
All were dismounted save a few knights and men-at-arms on
the flanks, who were intended to charge the archers of the
enemy. For three hours after sunrise there was no fighting;
then Henry, finding that the French would not advance,
moved his army farther into the defile. The archers fixed
the pointed stakes, which they carried to ward off cavalry
charges, and opened the engagement with flights of arrows.
The chivalry of France, undisciplined and careless of the
lesson of Crecy and Poitiers, was quickly stung into action,
and the French mounted men charged, only to be driven back in
confusion. The constable himself headed the leading line
of dismounted men-at-arms; weighted with their armour, and
sinking deep into the mud with every step, they yet reached and
engaged the English men-at-arms; for a time the fighting was
severe. The thin line of the defenders was borne back and
King Henry was almost beaten to the ground. But at this
moment the archers, taking their hatchets, swords or other
weapons, penetrated the gaps in the now disordered French,
who could not move to cope with their unarmoured assailants,
and were slaughtered or taken prisoners to a man. The
second line of the French came on, only to be engulfed in the
melee; its leaders, like those of the first line, were
killed or taken, and the commanders of the third sought and
found their death in the battle, while their men rode off to
safety. The closing scene of the battle was a half-hearted
attack made by a body of fugitives, which led merely to the
slaughter of the French prisoners, which was ordered by Henry
because he had not enough men both to guard them and to meet
the attack. The slaughter ceased when the assailants drew
off. The total loss of the English is stated at thirteen
men-at-arms (including the duke of York, grandson of Edward
III.) and about 100 of the foot. The French lost 5000 of
noble birth killed, including the constable, 3 dukes, 5 counts
and 90 barons; 1000 more were taken prisoners, amongst them
the duke of Orleans (the Charles d'Orleans of literature).
See Sir Harris Nicolas, Battle of Agincourt;
Fortescue, History of the British Army, vol. i.;
and H. B. George, Battles of English History.
AGIO (Ital. aggio, exchange, discount, premium), a term
used in commerce in three slightly different connexions.
(a) The variations from fixed pars or rates of exchange
in the currencies of different countries. For example, in
most of the gold-standard countries, the standard coin is
kept up to a uniform point of fineness, so that an English
sovereign fresh from the mini will bear the following
constant relation to coins of other countries in a similar
condition:--L. 1 =frcs. 25.221 =mks. 2O.429=$4.867, &c. This
is what is known as the mint par of exchange. But the mint
par of exchange, say, between France and England is not
necessarily the market value of French currency in England,
or English currency in France. The balance of trade between
the various countries is the factor determining the rate of
exchange. Should the balance of trade (q.v.) be against
England, money must be remitted to France in payment of the
indebtedness, but owing to the cost for,the transmission
of specie there will be a demand for bills drawn on Paris
as a cheaper and more expeditious method of sending money,
and it therefore will be necessary, in order to procure the
one of the higher current value, to pay a premium for it,
called the agio. (b) The term is also used to denote the
difference in exchange between two currencies in the same
country; where silver coinage is the legal tender, agio is
sometimes allowed for payment in the more convenient form of
gold, or where the paper currency of a country is reduced
below the bullion which it professes to represent, an agio
is payable on the appreciated currency. (c) Lastly, in
some states the coinage is so debased, owing to the wear of
circulation, that the real is greatly reduced below the nominal
value. Supposing that this reduction amounts to 5%, then if
100 sovereigns were offered as payment of a debt in England
while such sovereigns were current there at their nominal
value, they would be received as just payment; but if they
were offered as payment of the same amount of debt in a foreign
state, they would be received only at their intrinsic value of
L. 95, the additional L. 5 constituting the agio. Where the state
keeps its coinage up to a standard value no agio is required.
AGIRA (formerly SAN FILIPPO D'ARGIRO), a town of the
province of Catania, Sicily, with a railway station 4 1/2 m.
to the south of the town, 35 m. W. of Catania. Pop. (1901)
17,738. It occupies the site of Agyrion, an ancient Sicel
city which was ruled by tyrants, one of whom, Agyris, was
the most powerful ruler in the centre of Sicily. He was
a contemporary of Dionysius I., and with him successfully
resisted the Carthaginians when they invaded the territory of
Agyrium in 392 B.C. Agira was not colonized by the Greeks
until Timoleon drove out the last tyrant in 339 B.C. and
erected various splendid buildings of which no traces remain.
Agyrion was the birthplace of the historian Diodorus Siculus.
AGIS, the name of four Spartan kings:--
(1) Son of Eurysthenes, founder of the royal house of the
Agiadae (Pausanias iii. 2.1). His genealogy was traced
through Aristodemus, Aristomachus, Cleodaeus and Hyllus
to Heracles (Herodotus vii. 204), and he belongs rather
to mythology than to history. Tradition ascribed to him
the capture of the maritime town of Helos, which resisted
his attempt to curtail its guaranteed rights, and the
institution of the class of serfs called Helots (q.v..)
Ephorus ap. Strabo, viii. p. 365.
(2) Son of Archidamus II., Eurypontid, commonly called Agis
I. He succeeded his father, probably in 427 B.C., and from
his first invasion of Attica in 425 down to the close of
the Peloponnesian war was the chief leader of the Spartan
operations on land. After the conclusion of the peace of
Nicias (421 B.C.) he marched against the Argives in defence of
Epidaurus, and after skilful manoeuvring surrounded the Argive
army, and seemed to have victory within his grasp when he
unaccountably concluded a four months' truce and withdrew his
forces. The Spartans were indignant, and when the Argives and
their allies, in flagrant disregard of the truce, took Arcadian
Orchomenus and prepared to march on Tegea, their fury knew no
bounds, and Agis escaped having his house razed and a fine
of 100,000 drachmae imposed only by promising to atone for
his error by a signal victory. This promise he brilliantly
fulfilled by routing the forces of the Argive confederacy
at the battle of Mantinea (418), the moral effect of which
was out of all proportion to the losses inflicted on the
enemy. In the winter 417-416 a further expedition to Argos
resulted in the destruction of the half-finished Long Walls
and the capture of Hysiae. In 413, on the suggestion of
Alcibiades, he fortified Decelea in Attica, where he remained
directing operations until, after the battle of Aegospotami
(405), he took the leading part in the blockade of Athens,
which was ended in spring 404 by the surrender of the city.
Subsequently he invaded and ravaged Elis, forcing the Eleans
to acknowledge the freedom of their perioeci and to allow
Spartans to take part in the Olympic games and sacrifices.
He fell ill on his return from Delphi, where he had gone to
dedicate a tithe of the spoils, and, probably in 401, died at
Sparta, where he was buried with unparalleled solemnity and pomp.
Thuc. iii. 89, iv. 2. 6, v., vii. 19. 27, viii.; Xenophon,
Hellenica, i 1. ii. 2. 3, iii. 2. 3; Diodorus xii. 35, xiii.
72, 73, 107; Pausanias iii. 8. 3-8; Plutarch, Lysander
ix. 14. 22, Alcibiades 23-25, Lycurgus 12, Agesilaus
i. 3, de Tranquill. Anim. 6. (See PELOPONNESIAN WAR.)
(3) Son of Archidamus III., of the Eurypontid line, commonly
called Agis II. He succeeded his father in 338 B.C., on
the very day of the battle of Chaeronea. During Alexander's
Asiatic campaign he revolted against Macedonia (333 B.C.)
and, with the aid of Persian money and ships and a force
of 8000 Greek mercenaries, gained considerable successes in
Crete. In the Peloponnese he routed a force under Corragus
and, although Athens held aloof, he was joined by Elis, Achaea
(except Pellene) and Arcadia, with the exception of Megalopolis,
which the allies besieged. Antipater marched rapidly to its
relief at the head of a large army, and the allied force was
defeated after a desperate struggle (331) and Agis was slain.
Pausanias iii. 10. 5; Diodorus xvii. 48, 62, 63; Justin xii. 1;
Quintus Curtius iv. 1, 39, vi. 1; Arrian, Anabasis, ii. 13.
(4) Son of Eudamidas II., of the Eurypontid family, commonly
called Agis III. He succeeded his father probably in 245
B.C., in his twentieth year. At this time the state had
been brought to the brink of ruin by the growth of avarice and
luxury; there was a glaring inequality in the distribution of
land and wealth, and the number of full citizens had sunk to
700, of whom about 100 practically monopolized the land.
Though reared in the height of luxury he at once determined to
restore the traditional institutions of Lycurgus, with the aid
of Lysander, a descendant of the victor of Aegospotami, and
Mandrocleidas, a man of noted prudence and courage; even his
mother, the wealthy Agesistrata, threw herself heartily into
the cause. A powerful but not disinterested ally was found
in the king's uncle, Agesilaus, who hoped to rid himself
of his debts without losing his vast estates. Lysander as
ephor proposed on behalf of Agis that all debts should be
cancelled and that Laconia should be divided into 19,500
lots, of which 4500 should be given to Spartiates, whose
number was to be recruited from the best of the perioeci and
foreigners, and the remaining 15,000 to perioeci who could
bear arms. The Agiad king Leonidas having prevailed on the
council to reject this measure, though by a majority of only
one, was deposed in favour of his son-in-law Cleombrotus,
who assisted Agis in bearing down opposition by the threat of
force. The abolition of debts was carried into effect, but
the land distribution was put off by Agesilaus on various
pretexts. At this point Aratus appealed to Sparta to help the
Achaeans in repelling an expected Aetolian attack, and Agis
was sent to the Isthmus at the head of an army. In his absence
the open violence and extortion of Agesilaus, combined with the
popular disappointment at the failure of the agrarian scheme,
brought about the restoration of Leonidas and the deposition
of Cleombrotus, who took refuge at the temple of Apollo at
Taenarum and escaped death only at the entreaty of his wife,
Leonidas's daughter Chilonis. On his return Agis fled to the
temple of Athene Chalcioecus at Sparta, but soon afterwards
he was treacherously induced to leave his asylum and, after
a mockery of a trial, was strangled in prison, his mother and
grandmother sharing the same fate (241). Though too weak and
good-natured to cope with the problem which confronted him,
Agis was characterized by a sincerity of purpose and a blend of
youthful modesty with royal dignity, which render him perhaps
the most attractive figure in the whole of Spartan history.
See Plutarch's biography. Pausanias' accounts (ii. 8. 5, vii.
7. 3, viii. 10. 5-8, 27. 13) of his attack on Megalopolis,
his seizure of Pellene and his death at Mantinea fighting
against the Arcadians, Achaeans and Sicyonians are without
foundation (J. C. F. Manso, Sparta, iii. 2. 123-127). See also
Manso, op. cit. iii. 1. 276-302; B. Niese, Geschichte der
griechischen und makedonischcn Staaten, ii. 299-303. (M. N. T.)
AGISTMENT. To ``agist'' (from O. Fr. agister, derived
from gesir--Lat. jacere--to lie) is, in law, to take
cattle to graze, for a renumeration. ``Agistment,'' in the
first instance, referred more particularly to the proceeds of
pasturage in the king's forests, but now means either (a)
the contract for taking in and feeding horses or other cattle
on pasture land, for the consideration of a weekly payment
of money, or (b) the profit derived from such pasturing.
Agistment is a contract of bailment, and the bailer is bound
to take reasonable care of the animals entrusted to him;
he is responsible for damages and injury which result from
ordinary casualties, if it be proved that such might have been
prevented by the exercise of great care. There is no lien on
the cattle for the price of the agistment, unless by express
agreement. Under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1883, agisted
cattle cannot be distrained on for rent if there be other
sufficient distress to be found, and if such other distress
be not found, and the cattle be distrained, the owner may
redeem them on paying the price of their agistment. The tithe
of agistment or ``tithe of cattle and other produce of grass
lands,'' was formally abolished by the act of union in 1707,
on a motion submitted with a view to defeat that measure.
AGITATORS, or ADJUTATORS, the name given to representatives
elected in 1647 by the different regiments of the English
Parliamentary army. The word really means an agent, but it
was confused with ``adjutant,'' often called ``agitant,'' a
title familiar to the soldiers, and thus the form ``adjutator''
came into use. Early in 1647 the Long Parliament wished
either to disband many of the regiments or to send them to
Ireland. The soldiers, whose pay was largely in arrear,
refused to accept either alternative, and eight of the cavalry
regiments elected agitators, called at first commissioners,
who laid their grievances before the three generals, and whose
letter was read in the House of Commons on the 30th of April
1647. The other regiments followed the example of the
cavalry, and the agitators, who belonged to the lower ranks
of the army, were supported by many of the officers, who
showed their sympathy by signing the Declaration of the
army. Cromwell and other generals succeeded to some extent
in pacifying the troops by promising the payment of arrears
for eight weeks at once; but before the return of the generals
to London parliament had again decided to disband the army,
and soon afterwards fixed the 1st of June as the date on
which this process was to begin. Again alarmed, the agitators
decided to resist; a mutiny occurred in one regiment and the
attempt at disbandment failed. Then followed the seizure
of the king by Cornet Joyce, Cromwell's definite adherence
to the policy of the army, the signing of the manifestoes,
a Humble Representation and a Solemn Engagement, and the
establishment of the army council composed of officers and
agitators. Having, at an assembly on Thriplow Heath, near
Royston, virtually refused the offers made by parliament, the
agitators demanded a march towards London and the ``purging''
of the House of Commons. Subsequent events are part of the
general history of England. Gradually the agitators ceased to
exist, but many of their ideas were adopted by the Levellers
(q.v.), who may perhaps be regarded as their successors.
Gardiner says of them, ``Little as it was intended at the
time, nothing was more calculated than the existence of this
elected body of agitators to give to the army that distinctive
political and religious character which it ultimately bore.''
See S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great
Civil War, vols. iii. and iv. (London, 1905).
AGLIARDI, ANTONIO (1832- ), papal diplomatist, was born at
Cologno (Bergamo), Italy, on the 4th of September 1832. He
studied theology and canon law, and, after acting as parish
priest in his native diocese for twelve years, was sent by
the pope to Canada as a bishop's chaplain. On his return he
was appointed secretary to the Propaganda. In 1884 he was
created by Leo XIII. archbishop of Caesarea in partibus and
sent to India to report on the establishment of the hierarchy
there. In 1887 he again visited India, to carry out the terms
of the concordat arranged with Portugal. The same year he
was appointed secretary to the Congregation super negotiis
ecclesiae extraordinariis, in 1889 became papal nuncio at
Munich and in 1892 at Vienna. Allowing himself to be involved
in the ecclesiastical disputes by which Hungary was divided
in 1895, he was made the subject of formal complaint by the
Hungarian government and in 1896 was recalled. His services
were rewarded by a Cardinalate and the archbishopric of
Ferrara. In 1903 he was named vice-chancellor of the Roman Church.
AGNANO, LAGO DI, a circular lake, 5 m. W. of Naples,
Italy. It was apparently not formed until the middle ages,
as it is not mentioned by ancient writers; it was drained in
1870. It occupied the crater of an extinct volcano, 4 m. in
circumference. On the south bank are the Stufe di S. Germano,
natural sulphureous vapour baths, and close by is the Grotta
del Cane, from the floor of which warm carbonic acid gas
constantly rises to a height of 18 in., the fumes of which
render a dog insensible in a few seconds. It is mentioned
by Pliny (Nat. Hist. ii. 93). Remains of an extensive Roman
building and some statues have been discovered close by.
AGNATES (Agnati), in Roman law, persons related through
males only, as opposed to cognates. Agnation was founded on
the idea of the family held together by the patria potestas;
cognatio involves simply the modern idea of kindred.
AGNES, SAINT, a virgin martyr of the Catholic Church. The
legend of St Agnes is that she was a Roman maid, by birth a
Christian, who suffered martyrdom when but thirteen during
the reign of the emperor Diocletian, on the 21st of January
304. The prefect Sempronius wished her to marry his son,
and on her refusal condemned her to be outraged before her
execution, but her honour was miraculously preserved. When
led out to die she was tied to a stake, but the faggots would
not burn, whereupon the officer in charge of the troops drew
his sword and struck off her head. St Agnes is the patron
saint of young girls, who, in rural districts, formerly
indulged in all sorts of quaint country magic on St Agnes' Eve
(20th-21st January) with a view to discovering their future
husbands. This superstition has been immortalized in Keats's
poem, ``The Eve of St Agnes.'' St Agnes's bones are supposed
to rest in the church of her name at Rome, originally built
by Constantine and repaired by Pope Honorius in the 7th
century. Here on her festival (21st of January) two lambs
are specially blessed after pontifical high mass, and
their wool is later woven into pallia (see PALLIUM.)
AGNES OF MERAN (d. 1201), queen of France, was the daughter
of Bertold IV., duke of Meran in Tirol. She is called Marie
by some of the chroniclers. In June 1196 she married Philip
II., king of France, who had repudiated Ingeborg of Denmark in
1193. The pope espoused the cause of Ingeborg; but Philip
did not submit until 1200, when, interdict having been
added to excommunication, he consented to a separation from
Agnes. She died in July of the next year, at the castle of
Poissy, and was buried in the church of St Corentin, near
Nantes. Her two children by Philip II., Philip, count of
Clermont (d. 1234), and Mary, who married Philip, count of
Namur, were legitimized by Innocent III. in 1201 on the
demand of the king. Little is known of the personality
of Agnes, beyond the remarkable influence which she
exercised over Philip II. She has been made the heroine
of a tragedy by Francois Ponsard, Agnes de Meranie.
See the notes of Robert Davidsohn in Philipp II. August
von Frankreich und Ingeborg (Stuttgart, 1888). A
genealogical notice is furnished by the Chronicon of
the monk Alberic (Aubry) of Fontaines, (Albericus Trium
Fontium) in Pertz, Scriptores, vol. xxiii. pp. 872
f., and by the Genealogia Wettinensis, ibid. p. 229.
AGNESI, MARIA GAETANA (1718-1799), Italian mathematician,
linguist and philosopher, was born at Milan on the 16th of May
1718, her father being professor of mathematics in the university
of Bologna. When only nine years old she had such command of
Latin as to be able to publish an elaborate address in that
language, maintaining that the pursuit of liberal studies
was not improper for her sex. By her thirteenth year she
had acquired Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, German and other
languages. Two years later her father began to assemble in
his house at stated intervals a circle of the most learned
men in Bologna, before whom she read and maintained a series
of theses on the most abstruse philosophical questions.
Records of these meetings are given in de Brosse's Lettres
sur l'Italie and in the Propositiones Philosophicae, which
her father caused to be published in 1738. These displays,
being probably not altogether congenial to Maria, who was of a
retiring disposition, ceased in her twentieth year, and it is
even said that she had at that age a strong desire to enter a
convent. Though the wish was not gratified, she lived from that
time in a retirement almost conventual, avoiding all society
and devoting herself entirely to the study of mathematics.
The most valuable result of her labours was the Instituzioni
analitiche ad uso della gioventu italiana, a work of great
merit, which was published at Milan in 1748. The first volume
treats of the analysis of finite quantities. and the second of
the analysis of infinitesimals. A French translation of the
second volume by P. T. d'Antelmy, with additions by Charles
Bossut (1730-1814), appeared at Paris in 1775; and an English
translation of the whole work by John Colson (1680-1760),
the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, was
published in 1801 at the expense of Baron Maseres. Madame
Agnesi also wrote a commentary on the Traite analytique des
sections coniques of the marquis de l'Hopital, which, though
highly praised by those who saw it in manuscript, was never
published. She invented and discussed the curve known as
the ``witch of Agnesi'' (q.v.) or versiera. In 1750, on
the illness of her father, she was appointed by Pope Benedict
XIV. to the chair of mathematics and natural Philosophy at
Bologna. After the death of her father in 1752 she carried
out a long-cherished purpose by giving herself to the study of
theology, and especially of the Fathers. After holding for
some years the office of directress of the Hospice Trivulzio for
Blue Nuns at Milan, she herself joined the sisterhood, and in
this austere order ended her days on the 9th of January 1799.
Her sister, MARIA TERESA AGNESI (1724-1780), a well-known
Italian pianist and composer, was born at Milan in
1724. She composed several cantatas, two pianoforte
concertos and five operas, Sofenisbe, Ciro in Armenia,
Nitocri, Il Re Pastore and Insubria consolata.
See Antonio Francesco Frisi, Eloge historique de
Mademoiselle Agnesi, translated by Boulard (Paris, 1807);
Milesi-Mojon, Vita di M. G. Agnesi (Milan, 1836); J.
Boyer, ``La Mathematicienne Agnesi'' in the Revue Catholique
des revues francaises et etrangeres (Paris, 1897).
AGNEW, DAVID HAYES (1818-1892), American surgeon, was born
in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, on the 24th of November
1818. He graduated from the medical department of the
university of Pennsylvania in 1838, and a few years later set
up in practice at Philadelphia and became a lecturer at the
Philadelphia School of Anatomy. He was appointed surgeon at
the Philadelphia Hospital in 1854 and was the founder of its
pathological museum. For twenty-six years (1863-1889) he
was connected with the medical faculty of the university of
Pennsylvania, being elected professor of operative surgery
in 1870 and professor of the principles and practice of
surgery in the following year. From 1865 to 1884--except
for a brief interval --he was a surgeon at the Pennsylvania
Hospital. During the American Civil War he was consulting
surgeon in the Mower Army Hospital, near Philadelphia, and
acquired considerable reputation for his operations in cases
of gun-shot wounds. He attended as operating surgeon when
President Garfield was fatally wounded by the bullet of an
assassin in 1881. He was the author of several works, the
most important being The Principles and Practice of Surgery
(1878-1883). He died at Philadelphia on the 22nd of March 1892.
AGNI, the Hindu God of Fire, second only to Indra in the
power and importance attributed to him in Vedic mythology.
His name is the first word of the first hymn of the Rig-veda:
``Agni, I entreat, divine appointed priest of sacrifice.''
The sacrifices made to Agni pass to the gods, for Agni is a
messenger from and to the gods; but, at the same time, he is
more than a mere messenger, he is an immortal, for another
hymn runs: ``No god indeed, no mortal is beyond the might of
thee, the mighty One. . . .'' He is a god who lives among men,
miraculously reborn each day by the fire-drill, by the friction
of the two sticks which are regarded as his parents; he is
the supreme director of religious ceremonies and duties,and
even has the power of influencing the lot of man in the future
world. He is worshipped under a threefold form, fire on earth,
lightning and the sun. His cult survived the metamorphosis
of the ancient Vedic nature-worship into modern Hinduism,
and there still are in India fire-priests (agnihotri) whose
duty is to superintend his worship. The sacred fire-drill for
procuring the temple-fire by friction--symbolic of Agni's daily
miraculous birth--is still used. In pictorial art Agni is
always represented as red, two-faced, suggesting his destructive
and beneficent qualities, and with three legs and seven arms.
See W. J. Wilkins, Hindu Mythology (London, 1900);
A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology (Strassburg, 1897).
AGNOETAE (Gr. agnoeo, to be ignorant of), a monophysite
sect who maintained that Christ's human nature was like other
men's in all respects, including limited knowledge. Its
founder was Themistius, a deacon in Alexandria in the 6th
century. The sect was anathematized by Gregory the Great.
AGNOIOLOGY (from Gr. agnoi-a, ignorance), the science or
study of ignorance, which determines its quality and conditions.
AGNOSTICISM. The term ``agnostic'' was invented by Huxley
in 1869 to describe the philosophical and religious attitude
of those who hold that we can have scientific or real
knowledge of phenomena only, and that so far as what may lie
behind phenomena is concerned--God, immortality, &c.--there
is no evidence which entitles us either to deny or aflirm
anything. The attitude itself is as old as Scepticism
(q.v.); but the expressions ``agnostic'' and ``agnosticism''
were applied by Huxley to sum up his deductions from those
contemporary developments of metaphysics with which the
names of Hamilton (``the Unconditioned'') and Herbert Spencer
(``the Unknowable'') were associated; and it is important,
therefore, to fix precisely his own intellectual standpoint
in the matter. Though Huxley only began to use the term
``agnostic'' in 1869, his opinions had taken shape some time
before that date. In a letter to Charles Kingsley (September
23, 1860) he wrote very fully concerning his beliefs:--
``I neither affirm nor deny the immortality of man. I
see no reason for believing it, but, on the other hand,
I have no means of disproving it. I have no a priori
objections to the doctrine. No man who has to deal daily
and hourly with nature can trouble himself about a priori
difficulties. Give me such evidence as would justify
me in believing in anything else, and I will believe
that. Why should I not? It is not half so wonderful as the
conservation of force or the indestructibility of matter. . . .
``It is no use to talk to me of analogies and
probabilities. I know what I mean when I say I believe
in the law of the inverse squares, and I will not rest
my life and my hopes upon weaker convictions. . . .
``That my personality is the surest thing I know may be true.
But the attempt to conceive what it is leads me into mere verbal
subtleties. I have champed up all that chaff about the ego
and the non-ego, noumena and phenomena, and all the rest of it,
too often not to know that in attempting even to think of these
questions, the human intellect flounders at once out of its depth.''
And again, to the same correspondent, the 5th of May 1863:--
``I have never had the least sympathy with the a priori reasons
against orthodoxy, and I have by nature and disposition the
greatest possible antipathy to all the atheistic and infidel
school. Nevertheless I know that I am, in spite of myself,
exactly what the Christian would call, and, so far as I can
see, is justified in calling, atheist and infidel. l cannot
see one shadow or tittle of evidence that the great unknown
underlying the phenomenon of the universe stands to us in the
relation of a Father--loves us and cares for us as Christianity
asserts. So with regard to the other great Christian dogmas,
immortality of soul and future state of rewards and punishments,
what possible objection can I--who am compelled perforce to
believe in the immortality of what we call Matter and Force,
and in a very unmistakable present state of rewards and
punishments for our deeds--have to these doctrines? Give me
a scintilla of evidence, and I am ready to jump at them.''
Of the origin of the name ``agnostic'' to cover this attitude,
Huxley gave (Coll. Ess. v. pp. 237-239) the following account:--
``When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask
myself whether I was an atheist, a theist or a pantheist, a
materialist or an idealist, a Christian or a freethinker, I
found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready
was the answer. The one thing on which most of these good
people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from
them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain
`gnosis'--had more or less successfully solved the problem
of existence; while I was quite sure that I had not, and had
a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble.
This was my situation when I had the good fortune to find a
place among the members of that remarkable confraternity of
antagonists, the Metaphysical Society. Every variety of
philosophical and theological opinion was represented there;
most of my colleagues were -ists of one sort or another; and
I, the man without a rag of a belief to cover himself with, could
not fail to have some of the uneasy feelings which must have
beset the historical fox when, after leaving the trap in which
his tail remained, he presented himself to his normally elongated
companions. So I took thought, and invented what I conceived
to be the appropriate title of `agnostic.' It came into my head
as suggestively antithetic to the `gnostic' of Church history,
who professed to know so much about the very things of which
I was ignorant. To my great satisfaction the term took.''
This account is confirmed by R. H. Hutton, who in 1881 wrote
that the word ``was suggested by Huxley at a meeting held
previous to the formation of the now defunct Metaphysical
Society at Mr Knowles's house on Clapham Common in 1869, in my
hearing. He took it from St Paul's mention of the altar
to the Unknown God.'' Hutton here gives a variant etymology
for the word, which may be therefore taken as partly derived
from agnostos (the ``unknown'' God), and partly from an
antithesis to ``gnostic''; but the meaning remains the same
in either case. The name, as Huxley said, ``took''; it was
constantly used by Hutton in the Spectator and became a
fashionable label for contemporary unbelief in Christian
dogma. Hutton himself frequently misrepresented the doctrine
by describing it as ``belief in an unknown and unknowable
God''; but agnosticism as defined by Huxley meant not belief,
but absence of belief, as much distinct from belief on the
one hand as from disbelief on the other; it was the half-way
house between the two, where all questions were ``open.'' All
that Huxley asked for was evidence, either for or against;
but this he believed it impossible to get. Occasionally
he too mis-stated the meaning of the word he had invented,
and described agnosticism as meaning ``that a man shall not
say he knows or believes what he has no scientific ground
for professing to know or believe.'' But as the late Rev.
A. W. Momerie remarked, this would merely be ``a definition
of honesty; in that sense we ought all to be agnostics.''
Agnosticism really rests on the doctrine of the Unknowable,
the assertion that concerning certain objects--among them
the Deity--we never can have any ``scientific'' ground for
belief. This way of solving, or passing over, the ultimate
problems of thought has had many followers in cultured circles
imbued with the new physical science of the day, and with
disgust for the dogmatic creeds of contemporary orthodoxy; and
its outspoken and even aggressive vindication by physicists
of the eminence of Huxley had a potent influence upon the
attitude taken towards metaphysics, and upon the form which
subsequent Christian apologetics adopted. As a nickname
the term ``agnostic'' was soon misused to cover any and
every variation of scepticism, and just as popular preachers
confused it with atheism (q.v.) in their denunciations,
so the callow freethinker--following Tennyson's path of
``honest doubt''--classed himself with the agnostics, even
while he combined an instinctively Christian theism with a
facile rejection of the historical evidences for Christianity.
The term is now less fashionable, though the state of mind
persists. Huxley's agnosticism was a natural consequence of
the intellectual and philosophical conditions of the 'sixties,
when clerical intolerance was trying to excommunicate scientific
discovery because it appeared to clash with the book of
Genesis. But as the theory of evolution was accepted, a new
spirit was gradually introduced into Christian theology, which
has turned the controversies between religion and science
into other channels and removed the temptation to flaunt a
disagreement. A similar effect has been produced by the
philosophical reaction against Herbert Spencer, and by
the perception that the canons of evidence required in
physical science must not be exalted into universal rules of
thought. It does not follow that justification by faith
must be eliminated in spiritual matters where sight cannot
follow, because the physicist's duty and success lie in
pinning belief solely on verification by physical phenomena,
when they alone are in question; and for mankind generally,
though possibly not for an exceptional man like Huxley, an
impotent suspension of judgment on such issues as a future
life or the Being of God is both unsatisfying and demoralizing.
It is impossible here to do more than indicate the path out
of the difficulties raised by Huxley in the letter to Kingsley
quoted above. They involve an elaborate discussion, not
only of Christian evidences, but of the entire subject-matter
alike of Ethics and Metaphysics, of Philosophy as a whole,
and of the philosophies of individual writers who have dealt
in their different ways with the problems of existence and
epistemology. It is, however, permissible to point out that,
as has been exhaustively argued by Professor J. Ward in his
Gifford lectures for 1896-1898 (Naturalism and Agnosticism,
1899), Huxley's challenge ( ``I know what I mean when I
say I believe in the law of the inverse squares, and I will
not rest my life and my hopes upon weaker convictions'') is
one which a spiritualistic philosophy need not shrink from
accepting at the hands of naturalistic agnosticism. If, as
Huxley admits, even putting it with unnecessary force against
himself,``the immortality of man is not half so wonderful
as the conservation of force or the indestructibility of
matter,'' the question then is, how far a critical analysis
of our belief in the last-named doctrines will leave us in
a position to regard them as the last stage in systematic
thinking. It is the pitfall of physical science, immersed as
its students are apt to be in problems dealing with tangible
facts in the world of experience, that there is a tendency
among them to claim a superior status of objective reality
and finality for the laws to which their data are found to
conform. But these generalizations are not ultimate truths,
when we have to consider the nature of experience itself.
``Because reference to the Deity will not serve for a
physical explanation in physics, or a chemical explanation
in chemistry, it does not therefore follow,'' as Professor
Ward says (op. cit. vol. i. p. 24), ``that the sum total
of scientific knowledge is equally intelligible whether
we accept the theistic hypothesis or not. It is true that
every item of scientific knowledge is concerned with some
definite relation of definite phenomena, and with nothing
else; but, for all that, the systematic organization of
such items may quite well yield further knowledge, which
transcends the special relations of definite phenomena.''
At the opening of the era of modern scientific discovery,
with all its fruitful new generalizations, the still more
highly generalized laws of epistemology and of the spiritual
constitution of man might well baffle the physicist and lead
his intellect to ``flounder.'' It is fundamentally necessary,
in order to avoid such floundering, that the ``knowledge'' of
things sensible should be kept distinct from the ``knowledge''
of things spiritual; yet in practice they are constantly
confused. When the physicist limits the term ``knowledge',
to the conclusions from physical apprehensions, his refusal
to extend it to conclusions from moral and spiritual
apprehensions is merely the consequence of an illegitimate
definition. He relies on the validity of his perceptions of
physical facts; but the saint and the theologian are no less
entitled to rely on the validity of their moral and spiritual
experiences. In each case the data rest on an ultimate basis,
undemonstrable, indeed to any one who denies them (even if he
be called mad for doing so), except by the continuous process
of working out their own proofs, and showing their consistency
with, or necessity in, the scheme of things terrestrial on
the one hand, or the mind and happiness of man on the other.
The tests in each case differ; and it is as irrelevant for the
theologian to dispute the ``knowledge'' of the physicist, by
arguments from faith and religion, as it is for the physicist
to deny the ``knowledge'' of the theologian from the point
of view of one who ignores the possibility of spiritual
apprehension altogether. On the ground of secular history and
secular evidence both might reasonably meet, as regards the
facts, though not perhaps as to their interpretation; but the
reason why they ultimately differ is to be found simply in
the difference of their mental attitude towards the nature of
``knowledge,'-itself a difference of opinion as to the nature of man.
In addition to the literature cited above, see L. Stephen, An
Agnostic's Apology (1893); R. Flint, Agnosticism (1903); T.
Bailey Saunders, The Quest of Faith, chap. ii. (1899); A. W. Benn,
English Rationalism in the XIXth Century (London, 1906). (H. CH.)
AGNUS DEI, the figure of a lamb bearing a cross, symbolical
of the Saviour as the ``Lamb of God.'' The device is common
in ecclesiastical art, but the name is especially given in
the Church of Rome to a small cake made of the wax of the
Easter candles and impressed with this figure. Since the 9th
century it has been customary for the popes to bless these
cakes, and distribute them on the Sunday after Easter among
the faithful, by whom they are highly prized as having the
power to avert evil. In modern times the distribution has
been limited to persons of distinction, and is made by the
pope on his accession and every seven years thereafter.
Agnus Dei is also the popular name for the anthem beginning
with these words, which is said to have been introduced
into the missal by Pope Sergius I. (687-701). Based upon
John i. 29, the Latin form is Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata
mundi, miserere nobis. In the celebration of the mass it
is repeated three times before the communion, and it is also
appended to many of the litanies. By the judgment in the
case of ``Read and others v. The Bishop of Lincoln'' it was
decided in 1890 that the singing of the Agnus Dei in English
by the choir during the administration of the Holy Communion,
provided that the reception of the elements be not delayed
till its conclusion, is not illegal in the Church of England.
For the various ceremonies in the blessing of the Agnus
Dei see A. Vacant, Dict. de theologie (cols. 605-613).
AGOBARD (c. 779-840), Carolingian prelate and reformer,
became coadjutor to Leidrad, archbishop of Lyons, in 813, and
on the death of the latter succeeded him in the see (816). We
know nothing of his early life nor of his descent. He pursued
the same vigorous policy as his predecessor, who had been one
of Charlemagne's most active agents in the reformation of the
Church. He was strongly opposed to the schemes of the
empress Judith for a redivision of the empire in favour of
her son Charles the Bald, Which he regarded as the cause of
all the subsequent evils, and supported Lothair and Pippin
against their father the emperor Louis I. Deposed in 835 by
the council of Thionville, he made his peace with the emperor
and was reinstated in 837. Agobard occupies an important
place in the Carolingian renaissance. He wrote extensively
not only theological works but also political pamphlets and
dissertations directed against popular superstitions. These
last works are unique in the literature of the time. He
denounced the trial by ordeal of fire and water, the belief
in witchcraft, and the ascription of tempests to magic,
maintained the Carolingian opposition to image-worship, but
carried his logic farther and opposed the adoration of the
saints. The basis for this crusade was theological, not
scientific; but it reveals a clear intellect and independent
judgment In his purely theological works Agobard was strictly
orthodox, except that he denied the verbal inspiration of the
Scriptures. Agobard was reverenced as a saint in Lyons,
and although his canonization is disputed his life is
given by the Bollandists, Acta Sanctorum, Jun. ii. 748.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Agobard's works were lost until 1605, when a
manuscript was discovered in Lyons and published by Papirius
Masson, again by Baluze in 1666. For later editions see Potthast,
Bibliotheca Historica Medii Aevi. The life of Agobard in
Ebert's Geschichte der Litteratur des Mittelalters (1880), Band
ii., is still one the best to consult. For further indications
see A. Molinier, Sources de l'histoire de France, i. p. 235.
AGONALIA, in ancient Rome, festivals celebrated on the
9th of January, 17th of March, 21st of May, and 11th of
December in each year in honour of various divinities (Ovid,
Fasti, i. 319-332). The word is derived either from
agonia, ``a victim,'' or from agonium, ``a festival.''
AGONIC LINES (from Gr. a-, privative, and gonia, an
angle), the term given to the imaginary lines on the earth's
surface connecting points at which the magnetic needle points to
the geographical north and south. (See MAGNETISM, TERRESTRIAL.)
AGONOTHETES, in ancient Greece, the president or superintendent
of the sacred games. At first the person who instituted the
games and defrayed the expenses was the Agonothetes; but in
the great public games, such as the Olympic and Pythian, these
presidents were the representatives of different states, or
were chosen from the people in whose country the games were
celebrated; thus at the Panathenaic festival at Athens ten
athlothetae were elected for four years to superintend the
various contests. They were variously called aisumnetai,
brabeutai, agonarchai, agonodikai, athlothetai (at Athens),
eabdouchoi or eabdonomoi (from the rod or sceptre emblematic
of their authority), but their functions were generally the same.
AGORA, originally, in primitive times, the assembly of the
Greek people, convoked by the king or one of his nobles. The
right of speech and vote was restricted to the nobles, the
people being permitted to express their opinion only by signs
of applause or disapproval. The word then came to be used
for the place where assemblies were held, and thus from its
convenience as a meeting-place the agora became in most of the
cities of Greece the general resort for public and especially
commercial intercourse, corresponding in general with the Roman
forum. At Athens, with the increase of commerce and political
interest, it was found advisable to call public meetings
at the Pnyx or the temple of Dionysus; but the important
assemblies, such as meetings for ostracism, were held in the
agora. In the best days of Greece the agora was the place
where nearly all public traffic was conducted. It was most
frequented in the forenoon, and then only by men. Slaves
did the greater part of the purchasing, though even the
noblest citizens of Athens did not scruple to buy and sell
there. Citizens were allowed a free market; foreigners
and metics had to pay a toll. Public festivals also were
celebrated in the open area of the agora. At Athens the
agora of classical times was adorned with trees planted by
Cimon; around it numerous public buildings were erected,
such as the council chamber and the law courts (for its
topography, see ATHENS.) Pausanias (especially vi. 24) is
the great architectural authority on the agorae of various
Greek cities, and details are also given by Vitruvius (v. 1).
AGORACRITUS, a Parian and Athenian sculptor of the age of
Phidias, and said to have been his favourite pupil. His
most noted work was the statue at Rhamnus of Nemesis, by some
attributed to Phidias himself. Of this statue part of the
head is in the British Museum; some fragments of the reliefs
which adorned the pedestal are in the museum at Athens.
AGORANOMI, magistrates in the republics of Greece, whose
position and duties were in many respects similar to those
of the aediles of Rome. In Athens there were ten, chosen
annually by lot, five of whom took charge of the city and
five of the Peiraeus. They maintained order in the markets,
settled disputes, examined the quality of the articles
exposed for sale, tested weights and measures, collected
the harbour dues and enforced the shipping regulations.
AGORDAT, a town of Eritrea, N.E. Africa, on the route between
Massawa and Kassala. At Agordat on the 21st of December 1893
the Italian troops under Colonel Arimondi inflicted a severe
defeat on the followers of the khalifa. Agordat is protected
by a strong fort. (See ERITREA and SUDAN, History.)
AGOSTINI, LEONARDO, Italian antiquary of the 17th century, was
born at Siena. After being employed for some time to collect
works of art for the Barberini palace, he was appointed by
Pope Alexander VII. superintendent of antiquities in the Roman
states. He issued a new edition of Paruta's Sicilian
Medals, with engravings of 400 additional specimens; and
in conjunction with Giovanni Bellori (1615-1696) he also
published a work on antique sculptured gems, which was
translated into Latin by Jakob Gronovius (Amsterdam, 1685).
AGOSTINO, or AGOSTINI [AUGUSTINUS], PAOLO (1593-1629),
Italian musician, was born at Valerano, and studied under G. B.
Nanini, as we learn from the dedication in the third and fourth
books of his masses, subsequently becoming the son-in-law of his
master. He succeeded Ugolini as conductor of the pope's orchestra
in St. Peter's. His musical compositions are numerous and of great
merit, an Agnus Dei for eight voices being specially admired.
AGOSTINO and AGNOLO (or ANGELO) DA SIENA, Italian
architects and sculptors in the first half of the 14th
century. Della Valle and other commentators deny that they were
brothers. They certainly studied together under Giovanni
Pisano, and in 1317 were jointly appointed architects
of their native town, for which they designed the Porto
Romana, the church and convent of St Francis, and other
buildings. On the recommendation of the celebrated Giotto,
who styled them the best sculptors of the time, they executed
in 1330 the tomb of Bishop Guido Tarlati in the cathedral of
Arezzo, which Giotto had designed. It was esteemed one of the
finest artistic works of the 14th century, but unfortunately
was destroyed by the French under the duke of Anjou.
AGOULT, MARIE CATHERINE SOPHIE DE FLAVIGNY, COMTESSE D'
(1805-1876), French author, whose nom de plume was ``Daniel
Stern,'' was born at Frankfort-on-Main on the 31st of December
1805. Her father was a French officer who had served in
the army of the emigrant princes, and her mother was the
daughter of a Frankfort banker. She was married in 1827
to the comte Charles d'Agoult. In Paris she gathered
round her a brilliant society which included Alfred de
Vigny, Sainte-Beuve, Ingres, Chopin, Meyerbeer, Heine and
others. She was separated from her husband, and became the
mistress of Franz Liszt. During her frequent travels in
Switzerland, France and Italy she made the acquaintance of
George Sand, and figures in the Lettres d'un voyageur
as'`Arabella.'' By Liszt she had three children--a son who
died young; Blandine, who married M. Emile Ollivier; and
Cosima, who married first Hans von Bulow and later Richard
Wagner. The story of her breach with Liszt is told under a
very slight disguise in her novel Nelida (1845). On her
return to Paris in 1841 she began to write art criticisms for
the Presse, and in 1844 she contributed to the Revue des
deux Mondes articles on Bettina von Arnim and on Heinrich
Heine, but her views were not acceptable to the editor, and
Daniel Stern withdrew to become a contributor to the Revue
independante. Mme. d'Agoult was an ardent apostle of the
ideas of' 48, and from this date her salon, which had
been literary and artistic, took on a more political tone;
revolutionists of various nationalities were welcomed by her,
and she had an especial friendship and sympathy for Daniele
Manin. In 1857 she produced a national drama, Jeanne
Darc, which was translated into Italian and presented with
brilliant success at Turin. The most important section of
Daniel Stern's work is her political and historical essays:
Lettres republicaines (1848), Esquisses morales et
politiques (1849), Histoire de la Revolution de 1848
(3 vols., 1850-1853), Histoire des commencements de la
Republique aux Pays-Bas (1872). Mme. d'Agoult died in Paris
on the 5th of March 1876. Her daughter Claire Christine (b.
1830), who married Guy de Charnace, is known as a writer.
See Mme. d'Agoult, Mes Souvenirs (1806-1833), 1877; A.
Cuvillier Fleury, Portraits revolutionnaires, vol. i.
(1889); J. Mazzini, Lettres de Joseph Mazzini a Daniel
Stern (1872): A. Pommier, Madame la comtesse d'Agoult
(Daniel Stern), 1876; A. Ungherini, ``Daniel Stern'' in the
Revista repubblicana (1880, No. 9); S. Rocheblave, Une
Amitie romanesque, George Sand et Madame d'Agoult (1895).
AGOUTI, or AGUTI, the West Indian name of Dasyprocta
aguti, a terrestrial rodent of the size of a rabbit, common
to Trinidad and Guiana, and classed in the family Caviidae.
Under the same term may be included the other species of
Dasyprocta, of which there are about half a score in tropical
America. Agoutis are slender-limbed rodents, with five front
and three hind toes (the first front toe very minute), and very
short tails. The hair, especially on the hind-quarters, is
coarse and somewhat rough; the colour being generally rufous
brown. The molar teeth have cylindrical crowns, with several
islands and a single lateral fold of enamel when worn. In
habits agoutis are nocturnal, dwelling in forests, where
they conceal themselves during the day in hollow tree-trunks,
or in burrows among roots. Active and graceful in their
movements, their pace is either a kind of trot or a series
of springs following one another so rapidly as to look like a
gallop. They take readily to water, in which they swim well.
Their food comprises leaves, roots, nuts and other fruits.
They do much harm to plantations of sugar-cane and bananas. In
captivity the females produce only one or two young at a birth.
AGRA, an ancient city of India, which gives its name to
a district and division in the United Provinces. It is
famous for containing the most perfect specimens of Mogul
architecture. Agra, like Delhi, owes much of its importance
in both historical and modern times to the Commercial and
strategical advantages of its position. The river Jumna,
which washes the walls of its fort, was the natural highway
for the traffic of the rich delta of Bengal to the heart of
India, and it formed, moreover, from very ancient times, the
frontier defence of the Aryan stock settled in the plain between
the Ganges and the Jumna against their western neighbours,
hereditary freebooters who occupied the highlands of Central
India. No place was better fitted for both an emporium and
a frontier fortress. The river formed an unfordable barrier
and also a useful means of communication. Jehangir tells us
in his autobiography that before his father Akbar built the
present fort, the town was defended by a citadel of great
antiquity. For three hundred years the Afghans and other
tribes came down from the north and founded kingdoms; and
their power radiated from Delhi and Agra. It was Sikandar,
of the house of Lodi (A.D. 1500), the last of the Afghan
dynasties, who realized the strategic importance of Agra as
a point for keeping in check his rebellious vassals to the
south. He removed his court there, and Agra from being ``a mere
village of old standing,'' says a Persian chronicler, became
the capital of a kingdom. In 1526 the city was captured by the
emperor Baber, the famous Koh-i-noor diamond being part of the
loot; and it was here that Baber announced that his invasion
was to be a permanent conquest, and not a mere temporary
inroad. It was Baber's grandson Akbar that built the present
fort, whose strong and lofty walls of red sandstone are a mile
and a,half in circumference. The building was completed in
1665, when Charles II. was on the throne of England and the
plague was devastating London. Another building of much the
same date is the red stone palace generally attributed to Akbar,
but probably of an earlier time, which is the finest example
of pure Hindu architecture; while the Moti Masjid, or Pearl
Mosque, is an equally perfect example of the Mahommedan style.
But the glory of Agra, the most splendidly poetic building in the
world, is the Taj Mahal, the mausoleum built (A.D. 1632) by
Taj Mahal.
the emperor Shah Jahan for the remains of his favourite wife,
Mumtaz Manal, in which he himself also also lies buried. The
building is of white marble throughout, crowned with a great
white dome in the centre, and with a smaller dome at each of
its four corners. From the marble terrace which surrounds
it rise four tall minarets of the same material, one at each
corner. The Taj has been modelled and painted more frequently
than any other building in the world, and the word pictures of
it are numberless. But it can only be described as a dream in
marble. It amply justifies the saying that the Moguls
designed like Titans and finished like jewellers. In regard
to colour and design the Taj ranks first in the world for
purely decorative workmanship; while the perfect symmetry of
its exterior once seen can never be forgotten, nor the aerial
grace of its domes, rising like marble bubbles into the azure
sky. In his History of Architecture, Fergusson says of it:--
``This building is an early example of that system of inlaying
with precious stones which became the great characteristic
of the style of the Moghals aftrer the death of Akbar. All
the spandrils of the Taj, all the angles and more important
architectural details, are heightened by being inlaid with
precious stones such as agates, bloodstones, jaspers and the
like. These are combined in wreaths, scrolls and frets,
as exquisite in design as they are beautiful in colour, and
relieved by the pure white marble in which they are inlaid,
they form the most beautiful and precious style of ornament
ever adopted in architecture. 1t is lavishly bestowed on
the tombs themselves and the screens which surround them,
but more sparingly introduced on the mosque that forms
one wing of the Taj, and on the fountains and surrounding
buildings. The judgment, indeed, with which this style of
ornament is apportioned to the various parts, is almost as
remarkable as the ornament itself, and conveys a high idea
of the taste and skill of the architects of this age.''
Of the Taj as a whole Lord Roberts says in his Forty-one Years in India:--
``Neither words nor pencil could give to the most imaginative reader
the slightest idea of the all-satisfying beauty and purity of this
glorious conception. To those who have not already seen it I would
say, `Go to India. The Taj alone is well worth the journey.'''
The Taj was designed by Ustad Isa, variously described as a
Byzantine Turk and a native of Shiraz in Persia. The pietra
dura work belongs to the Persian school and the common
belief that it was designed by Austin de Bordeaux, a French
architect in the service of Shah Jahan, is probably incorrect.
Agra was formerly the capital of the North-West Provinces,
but after the Mutiny the seat of government was removed to
Allahabad. Situated 841 m. from Calcutta it is now an important
railway centre, whence two main lines diverge southwards towards
Bombay. In 1901 the population was 188,022, showing an increase
of 12% during the decade. The city contains cotton mills,
factories for ginning and pressing cotton, a tannery and boot
factory and flour mill. There are also two missionary colleges.
The DISTRICT OF AGRA has an area of 1856 sq. m. Its general
appearance is that common to the Doab, a level plain intersected
by watercourses and ravines. Its general elevation is estimated
at from 650 to 700 ft. above the level of the sea. The district
is intersected by the Jumna, and is also watered by the Agra
canal. The principal crops are millets, pulses, barley,
wheat, cotton and a little indigo. The population in 1901
was 1,060,528, showing an increase of 6% during the decade.
The DIVISION OF AGRA has an area of 10,154 sq. m. In
1901 the population was 5,249,542, showing an increase
of 10% during the decade, attributed to the extension of
irrigation from canals. It comprises the six districts
of Muttra, Agra, Farukhabad, Mainpuri, Etawah and Etah.
For an account of the architecture of Agra see Fergusson's
History of Architecture; Cities of India (1903) by G. W. Forest;
Enchanted India (1899), by Prince Bojidar Karageorgevitch;
and E. B. Havelln, Handbook to Agra and the Taj (1904).
AGRA CANAL, an important Indian irrigation work, available
also for navigation, in Delhi, Gurgaon, Muttra and Agra
districts, and Bharatpur state. The canal receives its
water from the Jumna river at Okia, about 10 m. below
Delhi. The weir across the Jumna was the first attempted
in Upper India upon a foundation of fine sand; it is about
800 yds. long, and rises 7 ft. above the summer level of the
river. From Okla the canal follows the high land between
the Khari-nadi and the Jumna, and finally joins the Banganga
river about 20 m. below Agra. Navigable branches connect
the canal with Muttra and Agra. It was opened in 1874.
AGRAM (Hungarian Zagrab, Croatian Zagreb), the capital of
Croatia-Slavonia, and a royal free town of Hungary; pleasantly
situated between the north bank of the Save and the mountains
which culminate in Sljeme (3396 ft.); 187 m. by rail S. of
Vienna. Pop. (1890) 38,742; (1900) 57,930, or with garrison
61,002. Agram is the seat of the ban, or viceroy, of
Croatia-Slavonia, of the Banal and Septemviral courts, the
highest in the land, and of a chamber of commerce. It is also
the meeting-place of the parliament; but local affairs are
conducted by a municipal council. The city is divided into three
districts. The Kapitel-Stadt, sometimes called the Bishop's
Town, with the palace of the Roman Catholic archbishop, and
his late Gothic cathedral, dating from the 15th century, lies
eastward of the Medvescak, a brook which flows into the
Save. The Upper Town, on high ground west of the
Medvescak, contains the palace of the ban and the natural
history museum. On the south, the Lower Town is separated
from the other districts by the Inca, a long street traversed
by a cable tramway. In it are the business and industrial
quarters; the palace of justice; the academy of science, with
picture-galleries, a library and a collection of antiquities;
the theatre; the Franz Josef University, founded in 1874 to
teach theology, law and philosophy; the synagogue; and the
only Protestant church existing in the country at the beginning
of the 20th century. Roman Catholic churches and schools are
numerous. Besides the large Maximir park and botanical
gardens, many of the squares are planted with trees and adorned
with statues; while the whole city is surrounded by vineyards
and country houses. Tobacco, leather, linen, carpets and
war-material are manufactured in Agram, which also contains
the works of the Hungarian state railways, and has a brisk
trade in grain, wine, potash, honey, silk and porcelain.
In 1094 Agram was founded by Ladislaus I. of Hungary, as the
seat of a bishop; and on the expulsion of its Mongol colony,
in 1242, it was raised to the rank of a royal free city.
For centuries a bitter feud raged between the Kapitel-Stadt
and the Upper Town, until these rivals were forced to join
hands against the Turks. Agram, already the political
centre of Croatia-Slavonia, was selected as the capital in
1867. It suffered severely from earthquake in 1880 and 1901.
AGRAPHA (i.e. ``unwritten''), the name given to certain
utterances ascribed, with some degree of certainty, to
Jesus, which have been preserved in documents other than
the Gospels, e.g. Acts xx. 35; 1 Tim. v. 18; 1 Cor. vii.
10-12, and the Logia (q.v.) discovered in 1897 and 1903 at
Oxyrhyncus. Two interesting examples of such sayings may
be quoted: (1) ``That which is weak shall be saved by that
which is strong''; (2) ``Jesus, on whom be peace, has said:
`The world is merely a bridge; ye are to pass over it,
and not to build your dwellings upon it.''' The first of
these is from the Apostolic Canons (c. A.D. 300), the
second was found by the missionary Alexander Duff inscribed
in Arabic on the gateway of the mosque at Fatehpur Sikri.
The earliest modern collection of such sayings was by
Cotelerius, Ecclesiae Graecae Monumenta (1677-1688), followed
by J. E. Grabe, Spicelegium (1698 and 1700), and J. B.
Fabricius, Codex Apocryph. N. T. (2nd ed., 1719). See
also A. Resch, Agrapha (Leipzig, 1889); J. H. Ropes, Die
Spruche Jesu (Leipzig, 1896); and the article ``Sayings''
in J. Hastings' Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels.