The ten articles of their creed may be summarized thus:--

1. The source of all true knowledge is God.

2. God is "all truth, all knowledge, all bliss, boundless, almighty,

just, merciful, unbegotten, without a beginning, incomparable,

the support and Lord of all, all-pervading, omniscient,

imperishable, immortal, eternal, holy, and the cause of the

universe; worship is due to him alone."

3. The medium of true knowledge is the _Vedas_.

4. and 5. The truth is to be accepted and to become the guiding

principle.

6. The object of the Samaj is to benefit the world by improving

its physical, social, intellectual and moral conditions.

7. Love and justice are the right guides of conduct.

8. Knowledge must be spread.

9. The good of others must be sought.

10. In general interests members must subordinate themselves to

the good of others; in personal interests they should retain

independence.

The sixth clause comprehends a wide programme of reform, including

abstinence from spirituous liquors and animal food, physical cleanliness

and exercise, marriage reform, the promotion of female education, the

abolition of caste and of idolatry.

ARYTENOID (or _arytaenoid_; from Gr. [Greek: arytaina], a funnel or

pitcher), a term, meaning funnel-shaped, applied to cartilages such as

those of the larynx.

ARZAMAS, a town of Russia, in the government of, and 76 m. by rail S. of

the town of, Nizhniy-Novgorod, on the Tesha river, at its junction with

the Arsha. It is an important centre of trade, and has tanneries, oil,

flour, tallow, dye, soap and iron works; knitting is an important

domestic industry. Sheepskins and sail-cloth are articles of trade. The

town has several churches. Pop. (1897) 10,591.

AS, the Roman unit of weight and measure, divided into 12 _unciae_

(whence both "ounce" and "inch"); its fractions being deunx 11/12,

dextrans 5/6, dodrans 3/4, bes 2/3, septunx 7/12, semis 1/2, quincunx

5/12, triens 1/3, quadrans 1/4, sextans 1/6, sescuncia 1/8, uncia 1/12.

_As_ really denoted any integer or whole; whence the English word "ace."

The unit or _as_ of weight was the _libra_ (pound: = about 11-4/5 oz.

avoirdupois); of length, _pes_ (foot: = about 11-3/5 in.); of surface,

_jugerum_ ( = about 2/3 acre); of measure, liquid _amphora_ (about 5-3/5

gal.), dry _modius_ (about 9/10 peck). In the same way _as_ signified a

whole inheritance; whence _heres ex asse_, the heir to the whole estate,

_heres ex semisse_, heir to half the estate. It was also used in the

calculation of rates of interest.

_As_ was also the name of a Roman coin, which was of different weight

and value at different periods (see NUMISMATICS, S _Roman_). The first

introduction of coined money is ascribed to Servius Tullius. The old

_as_ was composed of the mixed metal _aes_, an alloy of copper, tin and

lead, and was called _as libralis_, because it nominally weighed 1 lb.

or 12 ounces (actually 10). Its original shape seems to have been an

irregular oblong bar, which was stamped with the figure of a sheep, ox

or sow. This, as well as the word _pecunia_ for money (_pecus_, cattle),

indicates the fact of cattle having been the earliest Italian medium of

exchange. The value was indicated by little points or globules, or other

marks. After the round shape was introduced, the one side was always

inscribed with the figure of a ship's prow, and the other with the

double head of Janus. The subdivisions of the _as_ had also the ship's

prow on one side, and on the other the head of some deity. The First

Punic War having exhausted the treasury, the _as_ was reduced to 2 oz.

In the Second Punic War it was again reduced to half this weight, viz.

to 1 oz. And lastly, by the Papirian law (89 B.C.) it was further

reduced to the diminutive weight of half an ounce. It appears to have

been still more reduced under Octavian, Lepidus and Antony, when its

value was 1/3 of an ounce. Before silver coinage was introduced (269

B.C.) the value of the _as_ was about 6d., in the time of Cicero less

than a halfpenny. In the time of the emperor Severus it was again

lowered to about 5/24 of an ounce. During the commonwealth and empire

_aes grave_ was used to denote the old as in contradistinction to the

existing depreciated coin; while _aes rude_ was applied to the original

oblong coinage of primitive times.

ASA, in the Bible, son (or, perhaps, rather brother) of Abijah, the son

of Rehoboam and king of Judah (1 Kings xv. 9-24). Of his long reign,

during which he was a contemporary of Baasha, Zimri and Omri of Israel,

little is recorded with the exception of some religious reforms and

conflicts with the first-named. Baasha succeeded in fortifying Ramah

(_er-Ram_), 5 m. north of Jerusalem, and Asa was compelled to use the

residue of the temple-funds (cf. 1 Kings xiv. 26) to bribe the king of

Damascus to renounce his league with Baasha and attack Israel. Galilee

was invaded and Baasha was forced to return; the building material which

he had collected at Ramah being used by Asa to fortify Geba, and Mizpah

to the immediate north of Jerusalem. The Book of Chronicles relates a

story of a sensational defeat of Zerah the "Cushite," and a great

religious revival in which Judah and Israel took part (2 Chron. xiv.-xv.

15) (see CHRONICLES). Asa was succeeded by his son Jehoshaphat.

"Cushite" may designate an Ethiopian or, more probably, an Arabian

(Cush, the "father" of the Sabaeans, Gen. x. 7). "If by Zerah the

Ethiopian or Sabaean prince be meant, the only real difficulty of the

narrative is removed. No king Zerah of Ethiopia is known at this period,

nor does there seem to be room for such a person." (W.E. Barnes,

_Cambridge Bible_, Chronicles, p. xxxi.). The identification with

Osorkon I. or II. is scarcely tenable considering Asa's weakness; but

inroads by desert hordes frequently troubled Judah, and if the tradition

be correct in locating the battle at Mareshah it is probable that the

invaders were in league with the Philistine towns. Similar situations

recur in the reigns of Ahaz and Jehoram.

See also Wellhausen, _Prolegomena_, 208; S.A. Cook, _Expositor_ (June

1906), p. 540 sq. (S. A. C.)

ASAFETIDA (_asa_, Lat. form of Persian _aza_ = mastic, and fetidus,

stinking, so called in distinction to _asa dulcis_, which was a drug

highly esteemed among the ancients as _laser cyrenaicum_, and is

supposed to have been a gummy exudation from _Thapsis garganica_), a

gum-resin obtained principally from the root of _Ferula fetida_, and

probably also from one or two other closely allied species of

umbelliferous plants. It is produced in eastern Persia and Afghanistan,

Herat and Kandahar being centres of the trade. _Ferula fetida_ grows to

a height of from 5 to 6 ft., and when the plant has attained the age of

four years it is ready for yielding asafetida. The stems are cut down

close to the root, and the juice flows out, at first of a milky

appearance, but quickly setting into a solid resinous mass. Fresh

incisions are made as long as the sap continues to flow, a period which

varies according to the size and strength of the plant. A

freshly-exposed surface of asafetida has a translucent, pearly-white

appearance, but it soon darkens in the air, becoming first pink and

finally reddish-brown. In taste it is acrid and bitter; but what

peculiarly characterizes it is the strong alliaceous odour it emits,

from which it has obtained the name asafetida, as well as its German

name _Teufelsdreck_ (devil's dung). Its odour is due to the presence of

organic sulphur compounds. Asafetida is found in commerce in "lump" or

in "tear," the latter being the purer form. Medicinally, asafetida is

given in doses of 5 to 15 grains and acts as a stimulant to the

intestinal and respiratory tracts and to the nervous system. An enema

containing it is useful in relieving flatus. It is sometimes useful in

hysteria, which is essentially a lack of inhibitory power, as its nasty

properties induce sufficient inhibitory power to render its

readministration superfluous. It may also be used in an effervescing

draught in cases of malingering, the drug "repeating" in the mouth and

making the malingering not worth while. The gum-resin is relished as a

condiment in India and Persia, and is in demand in France for use in

cookery. In the regions of its growth the whole plant is used as a fresh

vegetable, the inner portion of the full-grown stem being regarded as a

luxury.

ASAF-UD-DOWLAH, nawab wazir of Oudh from 1775 to 1797, was the son of

Shuja-ud-Dowlah, his mother and grandmother being the begums of Oudh,

whose spoliation formed one of the chief counts in the charges against

Warren Hastings. When Shuja-ud-Dowlah died he left two million pounds

sterling buried in the vaults of the zenana. The widow and mother of the

deceased prince claimed the whole of this treasure under the terms of a

will which was never produced. When Warren Hastings pressed the nawab

for the payment of debt due to the Company, he obtained from his mother

a loan of 26 lakhs of rupees, for which he gave her a _jagir_ of four

times the value; he subsequently obtained 30 lakhs more in return for a

full acquittal, and the recognition of her _jagirs_ without interference

for life by the Company. These _jagirs_ were afterwards confiscated on

the ground of the begum's complicity in the rising of Chai Singh, which

was attested by documentary evidence. The evidence now available seems

to show that Warren Hastings did his best throughout to rescue the nawab

from his own incapacity, and was inclined to be lenient to the begums.

See _The Administration of Warren Hastings, 1772-1785_, by G.W.

Forrest (1892).

ASAPH, the eponym of the Asaphite gild of singers, one of the hereditary

choirs that superintended the musical services of the temple at

Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The names occur in the titles of certain

Psalms, and the writer of the Book of Chronicles makes Asaph a seer (2

Chron. xxix. 30), contemporary with David and Solomon, and chief of the

singers of his time.

ASBESTOS, a fibrous mineral from Gr. [Greek: asbestos], unquenchable, by

transference, incombustible, in allusion to its power of resisting the

action of fire. The word was applied by Dioscorides and other Greek

authors to quicklime, but Pliny evidently used it in its modern sense.

It was occasionally woven by the ancients into handkerchiefs, and, it

has been said, into shrouds which were used in cremation to prevent the

ashes of the corpse from mingling with the wood-ashes of the pyre.

In different varieties of asbestos the fibres vary greatly in character.

When silky and flexible they are sometimes known as mountain flax. The

finer kinds are often termed amianthus (q.v.). When the fibres are

naturally interwoven, so as to form a felted mass, the mineral passes

under such trivial names as mountain leather, mountain cork, mountain

paper, &c. The asbestos formerly used in the arts was generally a

fibrous form of some kind of amphibole, like tremolite, or

anthophyllite, though occasionally perhaps a pyroxene. In recent years,

however, most of the asbestos in the market is a fibrous variety of

serpentine, known mineralogically as chrysotile, and probably some of

the ancient asbestos was of this character (see AMIANTHUS). Both

minerals possess similar properties, so far as resistance to heat is

concerned. The amphibole-asbestos, or hornblende-asbestos, is usually

white or grey in colour, and may present great length of fibre, some of

the Italian asbestos reaching exceptionally a length of 5 or 6 ft., but

it is often harsh and brittle. The serpentine-asbestos occurs in narrow

veins, yielding fibres of only 2 or 3 in. in length, but of great

tensile strength: they are usually of a delicate silky lustre, very

flexible and elastic, and of yellowish or greenish colour.

The Canadian asbestos, which of all kinds is at present the most

important industrially, occurs in a small belt of serpentine in the

province of Quebec, principally near Black Lake and Thetford, where it

was first recognized as commercially valuable about 1877. The rock is

generally quarried, cobbed by hand, dried if necessary, crushed in

rock-breakers, and then passed between rollers; it is reduced to a finer

state of division by so-called fiberizers, and graded on a shaking

screen, where the loosened fibres are sorted. The process varies in

different mills.

In the United States asbestos is worked only to a very limited extent.

An amphibole-asbestos is obtained from Sall Mountain, Georgia; and

asbestos has also been worked in the serpentine of Vermont. It occurs

also in South Carolina, Virginia, Massachusetts, Arizona and elsewhere.

Dr G.P. Merrill has shown that some asbestos results from a process of

shearing in the rocks.

Formerly asbestos was obtained almost exclusively from Italy and

Corsica, and a large quantity is still yielded by Italian workings. This

is mostly an amphibole. It is in some cases associated with nodules of

green garnet known as "seeds"--_Semenze dell' amianto._ Asbestos is

widely distributed, but only in a few localities does it occur in

sufficient abundance and purity to be worked commercially; it is found,

for example, to a limited extent, at many localities in Tirol, Hungary

and Russia; Queensland, New South Wales and New Zealand. In the British

Isles it is not unknown, being found among the old rocks of North Wales

and in parts of Ireland. Byssolite or asbestoid is a blue or green

fibrous amphibole from Dauphiny.

The Asbestos Mountains in Griqualand West, Cape Colony, yield a blue

fibrous mineral which is worked under the name of Cape asbestos. This is

referable to the variety of amphibole called crocidolite (q.v.). It

occurs in veins in slaty rocks, associated with jaspers and quartzites

rich in magnetite and brown iron-ore. Their geological position is in

the Griqua Town series, belonging to what are known in South Africa as

the Pre-Cape rocks.

Asbestos was formerly spun and woven into fabrics as a rare curiosity.

Charlemagne is said to have possessed a tablecloth of this material,

which when soiled was purified by being thrown into the fire. At a

meeting of the Royal Society in 1676 a merchant from China exhibited a

handkerchief of "salamander's wool," or _linum asbesti._ By the Eskimos

of Labrador asbestos has been used as a lamp-wick, and it received a

similar application in some of the sacred lamps of antiquity. In recent

times asbestos has been applied to a great variety of uses in the

industrial arts, and its applications are constantly increasing. Its

economic value depends not only on its power of withstanding a high

temperature, but also on its low thermal conductivity and its partial

resistance to the attack of acids: hence it is used for jacketing

boilers and steam-pipes, and as a filtering medium for corrosive

liquids. It has also come into use as an electric insulator. It is made

into yarn, felt, millboard, &c., and is largely employed as packing for

joints, glands and stopcocks in machinery. Fire-proof sheathing and felt

are used for flooring and roofing; fire-proof curtains have been made

for the stage, and even clothing for firemen. Asbestos enters into the

composition of fire-proof cements, plasters and paints: it is used for

packing safes; and is made into balls with fire-clay for gas-stoves.

Various preparations of asbestos with other materials pass in trade

under such names as uralite, salamandrite, asbestolith, gypsine, &c.

"Asbestic" is the name given to a Canadian product formed by crushing

the serpentine rock containing thin seams of asbestos, and mixing the

result with lime so as to form a plaster.

REFERENCES.--Fritz Cirkel, _Asbestos, its Occurrence, Exploitation and

Uses_ (Ottawa, 1905); J.H. Pratt and J.S. Diller in Annual Reports on

Mineral Resources, U.S. Geol. Survey; G.P. Merrill, _The Non-metallic

Minerals_ (New York, 1904); R.H. Jones, _Asbestos and Asbestic_

(London, 1897). (F. W. R.*)

ASBJORNSEN, PETER CHRISTEN (1812-1885), and MOE, JORGEN ENGEBRETSEN

(1813-1882), collectors of Norwegian folklore, so closely united in

their life's work that it is unusual to name them apart. Asbjornsen was

born in Christiania on the 15th of January 1812; he belonged to an

ancient family of the Gudbrandsdal, which is believed to have died with

him. He became a student at the university in 1833, but as early as

1832, in his twentieth year, he had begun to collect and write down all

the fairy stories and legends which he could meet with. Later he began

to wander on foot through the length and breadth of Norway, adding to

his stores. Moe, who was born at Mo i Hole parsonage, in Sigdal

Ringerike, on the 22nd of April 1813, met Asbjornsen first when he was

fourteen years of age. A close friendship began between them, and lasted

to the end of their lives. In 1834 Asbjornsen discovered that Moe had

started independently on a search for the relics of national folklore;

the friends eagerly compared results, and determined for the future to

work in concert. By this time, Asbjornsen had become by profession a

zoologist, and with the aid of the university made a series of

investigating voyages along the coasts of Norway, particularly in the

Hardanger fjord. Moe, meanwhile, having left Christiania University in

1839, had devoted himself to the study of theology, and was making a

living as a tutor in Christiania. In his holidays he wandered through

the mountains, in the most remote districts, collecting stories. In

1842-1843 appeared the first instalment of the great work of the two

friends, under the title of _Norwegian Popular Stories (Norske

Folkeeventyr)_, which was received at once all over Europe as a most

valuable contribution to comparative mythology as well as literature. A

second volume was published in 1844, and a new collection in 1871. Many

of the _Folkeeventyr_ were translated into English by Sir George Dasent

in 1859. In 1845 Asbjornsen published, without help from Moe, a

collection of Norwegian fairy tales (_huldreeventyr og folkesagn_). In

1856 the attention of Asbjornsen was called to the deforestation of

Norway, and he induced the government to take up this important

question. He was appointed forest-master, and was sent by Norway to

examine in various countries of the north of Europe the methods observed

for the preservation of timber. From these duties, in 1876, he withdrew

with a pension; he died in Christiania on the 6th of January 1885. From

1841 to 1852 Moe travelled almost every summer through the southern

parts of Norway, collecting traditions in the mountains. In 1845 he was

appointed professor of theology in the Military School of Norway. He

had, however, long intended to take holy orders, and in 1853 he did so,

becoming for ten years a resident chaplain in Sigdal, and then (1863)

parish priest of Bragernes. He was moved in 1870 to the parish of Vestre

Aker, near Christiania, and in 1875 he was appointed bishop of

Christiansand. In January 1882 he resigned his diocese on account of

failing health, and died on the following 27th of March. Moe has a

special claim on critical attention in regard to his lyrical poems, of

which a small collection appeared in 1850. He wrote little original

verse, but in his slender volume are to be found many pieces of

exquisite delicacy and freshness. Moe also published a delightful

collection of prose stories for children, _In the Well and the Churn (_I

Bronde og i Kjaernet), 1851; and _A Little Christmas Present (En liden

Juleegave)_, 1860. Asbjornsen and Moe had the advantage of an admirable

style in narrative prose. It was usually said that the vigour came from

Asbjornsen and the charm from Moe, but the fact seems to be that from

the long habit of writing in unison they had come to adopt almost

precisely identical modes of literary expression. (E. G.)

ASBURY, FRANCIS (1745-1816), American clergyman, was born at Hamstead

Bridge in the parish of Handsworth, near Birmingham, in Staffordshire,

England, on the 20th of August 1745. His parents were poor, and after a

brief period of study in the village school of Barre, he was apprenticed

at the age of fourteen to a maker of "buckle chapes," or tongues. It

seems probable that his parents were among the early converts of Wesley;

at any rate, Francis became converted to Methodism in his thirteenth

year, and at sixteen became a local preacher. He was a simple, fluent

speaker, and was so successful that in 1767 he was enrolled, by John

Wesley himself, as a regular itinerant minister. In 1771 he volunteered

for missionary work in the American colonies. When he landed in

Philadelphia in October 1771, the converts to Methodism, which had been

introduced into the colonies only three years before, numbered scarcely

300. Asbury infused new life into the movement, and within a year the

membership of the several congregations was more than doubled. In 1772

he was appointed by Wesley "general assistant" in charge of the work in

America, and although superseded by an older preacher, Thomas Rankin

(1738-1810), in 1773, he remained practically in control. After the

outbreak of the War of Independence, the Methodists, who then numbered

several thousands, fell, unjustly, under suspicion of Loyalism,

principally because of their refusal to take the prescribed oath; and

many of their ministers, including Rankin, returned to England. Asbury,

however, feeling his sympathies and duties to be with the colonies,

remained at his post, and although often threatened, and once arrested,

continued his itinerant preaching. The hostility of the Maryland

authorities, however, eventually drove him into exile in Delaware, where

he remained quietly, but not in idleness, for two years. In 1782 he was

reappointed to supervise the affairs of the Methodist congregations in

America. In 1784 John Wesley, in disregard of the authority of the

Established Church, took the radical step of appointing the Rev. Thomas

Coke (1747-1814) and Francis Asbury superintendents or "bishops" of the

church in the United States. Dr Coke was ordained at Bristol, England,

in September, and in the following December, in a conference of the

churches in America at Baltimore, he ordained and consecrated Asbury,

who refused to accept the position until Wesley's choice had been

ratified by the conference. From this conference dates the actual

beginning of the "Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States of

America." To the upbuilding of this church Asbury gave the rest of his

life, working with tireless devotion and wonderful energy. In 1785, at

Abingdon, Maryland, he laid the corner-stone of Cokesbury College, the

project of Dr Coke and the first Methodist Episcopal college in America;

the college building was burned in 1795, and the college was then

removed to Baltimore, where in 1796, after another fire, it closed, and

in 1816 was succeeded by Asbury College, which lived for about fifteen

years. Every year Asbury traversed a large area, mostly on horseback.

The greatest testimony to the work that earned for him the title of the

"Father of American Methodism" was the growth of the denomination from a

few scattered bands of about 300 converts and 4 preachers in 1771, to a

thoroughly organized church of 214,000 members and more than 2000

ministers at his death, which occurred at Spottsylvania, Virginia, on

the 31st of March 1816.

His _Journals_ (3 vols., New York, 1852), apart from their importance

as a history of his life work, constitute a valuable commentary on the

social and industrial history of the United States during the first

forty years of their existence. Consult also F.W. Briggs, _Bishop

Asbury_ (London, 1874); W.P. Strickland, _The Pioneer Bishop; or, The

Life and Times of Francis Asbury_ (New York, 1858); J.B. Wakeley,

_Heroes of Methodism_ (New York, 1856): W.C. Larrabee, _Asbury and His

Co-Laborers_ (2 vols., Cincinnati, 1853); H.M. Du Bose, _Francis

Asbury_ (Nashville, Tenn., 1909); see also under METHODISM.

ASBURY PARK, a city of Monmouth county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on the

Atlantic Ocean, about 35 m. S. of New York City (50 m. by rail). Pop.

(1900) 4148; (1905) 4526; (1910) 10,150. It is served by the Central of

New Jersey and the Pennsylvania railways, and by electric railway lines

connecting it with other New Jersey coast resorts both north and south.

Fresh-water lakes, one of which, Deal Lake, extends for some distance

into the wooded country, form the northern and southern boundaries. It

is one of the most popular seaside resorts on the Atlantic coast, its

numerous hotels and cottages accommodating a summer population that

approximates 50,000, and a large transient population in the autumn and

winter months. There is an excellent beach, along which extends a

board-walk about 1 m. long; the beach is owned and controlled by the

municipality. The municipality owns and operates its water-works, water

being obtained from artesian wells. Asbury Park was founded in 1869, was

named in honour of the Rev. Francis Asbury, was incorporated as a

borough in 1874, and was chartered as a city in 1897. In 1906 territory

to the west with a population estimated at 6000 was annexed.

ASCALON, now 'ASKALAN, one of the five chief cities of the Philistines,

on the coast of the Mediterranean, 12 m. N. of Gaza. The place is

mentioned several times in the Tell el-Amarna correspondence. It

revolted from Egypt on two occasions, but was reconquered, and a

sculpture at Thebes depicts the storming of the city. Ascalon was a

well-fortified town, and the seat of the worship of the fish-goddess

Derketo. Though situated in the nominal territory of the tribe of Judah,

it was never for any length of time in the possession of the Israelites.

The only incident in its history recorded in the Bible (the spoliation

by Samson, Judg. xiv. 19) may possibly have actually occurred at another

place of the same name, in the hill country of Judaea. Sennacherib took

it in 701 B.C. The conquest of Alexander hellenized its civilization,

and after his time it became tributary alternately to Syria and Egypt.

Herod the Great was a native of the city, and added greatly to its

beauty; but it suffered severely in the later wars of the Romans and

Jews. In the 4th century it again rose to importance; and till the 7th

century, when it was conquered by the Moslems, it was the seat of a

bishopric and a centre of learning. During the first crusade a signal

victory was gained by the Christians in the neighbouring plain on the

15th of August 1099; but the city remained in the hands of the caliphs

till 1157, when it was taken by Baldwin III., king of Jerusalem, after a

siege of five months. By Baldwin IV. it was given to his sister Sibylla,

on her marriage with William of Montferrat in 1178. When Saladin (1187)

had almost annihilated the Christian army in the plain of Tiberias,

Ascalon offered but a feeble resistance to the victor. At first he

repaired and strengthened its fortifications, but afterwards, alarmed at

the capture of St Jean d'Acre (Acre) by Richard Coeur de Lion in 1191,

he caused it to be dismantled. It was restored in the following year by

the English king, but only to be again abandoned. From this time Ascalon

lost much of its importance, and at length, in 1270, its fortifications

were almost totally destroyed by Sultan Bibars, and its port was filled

up with stones. The place is now a desolate heap of ruins, with remains

of its walls and fragments of granite pillars. The surrounding country

is well watered and very fertile.

See a paper by Guthe, "Die Ruinen Ascalons," in the _Zeitschrift_ of

the Deutsche Palastina-Verein, ii. 164 (translated in Palestine

Exploration Fund _Quarterly Statement_, 1880, p. 182). See also C.R.

Conder in the latter journal, 1875, p. 152. (R. A. S. M.)

ASCANIUS, in Roman legend, the son of Aeneas by Creusa or Lavinia. From

Livy it would appear that tradition recognized two sons of Aeneas called

by this name, the one the son of his Trojan, the other of his Latin

wife. According to the usual account, he accompanied his father to Italy

on his flight from Troy. On the death of Aeneas, the government of

Latium was left in the hands of Lavinia, Ascanius being too young to

undertake it. After thirty years he left Lavinium, and founded Alba

Longa. Ascanius was also called Ilus and Iulus, and the Julian gens

claimed to be descended from him. Several more or less contradictory

traditions may be found in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Strabo and other

writers.

Virg. _Aen_. ii. 666; Livy i. 3; see also Klausen. _Aeneas und die

Penaten_ (1840).

ASCENSION, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, between 7 deg. 53' and 8

deg. S., and 14 deg. 18' and 14 deg. 26' W., 800 m. N.W. of St Helena,

about 7-1/2 m. in length and 6 in breadth, with an area of 38 sq. m. and

a circumference of about 22 m. The island lies within the immediate

influence of the south-east trade-wind. The lee side of the island is

subject to the visitation of "rollers," which break on the shore with

very great violence. Ascension is a volcanic mass erected on a submarine

platform. Numerous cones exist. Green Mountain, the principal elevation,

is a huge elliptical crater, rising 2820 ft. above the sea, while the

plains or table-lands surrounding it vary in height from 1200 to 2000

ft. On the north side they sweep gradually down towards the shore, but

on the south they terminate in bold and lofty precipices. Steep and

rugged ravines intersect the plains, opening into small bays or coves on

the shore, fenced with masses of compact and cellular lava; and all over

the island are found products of volcanic action. Ascension was

originally destitute of vegetation save on the summit of Green Mountain,

which owes its verdure to the mists which frequently enshroud it, but

the lower hills have been planted with grasses and shrubs. The air is

clear and light, and the climate remarkably healthy, notwithstanding the

high temperature--the average day temperature on the shore being 85 deg.

F., on Green Mountain 75 deg. F. The average rainfall is about 20 in.,

March and April being the rainy months. Ascension is noted for the

number of turtles and turtle eggs found on its shores, the season

lasting from December to May or June. The turtles are caught and kept in

large ponds. The coasts abound with a variety of fish of excellent

quality, of which the most important are the rock-cod, the cavalli, the

conger-eel and the "soldier." Numbers of sheep are bred on the island,

and there are a few cattle and deer, besides goats and wild cats.

Feathered game is abundant. Like St Helena, the island does not possess

any indigenous vertebrate land fauna. The "wideawake" birds frequent the

island in large numbers, and their eggs are collected and eaten. Beetles

and land-shells are well represented. Flies, ants, mosquitoes,

scorpions, centipedes and crickets abound. The flora includes purslane,

rock roses and several species of ferns and mosses.

The island was discovered by the Portuguese navigator, Joao da Nova, on

Ascension Day 1501, and was occasionally visited thereafter by ships. In

1701 William Dampier was wrecked on its coast, and during his detention

discovered the only spring of fresh water the island contains. Ascension

remained uninhabited till after the arrival of Napoleon at St Helena

(1815), when it was taken possession of by the British government, who

sent a small garrison thither. A settlement, named George Town (locally

known as Garrison), was made on the north-west coast, water being

obtained from "Dampier's" springs in the Green Mountain, 6 m. distant.

The island is under the rule of the admiralty, and was likened by Darwin

to "a huge ship kept in first-rate order." It is governed by a naval

captain borne on the books of the flagship of the admiral superintendent

at Gibraltar. A depot of stores for the navy is maintained, but the

island is used chiefly as a sanatorium. Ascension is connected by cable

with Europe and Africa, and is visited once a month by mail steamers

from the Cape. Formerly letters were left by passing ships in a crevice

in one of the rocks. The population, about 300, consists of seamen,

marines, and Krumen from Liberia.

See _Africa Pilot_, part ii., 5th ed. (London, 1901); C. Darwin,

_Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands visited during the

Voyage of H.M.S. "Beagle"_ (London, 1844); _Report of the Scientific

Results of the Voyage of the "Challenger,"_ vol. i. part 2 (London,

1885); and _Six Months in Ascension_, by Mrs Gill (London, 1878), an

excellent sketch of the island and its inhabitants. It was at

Ascension that Mr, afterwards Sir, David Gill determined, in 1877, the

solar parallax.

ASCENSION, FEAST OF THE, one of the oecumenical festivals of the

Christian Church, ranking in solemnity with those of Christmas, of

Easter and of Pentecost. It is held forty days after Easter, or ten days

before Whitsunday, in celebration of Christ's ascension into heaven

forty days after the resurrection. It always falls on a Thursday, and

the day is known as Ascension Day, or Holy Thursday. The festival is of

great antiquity; and though there is no discoverable trace of it before

the middle of the 4th century, subsequent references to it assume its

long establishment. Thus St Augustine (_Ep. 54 ad Januar._) mentions it

as having been kept from time immemorial and as probably instituted by

the apostles. Chrysostom, in his homily on the ascension, mentions a

celebration of the festival in the church of Romanesia outside Antioch,

and Socrates (_Hist. eccles._ vii. 26) records that in the year 390 the

people of Constantinople "of old custom" ([Greek: ex ethous]) celebrated

the feast in a suburb of the city. As these two references suggest, the

festival was associated with a professional pilgrimage, in commemoration

of the passing of Christ and his apostles to the Mount of Olives; such a

procession is described by Adamnan, abbot of Iona, as taking place at

Jerusalem in the 7th century, when the feast was celebrated in the

church on Mount Olivet (_de loc. sanct._ i. 22). The _Peregrinatio_ of

Etheria (Silvia), which dates from c. A.D. 385, says that the festival

was held in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem (Duchesne, _Chr.

Worship_, p. 515). In the West, however, in the middle ages, the

procession with candles and banners outside the church was taken as

symbolical of Christ's triumphant entry into heaven.

In the East the festival is known as the [Greek: analaepsis], "taking

up," or [Greek: episozomenae], a term first used in the Cappadocian

church, and of which the meaning has been disputed, but which probably

signifies the feast "of completed salvation." The word _ascensio_,

adopted in the West, implies the ascension of Christ by his own power,

in contradistinction to the _assumptio_, or taking up into heaven of the

Virgin Mary by the power of God.

In the Roman Catholic Church the most characteristic ritual feature of

the festival is now the solemn extinction of the paschal candle after

the Gospel at high mass. This candle, lighted at every mass for the

forty days after Easter, symbolizes the presence of Christ with his

disciples, and its extinction his parting from them. The custom dates

from 1263, and was formerly confined to the Franciscans; it was

prescribed for the universal church by the Congregation of Rites on the

19th of May 1697. Other customs, now obsolete, were formerly associated

with the liturgy of this feast; e.g. the blessing of the new beans after

the Commemoration of the Dead in the canon of the mass (Duchesne, p.

183). In some churches, during the middle ages, an image of Christ was

raised from the altar through a hole in the roof, through which a

burning straw figure representing Satan was immediately thrown down.

In the Anglican Church Ascension Day and its octave continue to be

observed as a great festival, for which a special preface to the

consecration prayer in the communion service is provided, as in the case

of Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, and Trinity Sunday. The celebration of

the Feast of the Ascension was also retained in the Lutheran churches as

warranted by Holy Scripture.

See Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie_ (1900), s. _"Himmelfahrtsfest"_;

L. Duchesne, _Christian Worship_ (2nd Eng. ed., London, 1904); _The

Catholic Encyclopaedia_ (London and New York, 1907).

ASCETICISM, the theory and practice of bodily abstinence and

self-mortification, generally religious. The word is derived from the

Gr. verb [Greek: askeo], "I practise," whence the noun [Greek: askaesis]

and the adjective [Greek: askaetikos]; and it embodies a metaphor taken

from the ancient wrestling-place or palaestra, where victory rewarded

those who had best trained their bodies. Not a few other technical terms

of Greek philosophic asceticism, used in the first instance by Cynics

and Neo-pythagoreans, and then continued among the Greek Jews and

Christians, were metaphors taken from athletic contests--but only

metaphors, for all asceticism, worthy of the name, has a moral purport,

and is based on the eternal contrast of the proposition, "This is

right," with the proposition, "That is pleasant." The ascetic instinct

is probably as old as humanity, yet we must not forget that early

religious practices are apt to be deficient in lofty spiritual meaning,

many things being esteemed holy that are from a modern point of view

trifling and even obscene. We may therefore expect in primitive

asceticism to find many abstentions and much self-torture apparently

valueless for the training of character and discipline of the feelings,

which are the essence of any healthy asceticism. Nevertheless these

non-moral _taboos_ or restraints may have played a part in building up

in us that faculty of preferring the larger good to the impulse of the

moment which is the note of real civilization. Aristotle in his _Ethics_

defines, as the barbarian's ideal of life, "the living as one likes."

Yet nothing is less true; for the savage, more than the civilized man,

is tied down at every step with superstitious scruples and restrictions

barely traceable in higher civilizations except as primitive survivals.

It is not that savages are devoid of the ascetic instinct. It is on the

contrary over-developed in them, but ill-informed and working in ways

unessential or even morally harmful. It is the note of every great

religious reformer, Moses, Buddha, Paul, Mani, Mahomet, St Francis,

Luther, to enlighten and direct it to higher aims, substituting a true

personal holiness for a ritual purity or _taboo_, which at the best was

viewed as a kind of physical condition and contagion, inherent as well

in things and animals as in man.

It is useful, therefore, in a summary sketch of asceticism, to begin

with the facts as they can be observed among less advanced races, or as

mere survivals among people who have reached the level of genuine moral

reflection; and from this basis to proceed to a consideration of

self-denial consciously pursued as a method of ethical perfection. The

latter is as a rule less cruel and rigorous than primitive forms of

asceticism. Under this head fall the following:--Fasting, or abstention

from certain meats and drinks; denial of sexual instinct; subjection of

the body to physical discomforts, such as nakedness, vigils, sleeping on

the bare ground, tattooing, deformation of skull, teeth, feet, &c., vows

of silence to be observed throughout life or during pilgrimages,

avoidance of baths, of hair-cutting and of clean raiment, living in a

cave; actual self-infliction of pain, by scourging, branding, cutting

with knives, wearing of hair shirts, fire-walking, burial alive, hanging

up of oneself by hooks plunged into the skin, suspension of weights by

such hooks to the tenderer parts of the body, self-mutilation and

numerous other, often ingenious, modes of torture. Such customs repose

on various superstitions; for example, the self-mutilation of the Galli

or priests of Cybele was probably a magical ceremony intended to

fertilize the soil and stimulate the crops. Others of the practices

enumerated, probably the greater part of them, spring from demonological

beliefs.

Fasting (q.v.) is used in primitive asceticism for a variety of reasons,

among which the following deserve notice. Certain animals and vegetables

are _taboo_, i.e. too holy, or--what among Semites and others was the

same thing--too defiling and unclean, to be eaten. Thus in Leviticus xi.

the Jews are forbidden to eat animals other than cloven-footed

ruminants; thus the camel, coney, hare and swine were forbidden; so also

any water organisms that had not fins and scales, and a large choice of

birds, including swan, pelican, stork, heron and hoopoe. All winged

creeping things that have four feet were equally abominable. Lastly, the

weasel, mouse and most lizards were _taboo_. All or nearly all of these

were at one time totem animals among one or another of the Semitic

tribes, and were not eaten because primitive men will not eat animals

between which and themselves and their gods they believe a peculiar tie

of kinship to exist. Men do not eat an animal for which they have a

reverential dread, or if they eat it at all, it is only in a sacramental

feast and in order to absorb into themselves its life and holy

properties. Such abstinences as the above, though based on _taboo_, that

is, on a reluctance to eat the totem or sacred animal, are yet ascetic

in so far as they involve much self-denial. No flesh is more wholesome

or succulent than beef, yet the Egyptians and Phoenicians, says Porphyry

(_de Abst._ ii. 11), would rather eat human flesh than that of the cow,

and so would two hundred and fifty millions of modern Hindus. The

privation involved in abstention from the flesh of the swine, a _taboo_

hardly less widespread, is obvious.

Similar prohibitions are common in Africa, where fetish priests are

often reduced to a diet of herbs and roots. That such dietary

restrictions were merely ceremonial and superstitious, and not intended

to prevent the consumption of meats which would revolt modern tastes, is

certain from the fact that the Levitical law freely allowed the eating

of locusts, grasshoppers, crickets and cockroaches, while forbidding the

consumption of rabbits, hares, storks, swine, &c. The Pythagoreans were

forbidden to eat beans.

Another widespread reason for avoiding flesh diet altogether was the

fear of absorbing the irrational soul of the animal, which especially

resided in the blood. Hence the rule not to eat meats strangled, except

in sacramental meals when the god inherent in the animal was partaken

of. It is equally a soul or spirit in wine which inspires the

intoxicated; the old Egyptian kings avoided wine at table and in

libations, because it was the blood of rebels who had fought with the

gods, and out of whose rotting bodies grew the vines; to drink the blood

was to imbibe the soul of these rebels, and the frenzy of intoxication

which followed was held to be possession by their spirits. The medieval

Jews also held that there is a cardiac demon in wine which takes

possession of drunken men; and the Mahommedan prohibition of

wine-drinking is based on a similar superstition. The avoidance of wine,

therefore, by Rechabites, Nazirites, Arab dervishes and Pythagoreans,

and also of leaven in bread, is parallel to and explicable in the same

way as abstention from flesh. Porphyry (_de Abst._ i. 19) acquaints us

with another widespread scruple against flesh diet. It was this, that

the souls of men transmigrated into animals, so that if you ate these,

you might consume your own kind, cannibal-wise. Contemporary meat-eaters

set themselves to combat this prejudice, and argued that it was a pious

duty to kill animals and so release the human souls imprisoned. In the

same tract Porphyry relates (ii. 48) how wizards acquired the mantic

powers of certain birds, such as ravens and hawks, by swallowing their

hearts. The soul of the bird, he explains, enters them with its flesh,

and endows them with power of divination. The lover of wisdom, who is

priest of the universal God, rather than risk the taking into himself of

inferior souls and polluting demons, will abstain from eating animals.

Such is Porphyry's argument.

The same fear of imbibing the irrational soul of animals, and thereby

reinforcing the lower appetites and instincts of the human being,

inspired the vegetarianism of Apollonius of Tyana and of the Jewish

Therapeutae, who in their sacred meals were careful to have a table free

from blood-containing meats; and the fear of absorbing the animal's

psychic qualities equally motived the Jewish and early Christian rule

against eating things strangled. It was an early belief, which long

survived among the Manichaean sects, that fish, being born in and of the

waters, and without any sexual connexion on the part of other fishes are

free from the taint which pollutes all animals _quae copulatione

generantur_. Fish, therefore, unlike flesh, could be safely eaten. Here

we have the origin of the Catholic rule of fasting, seldom understood by

those who observe it. The same scruple against flesh-eating is conveyed

in the beautiful confession, in the _Cretans_ of Euripides, of one who

had been initiated in the mysteries of Orpheus and became a "Bacchos."

The last lines of this, as rendered by Dr Gilbert Murray, are as

follows:--

"Robed in pure white, I have borne me clean

From man's vile birth and coffined clay,

And exiled from my lips alway

Touch of all meat where life hath been."

This Orphic fast from meat was only broken by an annual sacramental

banquet, originally, perhaps, of human, but later of raw bovine flesh.

The Manichaeans held that in every act of begetting, human or otherwise,

a soul is condemned afresh to a cycle of misery by imprisonment in

flesh--a thoroughly Indian notion, under the influence of which their

perfect or elect ones scrupulously abstained from flesh. The prohibition

of taking life, which they took over from the Farther East, in itself

entailed fasting from flesh. A fully initiated Manichaean would not even

cut his own salad, but employed a catechumen to commit on his behalf

this act of murder, for which he subsequently shrived him.

We come to a third widespread reason for fasting, common among savages.

Famished persons are liable to morbid excitement, and fall into

imaginative ecstasies, in the course of which they see visions and

spectres, converse with gods and angels, and are the recipients of

supernatural revelations. Accordingly King Saul "ate no bread all the

day nor all the night" in which the witch of Endor revealed to him the

ghost of Samuel. Weak and famished, he hardly wanted to eat the fatted

calf when the vision was over. Among the North American Indians ecstatic

fasting is regularly practised. A faster writes down his visions and

revelations for a whole season. They are then examined by the elders of

the tribe, and if events have verified them, he is recognized as a

supernaturally gifted being, and rewarded with chieftaincy. All over the

world fasting is a recognized mode of evoking, consulting and also of

overcoming the spirit world. This is why the Zulus and other primitive

races distrust a medicine man who is not an ascetic and lean with

fasting. In the Semitic East it is an old belief that a successful fast

in the wilderness of forty days and nights gives power over the Djinns.

The Indian _yogi_ fasts till he sees face to face all the gods of his

Pantheon; the Indian magician fasts twelve days before producing rain or

working any cure. The Bogomils fasted till they saw the Trinity face to

face. From the first, fasting was practised in the church for similar

reason. In the _Shepherd of Hermas_ a vision of the church rewards

frequent fasts and prayer; and it is related in extra-canonical sources

that James the Less vowed that he would fast until he too was vouchsafed

a vision of the risen Lord. After a long and rigorous fast the Lord

appeared to him. Not a few saints were rewarded for their fasting by

glimpses of the beatific vision. Dr Tylor writes on this point as

follows (_Prim. Cult._ ii. 415): "Bread and meat would have robbed the

ascetic of many an angel's visit: the opening of the refectory door must

many a time have closed the gates of heaven to his gaze."

Among the Semites and Tatars worshippers lacerate themselves before the

god. So in I Kings xviii. 28 the priests of Baal engaged in a

rain-making ceremony, gashed themselves with knives and lances till the

blood gushed out upon them. The Syriac word _ethkashshaph_, which means

literally to "cut oneself," is the regular equivalent of to "make

supplication." Among Greeks and Arabs, mourners also cut themselves with

knives and scratched their faces; the Hebrew law forbade such mourning,

and we find the prohibition repeated in many canons of the Eastern

churches. At first sight these rites seem intended to call down the pity

of heaven on man, but as Robertson Smith points out, their real import

was by shedding blood on a holy stone or in a holy place to tie or renew

a blood-bond between the God and his faithful ones. We have no clear

information about the mind of the Flagellants, who in 1259, and again in

1349, swarmed through the streets of European cities, naked and

thrashing themselves, till the blood ran, with leather thongs and iron

whips. They were penitents, and no doubt imbued with the ancient belief

that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.

Asceticism then in its origin was usually not ascetic in a modern sense,

that is, not ethical. It was rather of the nature of the savage _taboo_

(q.v.), the outcome of totemistic beliefs or a mode of averting the

contaminating presence of djinns and demons. Above all, fasting was a

mode of preparing oneself for the sacramental eating of a sacred animal,

and as such often assisted by use of purgatives and aperients. It was

essential in the old Greek rites of averting the _Keres_ or djinns, the

ill regulated ghosts who return to earth and molest the living, to

abstain from flesh. The Pythagoreans and Orphic _mystae_ so abstained

all their life long, and Porphyry eloquently insists on such a

discipline for all who "are not content merely to talk about Reason, but

are really intent on casting aside the body and living through Reason

with Truth. Naked and without the tunic of the flesh these will enter

the arena and strive in the Olympic contest of the soul."

It is time to pass on to Buddhist asceticism, in its essence a more

ethical and philosophical product than some of the forms so far

considered. The keynote of Buddhist asceticism is deliverance from life

and its inevitable suffering. Once at a village where he rested the

Blessed One (Buddha) addressed his brethren and said: "It is through not

understanding and grasping four Noble Truths, O brethren, that we have

had to run so long, to wander so long in this weary path of

transmigration, both you and I." These noble truths were about sorrow,

its cause, its cessation and the path which leads to that cessation.

Once they are grasped the craving for existence is rooted out, that

which leads to renewed existence is destroyed, and there is no more

birth. The Buddha believed he had a way of Truth, which if an elect

disciple possessed he might say of himself, "Hell is destroyed for me,

and rebirth as an animal, or a ghost, or in any place of woe. I am

converted, I am no longer liable to be reborn in a state of suffering,

and am assured of final salvation."

Suffering, said the sage in his great sermon at Benares, is inseparable

from birth and old age. Sickness is suffering, so is death, so is union

with the unloved, and separation from the loved; not to obtain what one

desires is suffering; the entire fivefold clinging to the earthly is

suffering. Its origin is the thirst for being which leads from birth to

birth, together with lust and desire, which find gratification here and

there; the thirst for pleasures, for being, for power. This thirst must

be extinguished by complete annihilation of desire, by letting it go,

expelling it, separating oneself from it, giving it no room. This

extinction is achieved in eight ways, namely rectitude of faith,

resolve, speech, action, living, effort, thought, self-concentration.

In this gospel we must be done with the outer world, participation in

which is not the self, yet means for the self birth and death,

appetites, longings, emotions, change and suffering, pleasure and pain.

He that has put off all lust and desire, all hope and fear, all will to

exist as a sinful, because a sentient, being, has won to the heaven of

extinction or Nirvana. He may still tread the earth, but he is a saint

or Brahman, is in heaven, has quitted the transient and enjoys eternity.

Such was the Buddha's gospel, as his most ancient scriptures enunciate

it. Nirvana is constantly defined in them as supreme happiness. It is

not even clear how far, if we interpret it strictly, this philosophy

leaves any self to be happy. However this be, its practical expression

is the life of the monk who has separated himself from the world. Five

commandments must be observed by him who would even approach the higher

life of saint and ascetic. They are these: to kill no living thing; not

to lay hands on another's property; not to touch another's wife; not to

speak what is untrue; not to drink intoxicating drinks.

Though couched in the negative, these rules must be interpreted in the

amplest and widest sense by all believers. The Order, however, which the

would-be ascetic can enter by regular initiation, when he is twenty

years of age, entails a discipline much more severe. He has gone forth

from home into homelessness, and has not where to lay his head. He must

eat only the morsels he gets by begging; must dress in such rags as he

can pick up; must sleep under trees. Mendicancy is his recognized way of

life. Furthermore, he must abstain all his life from sexual intercourse;

he may not take even a blade of grass without permission of the owner;

he must not kill even a worm or ant; he must not boast of his

perfection. In practice the lives of Buddhist monks are not so squalid

as these rules would lead us to suppose. Thanks to the reverent charity

of the laymen, they do not live much worse than Benedictine monks; and

the prohibition to live in houses does not extend to caves. Everywhere

in India and Ceylon they hollowed out cells and churches in the cliffs

and rocks, which are the wonder of the European tourist.

But long before the advent of Buddhism, the hermit, or wandering beggar,

was a familiar figure in India. No formal initiation was imposed on the

would-be ascetic, save (in the case of young men) the duty to live at

first in his teacher's house. One who had thus fulfilled the duties of

the student order must "go forth remaining chaste," says the

_Apastamba_, ii. 9. 8. He shall then "live without a fire, without a

house, without pleasures, without protection; remaining silent and

uttering speech only on the occasion of the daily recitation of the

Veda; begging so much food only in the village as will sustain his life,

he shall wander about, neither caring for this world nor for heaven. He

shall only wear clothes thrown away by others. Some declare that he

shall even go naked. Abandoning truth and falsehood, pleasure and pain,

the Vedas, this world and the next, he shall seek the Universal Soul, in

knowledge of which standeth eternal salvation."

Such a life was specially recommended for one who has lived the life of

a householder, and, having begotten sons according to the sacred law and

offered sacrifices, desires in his old age to abandon worldly objects

and direct his mind to final liberation. He leaves his wife, if she will

not accompany him, and goes forth into the forest, committing her and

his house to his sons. He must indeed take with him the sacred fire and

implements for domestic sacrifice, but until death overtakes him he must

wander silent, alone, possessing no hearth nor dwelling, begging his

food in the villages, firm of purpose, with a potsherd for an alms bowl,

the roots of trees for a dwelling, and clad in coarse worn out garments.

"Let him not desire to die, let him not desire to live; let him wait for

his appointed time, as a servant waits for the payment of his wages. Let

him drink water purified by straining with a cloth, let him utter speech

purified by truth, let him keep his heart pure. Let him patiently bear

hard words, let him not insult anybody, let him not become any one's

enemy for the sake of this perishable body.... Let him reflect on the

transmigrations of men, caused by their sinful deeds, on their falling

into hell, and on their torments in the world of Yama.... A twice-born

man who becomes an ascetic thus shakes off sin here below and reaches

the highest Brahman" (_Laws of Manu_, by G. Buhler, vi. 85).

This old-world wisdom of the Hindus, a thousand years before our era, is

worthily to be paralleled from the Manichaeism of about the year 400.

Augustine has preserved (_contra Faustum_, v. 1) the portraiture of a

Manichaean elect as drawn by himself:--

"I have given up father and mother, wife, children and all else that

the gospel bids us, and do you ask if I accept the gospel? Are you

then still ignorant of what the word gospel means? It is nothing else

than the preaching and precept of Christ. I have cast away gold and

silver, and have ceased to carry even copper in my belt, being content

with my daily bread, nor caring for the morrow, nor anxious how my

belly shall be filled or my body clothed; and do you ask me if I

accept the gospel? You behold in me those beatitudes of Christ which

make up the gospel, and you ask me if I accept it. You behold me

gentle, a peacemaker, pure of heart, a mourner, hungering, thirsting,

bearing persecutions and hatreds for righteousness' sake, and do you

doubt whether I accept the gospel.... All that was mine I have given

up, father, mother, wife, children, gold, silver, eating, drinking,

delights, pleasures. Deem this a sufficient answer to your question

and deem yourself on the way to be blessed, if you have not been

scandalized in me."

The Greek Cynics (see CYNICS) played a great part in the history of

Asceticism, and they were so much the precursors of the Christian

hermits that descriptions of them in profane literature have been

mistaken for pictures of early monasticism. In striving to imitate the

rugged strength and independence of their master Socrates, they went to

such extremes as rather to caricature him. They affected to live like

beggars, bearing staff and wallet, owning nothing, renouncing pleasures,

riches, honours. For older thinkers like Plato and Aristotle the perfect

life was that of the citizen and householder; but the Cynics were

individualists, citizens of the world without loyalty or respect for the

ancient city state, the decay of which was coincident with their rise.

Their zeal for renunciation often extended not to pleasures, marriage

and property alone, but to cleanliness, knowledge and good manners as

well, and in this respect also they were the forerunners of later monks.

Philo (20 B.C.-A.D. 40) has left us many pictures of the life which to

his mind impersonated the highest wisdom, and they are all inspired by

the more respectable sort of cynicism, which had taken deep root among

Greek Jews of the day. One such picture merits citation from his tract

_On Change of Names_ (vol. i. 583, ed. Mangey): "All this company of the

good and wise have of their own free will divested themselves of too

copious wealth; nay, have spurned the things dear to the flesh. For of

good habit and lusty are athletes, since they have fortified against

the soul the body which should be its servant; but the disciples of

wisdom are pale and wasted, and in a manner reduced to skeletons,

because they have sacrificed the whole of their bodily strength to the

faculties of the soul."

His own favourite ascetics, the Therapeutae, whose chief centre was in

Egypt, had renounced property and all its temptations, and fled,

irrevocably abandoning brothers, children, wives, parents, throngs of

kinsmen, intimacy of friends, the fatherlands where they were born and

bred (see THERAPEUTAE). Here we have the ideal of early Christian

renunciation at work, but apart from the influence of Jesus. In the

pages of Epictetus the same ideal is constantly held up to us.

In the Christian Church there was from the earliest age a leaning to

excessive asceticism, and it needed a severe struggle on the part of

Paul, and of the Catholic teachers who followed him, to secure for the

baptized the right to be married, to own property, to engage in war and

commerce, or to assume public office. One and all of the permanent

institutions of society were condemned by the early enthusiasts,

especially by those who looked forward to a speedy advent of the

millennium, as alien to the kingdom of God and as impediments to the

life of grace.

Marriage and property had already been eschewed in the Jewish Essene and

Therapeutic sects, and in Christianity the name of Encratite was given

to those who repudiated marriage and the use of wine. They did not form

a sect, but represented an impulse felt everywhere. In early and popular

apocryphal histories the apostles are represented as insisting that

their converts should either not contract wedlock or should dissolve the

tie if already formed. This is the plot of the _Acts of Thecla_, a story

which probably goes back to the first century. Repudiation of the tie by

fervent women, betrothed or already wives, occasioned much domestic

friction and popular persecution. In the Syriac churches, even as late

as the 4th century, the married state seems to have been regarded as

incompatible with the perfection of the initiated. Renunciation of the

state of wedlock was anyhow imposed on the faithful during the lengthy,

often lifelong, terms of penance imposed upon them for sins committed;

and later, when monkery took the place, in a church become worldly,

partly of the primitive baptism and partly of that rigorous penance

which was the rebaptism and medicine of the lapsed, celibacy and

virginity were held essential thereto, no less than renunciation of

property and money-making.

Together with the rage for virginity went the institution of _virgines

subintroductae_, or of spiritual wives; for it was often assumed that

the grace of baptism restored the original purity of life led by Adam

and Eve in common before the Fall. Such rigours are encouraged in the

_Shepherd of Hermas_, a book which emanated from Rome and up to the 4th

century was read in church. They were common in the African churches,

where they led to abuses which taxed the energy even of a Cyprian. They

were still rife in Antioch in 260. We detect them in the Celtic church

of St Patrick, and, as late as the 7th century, among the Celtic elders

of the north of France. In the Syriac church as late as 340, such

relations prevailed between the "Sons and daughters of the

Resurrection." It continued among the Albigenses and other dissident

sects of the middle ages, among whom it served a double purpose; for

their elders were thus not only able to prove their own chastity, but to

elude the inquisitors, who were less inclined to suspect a man of the

catharism which regarded marriage as the "greater adultery" (_maius

adulterium_) if they found him cohabiting (in appearance at least) with

a woman. There was hardly an early council, great or small, that did not

condemn this custom, as well as the other one, still more painful to

think of, of self-emasculation. In the Catholic church, however, common

sense prevailed, and those who desired to follow the Encratite ideal

repaired to the monasteries.

AUTHORITIES.--E.B. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_ (London, 1903);

Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_ (London, 1901); J.E.

Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_; F. Max Muller,

_The Sacred Books of the East_; Victor Henry, _La Magie dans l'Inde

antique_; J.G. Frazer, _The Golden Bough_ (London, 1900), and _Adonis,

Attis, Osiris_ (London, 1906); Georges Lafay, _Culte des divinites

d'Alexandrie_ (Paris, 1884); Dollinger, _Sectengeschichte des

Mittelalters_ (Munich, 1890); Fr. Cumont, _Mysteries of Mithra_

(Chicago, 1903); Zockler, _Gesch. der Ascese_ (1863). See also under

PURIFICATION. Goldziher, "De l'ascetisme aux premiers temps de

l'Islam," in _Revue de l'histoire des religions_ (1898), p. 314;

Muratori, _De Synisactis et Agapetis_ (Pavia, 1709); Jas. Martineau,

_Types of Ethical Theory_ (Oxford, 1885); T.H. Green, _Prolegomena to

Ethics_ (Oxford, 1883); Franz Cumont, _Les Religions orientales dans

le paganisme romain_ (Paris, 1907); Porphyrius, _De Abstinentia_;

Plutarchus, _De Carnium Esu_. (F. C. C.)

ASCHAFFENBURG, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, on the

right bank of the Main, at its confluence with the Aschaff, near the

foot of the Spessart, 26 m. by rail S.E. of Frankfort-On-Main. Pop.

(1900) 18,091; (1905) 25,275. Its chief buildings are the Johannisburg,

built (1605-1614) by Archbishop Schweikard of Cronberg, which contains a

library with a number of _incunabula_, a collection of engravings and

paintings; the _Stiftskirche_, or cathedral, founded in 980 by Otto of

Bavaria, but dating in the main from the early 12th and the 13th

centuries, in which are preserved various monuments by the Vischers, and

a sarcophagus, with the relics of St Margaret (1540); the Capuchin

hospital; a theatre, which was formerly the house of the Teutonic order;

and several mansions of the German nobility. The town, which has been

remarkable for its educational establishments since the 10th century,

has a gymnasium, lyceum, seminarium and other schools. There is an

archaeological museum in the old abbey buildings. The graves of Klemens

Brentano and his brother Christian (d. 1851) are in the churchyard; and

Wilhelm Heinse is buried in the town. Coloured and white paper,

ready-made clothing, cellulose, tobacco, lime and liqueurs are the chief

manufactures, while a considerable export trade is done down the Main in

wood, cattle and wine.

Aschaffenburg, called in the middle ages Aschafaburg and also Askenburg,

was originally a Roman settlement. The 10th and 23rd Roman legions had

their station here, and on the ruins of their _castrum_ the Frankish

mayors of the palace built a castle. Bonifacius erected a chapel to St

Martin, and founded a Benedictine monastery. A stone bridge over the

Main was built by Archbishop Willigis in 989. Adalbert increased the

importance of the town in various ways about 1122. In 1292 a synod was

held here, and in 1474 an imperial diet, preliminary to that of Vienna,

in which the concordat was decided which has therefore been sometimes

called the _Aschaffenburg Concordat_.

The town suffered greatly during the Thirty Years' War, being held in

turn by the various belligerents. In 1842-1849, King Louis built himself

to the west of the town a country house, called the _Pompeianum_, from

its being an imitation of the house of Castor and Pollux at Pompeii. In

1866 the Prussians inflicted a severe defeat on the Austrians in the

neighbourhood.

The principality of Aschaffenburg, deriving its name from the city,

comprehended an area of 654 English sq. m. It formed part of the

electorate of Mainz, and in 1803 was made over to the archchancellor,

Archbishop Charles of Dalberg. In 1806 it was annexed to the grand-duchy

of Frankfort; and in 1814 was transferred to Bavaria, in virtue of a

treaty concluded on the 19th of June between that power and Austria.

With lower Franconia, it now forms a district of the kingdom of Bavaria.

ASCHAM, ROGER (c. 1515-1568), English scholar and writer, was born at

Kirby Wiske, a village in the North Riding of Yorkshire, near

Northallerton, about the year 1515. His name would be more properly

spelt Askham, being derived, doubtless, from Askham in the West Riding.

He was the third son of John Ascham, steward to Lord Scrope of Bolton.

The family name of his mother Margaret is unknown, but she is said to

have been well connected. The authority for this statement, as for most

others concerning Ascham's early life, is Edward Grant, headmaster of

Westminster, who collected and edited his letters and delivered a

panegyrical oration on his life in 1576.

Ascham was educated not at school, but in the house of Sir Humphry

Wingfield, a barrister, and in 1533 speaker of the House of Commons, as

Ascham himself tells us, in the _Toxophilus_, p. 120 (not, as by a

mistake which originated with Grant and has been repeated ever since,

Sir Anthony Wingfield, who was nephew of the speaker). Sir Humphry

"ever loved and used to have many children brought up in his house,"

where they were under a tutor named R. Bond. Their sport was archery,

and Sir Humphry "himself would at term times bring down from London both

bows and shafts and go with them himself to the field and see them

shoot." Hence Ascham's earliest English work, the _Toxophilus_, the

importance which he attributed to archery in educational establishments,

and probably the provision for archery in the statutes of St Albans,

Harrow and other Elizabethan schools. From this private tuition Ascham

was sent "about 1530," at the age, it is said, of fifteen, to St John's

College, Cambridge, then the largest and most learned college in either

university. Here he fell under the influence of John Cheke, who was

admitted a fellow in Ascham's first year, and Sir Thomas Smith. His

guide and friend was Robert Pember, "a man of the greatest learning and

with an admirable facility in the Greek tongue." On his advice he

practised seriously the precept embodied in the saying, "I know nothing

about the subject, I have not even lectured on it," and "to learn Greek

more quickly, while still a boy, taught Greek to boys." In Latin he

specially studied Cicero and Caesar. He became B.A. on the 18th of

February 1534/5. Dr Nicholas Metcalfe was then master of the college, "a

papist, indeed, and yet if any young man given to the new learning as

they termed it, went beyond his fellows," he "lacked neither open

praise, nor private exhibition." He procured Ascham's election to a

fellowship, "though being a new bachelor of arts, I chanced among my

companions to speak against the Pope ... after grievous rebuke and some

punishment, open warning was given to all the fellows, none to be so

hardy, as to give me his voice at that election." The day of election

Ascham regarded as his "birthday," and "the whole foundation of the poor

learning I have and of all the furtherance that hitherto elsewhere I

have obtained." He took his M.A. degree on the 3rd of July 1537. He

stayed for some time at Cambridge taking pupils, among whom was William

Grindal, who in 1544 became tutor to Princess Elizabeth. Ascham himself

cultivated music, acquired fame for a beautiful handwriting, and

lectured on mathematics. Before 1540, when the Regius professorship of

Greek was established, Ascham "was paid a handsome salary to profess the

Greek tongue in public," and held also lectures in St John's College. He

obtained from Edward Lee, then archbishop of York, a pension of L2 a

year, in return for which Ascham translated Oecumenius' Commentaries on

the Pauline Epistles. But the archbishop, scenting heresy in some

passage relating to the marriage of the clergy, sent it back to him,

with a present indeed, but with something like a reprimand, to which

Ascham answered with an assurance that he was "no seeker after

novelties," as his lectures showed. He was on safer ground in writing in

1542-1543 a book, which he told Sir William Paget in the summer of 1544

was in the press, "on the art of Shooting." This was no doubt suggested

partly by the act of parliament 33 Henry VIII. c. 9, "an acte for

mayntenaunce of Artyllarie and debarringe of unlawful games," requiring

every one under sixty, of good health, the clergy, judges, &c.,

excepted, "to use shooting in the long bow," and fixing the price at

which bows were to be sold. Under the title of _Toxophilus_ he presented

it to Henry VIII. at Greenwich soon after his triumphant return from the

capture of Boulogne, and promptly received a grant of a pension of L10 a

year, equal to some L200 a year of our money. A novelty of the book was

that the author had "written this Englishe matter in the Englishe tongue

for Englishe men," though he thought it necessary to defend himself by

the argument that what "the best of the realm think it honest to use" he

"ought not to suppose it vile for him to write." It is a Platonic

dialogue between Toxophilus and Philologus, and nowadays its chief

interest lies in its incidental remarks. It may probably claim to have

been the model for Izaak Walton's _Compleat Angler._

From 1541, or earlier, Ascham acted as letter-writer to the university

and also to his college. Perhaps the best specimen of his skill was the

letter written to the protector Somerset in 1548 on behalf of Sedbergh

school, which was attached to St John's College by the founder, Dr

Lupton, in 1525, and the endowment of which had been confiscated under

the Chantries Act. In 1546 Ascham was elected public orator by the

university on Sir John Cheke's retirement.

Shortly after the beginning of the reign of Edward VI., Ascham made

public profession of Protestant opinions in a disputation on the

doctrine of the Mass, begun in his own college and then removed for

greater publicity to the public schools of the university, where it was

stopped by the vice-chancellor. Thereon Ascham wrote a letter of

complaint to Sir William Cecil. This stood him in good stead. In January

1548, Grindal, the princess Elizabeth's tutor, died. Ascham had already

corresponded with the princess, and in one of his letters says that he

returns her pen which he has mended. Through Cecil and at the princess's

own wish he was selected as her tutor against another candidate pressed

by Admiral Seymour and Queen Katherine. Ascham taught Elizabeth--then

sixteen years old--for two years, chiefly at Cheshunt. In a letter to

Sturm, the Strassburg schoolmaster, he praises her "beauty, stature,

wisdom and industry. She talks French and Italian as well as English:

she has often talked to me readily and well in Latin and moderately so

in Greek. When she writes Greek and Latin nothing is more beautiful than

her handwriting ... she read with me almost all Cicero and great part of

Titus Livius: for she drew all her knowledge of Latin from those two

authors. She used to give the morning to the Greek Testament and

afterwards read select orations of Isocrates and the tragedies of

Sophocles. To these I added St Cyprian and Melanchthon's Commonplaces."

In 1550 Ascham quarrelled with Elizabeth's steward and returned to

Cambridge. Cheke then procured him the secretaryship to Sir Richard

Morrison (Moryson), appointed ambassador to Charles V. It was on his way

to join Morrison that he paid his celebrated morning call on Lady Jane

Grey at Bradgate, where he found her reading Plato's _Phaedo_, while

every one else was out hunting.

The embassy went to Louvain, where he found the university very inferior

to Cambridge, then to Innsbruck and Venice. Ascham read Greek with the

ambassador four or five days a week. His letters during the embassy,

which was recalled on Mary's accession, were published in English in

1553, as a "Report" on Germany. Through Bishop Gardiner he was appointed

Latin secretary to Queen Mary with a pension of L20 a year. His

Protestantism he must have quietly sunk, though he told Sturm that "some

endeavoured to hinder the flow of Gardiner's benevolence on account of

his religion." Probably his never having been in orders tended to his

safety. On the 1st of June 1554 he married Margaret Howe, whom he

described as niece of Sir R. (? J., certainly not, as has been said,

Henry) Wallop. By her he had two sons. From his frequent complaints of

his poverty then and later, he seems to have lived beyond his income,

though, like most courtiers, he obtained divers lucrative leases of

ecclesiastical and crown property. In 1555 he resumed his studies with

Princess Elizabeth, reading in Greek the orations of Aeschines and

Demosthenes' _De Corona_. Soon after Elizabeth's accession, on the 5th

of October 1559, he was given, though a layman, the canonry and prebend

of Wetwang in York minster. In 1563 he began the work which has made him

famous, _The Scholemaster_. The occasion of it was, he tells us (though

he is perhaps merely imitating Boccaccio), that during the "great

plague" at London in 1563 the court was at Windsor, and there on the

10th of December he was dining with Sir William Cecil, secretary of

state, and other ministers. Cecil said he had "strange news; that divers

scholars of Eaton be run away from the schole for fear of beating"; and

expressed his wish that "more discretion was used by schoolmasters in

correction than commonly is." A debate took place, the party being

pretty evenly divided between floggers and anti-floggers, with Ascham as

the champion of the latter. Afterwards Sir Richard Sackville, the

treasurer, came up to Ascham and told him that "a fond schoolmaster"

had, by his brutality, made him hate learning, much to his loss, and as

he had now a young son, whom he wished to be learned, he offered, if

Ascham would name a tutor, to pay for the education of their respective

sons under Ascham's orders, and invited Ascham to write a treatise on

"the right order of teaching." _The Scholemaster_ was the result. It is

not, as might be supposed, a general treatise on educational method, but

"a plaine and perfite way of teachyng children to understand, write and

speake in Latin tong"; and it was not intended for schools, but

"specially prepared for the private brynging up of youth in gentlemen

and noblemens houses." The perfect way simply consisted in "the double

translation of a model book"; the book recommended by this professional

letter-writer being "Sturmius' _Select Letters of Cicero_." As a method

of learning a language by a single pupil, this method might be useful;

as a method of education in school nothing more deadening could be

conceived. The method itself seems to have been taken from Cicero. Nor

was the famous plea for the substitution of gentleness and persuasion

for coercion and flogging in schools, which has been one of the main

attractions of the book, novel. It was being practised and preached at

that very time by Christopher Jonson (c. 1536-1597) at Winchester; it

had been enforced at length by Wolsey in his statutes for his Ipswich

College in 1528, following Robert Sherborne, bishop of Chichester, in

founding Rolleston school; and had been repeatedly urged by Erasmus and

others, to say nothing of William of Wykeham himself in the statutes of

Winchester College in 1400. But Ascham's was the first definite

demonstration in favour of humanity in the vulgar tongue and in an easy

style by a well-known "educationist," though not one who had any actual

experience as a schoolmaster. What largely contributed to its fame was

its picture of Lady Jane Grey, whose love of learning was due to her

finding her tutor a refuge from pinching, ear-boxing and bullying

parents; some exceedingly good criticisms of various authors, and a

spirited defence of English as a vehicle of thought and literature, of

which it was itself an excellent example. The book was not published

till after Ascham's death, which took place on the 23rd of December

1568, owing to a chill caught by sitting up all night to finish a New

Year's poem to the queen.

His letters were collected and published in 1576, and went through

several editions, the latest at Nuremberg in 1611; they were re-edited

by William Elstob in 1703. His English works were edited by James

Bennett with a life by Dr Johnson in 1771, reprinted in 8vo in 1815.

Dr Giles in 1864-1865 published in 4 vols. select letters with the

_Toxophilus_ and _Scholemaster_ and the life by Edward Grant. _The

Scholemaster_ was reprinted in 1571 and 1589. It was edited by the

Rev. J. Upton in 1711 and in 1743, by Prof. J.E.B. Mayor in 1863, and

by Prof. Edward Arber in 1870. The _Toxophilus_ was republished in

1571, 1589 and 1788, and by Prof. Edward Arber in 1868 and 1902.

(A. F. L.)

ASCHERSLEBEN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Saxony, 36

m. by rail N.W. from Halle, and at the junction of lines to Cothen and

Nienhagen. Pop. (1900) 27,245; (1905) 27,876. It contains one Roman

Catholic and four Protestant churches, a synagogue, a fine town-hall

dating from the 16th century, and several schools. The discovery of coal

in the neighbourhood stimulated and altered its industries. In addition

to the manufacture of woollen wares, for which it has long been known,

there is now extensive production of vinegar, paraffin, potash and

especially beetroot-sugar; while the surrounding district, which was

formerly devoted in great part to market-gardening, is now turned almost

entirely into beetroot fields. There are also iron, zinc and chemical

manufactures, and the cultivation of agricultural seeds is carried on.

In the neighbourhood are brine springs and a spa (Wilhelmsbad).

Aschersleben was probably founded in the 11th century by Count Esico of

Ballenstedt, the ancestor of the house of Anhalt, whose grandson, Otto,

called himself count of Ascania and Aschersleben, deriving the former

part of the title from his castle in the neighbourhood of the town. On

the death of Otto III. (1315) Aschersleben passed into the hands of the

bishop of Halberstadt, and at the peace of 1648 was, with the bishopric,

united to Brandenburg.

ASCIANO, a town of Tuscany, in the province of Siena, 19 m. S.E. of the

town of Siena by rail. Pop. (1901) 7618. It is surrounded by walls built

by the Sienese in 1351, and has some 14th-century churches with

paintings of the same period. Six miles to the south is the large

Benedictine monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, founded in 1320, famous

for the frescoes by Luca Signorelli (1497-1498) and Antonio Bazzi,

called Sodoma (1505), in the cloister, illustrating scenes from the

legend of St Benedict; the latter master's work is perhaps nowhere

better represented than here. The church contains fine inlaid choir

stalls by Fra Giovanni da Verona. The buildings, which are mostly of red

brick, are conspicuous against the gray clayey and sandy soil. The

monastery is described by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II.) in

his _Commentaria_. Remains of Roman baths, with a fine mosaic pavement,

were found within the town in 1898 (G. Pellegrini in _Notizie degli

scavi_, 1899, 6).

ASCITANS (or ASCITAE; from [Greek: askos], the Greek for a wine-skin), a

peculiar sect of 2nd-century Christians (Montanists), who introduced the

practice of dancing round a wine-skin at their meetings.

ASCITES, ([Greek: askitaes] dropsical, from [Greek: askosaskos] _sc_.

[Greek: nosos] disease), the term in medicine applied to an effusion of

non-inflammatory fluid within the peritoneum. It is not a disease in

itself, but is one of the manifestations of disease elsewhere--usually

in the kidneys, heart, or in connexion with the liver (portal

obstruction). Portal obstruction is the commonest cause of well-marked

ascites. It is produced by (1) diseases within the liver, as cirrhosis

(usually alcoholic) and cancer; (2) diseases outside the liver, as

cancer of stomach, duodenum or pancreas, causing pressure on the portal

vein, or enlarged glands in the fissure of the liver producing the same

effect. Ascites is one of the late symptoms in the disease, and precedes

dropsy of the leg, which may come on later, due to pressure on the large

veins in the abdominal cavity by the ascitic fluid. In ascites due to

heart disease, the dropsy of the feet and legs precedes the ascites, and

there will be a history of palpitation, shortness of breath, and perhaps

cough. In the ascites of kidney troubles there will be a history of

general oedema--puffiness of face and eyes on rising in the morning

probably having attracted the attention of the patient or his friends

previously. Other less common causes of ascites are chronic peritonitis,

either tuberculous in the young, or due to cancer in the aged, and more

rarely still pernicious anaemia.

ASCLEPIADES, Greek physician, was born at Prusa in Bithynia in 124 B.C.,

and flourished at Rome in the end of the 2nd century B.C. He travelled

much when young, and seems at first to have settled at Rome as a

rhetorician. In that profession he did not succeed, but he acquired

great reputation as a physician. He founded his medical practice on a

modification of the atomic or corpuscular theory, according to which

disease results from an irregular or inharmonious motion of the

corpuscles of the body. His remedies were, therefore, directed to the

restoration of harmony, and he trusted much to changes of diet,

accompanied by friction, bathing and exercise, though he also employed

emetics and bleeding. He recommended the use of wine, and in every way

strove to render himself as agreeable as possible to his patients. His

pupils were very numerous, and the school formed by them was called the

Methodical. Asclepiades died at an advanced age.

ASCLEPIADES, of Samos, epigrammatist and lyric poet, friend of

Theocritus, flourished about 270 B.C. He was the earliest and most

important of the convivial and erotic epigrammatists. Only a few of his

compositions are actual "inscriptions"; others sing the praises of the

poets whom he specially admired, but the majority of them are

love-songs. It is doubtful whether he is the author of all the epigrams

(some 40 in number) which bear his name in the Greek Anthology. He

possibly gave his name to the Asclepiadean metre.

ASCLEPIODOTUS, Greek military writer, flourished in the 1st century B.C.

Nothing is known of him except that he was a pupil of Poseidonius the

Stoic (d. 51 B.C.). He is the supposed author of a treatise on

Graeco-Macedonian tactics ([Greek: Taktika Kephalaia]), which, however,

is probably not his own work, but the skeleton outline of the lectures

delivered by his master, who is known to have written a work on the

subject.

ASCOLI, GRAZIADIO ISAIA (1820-1907), Italian philologist; of Jewish

family, was born at Gorz at an early age showed a marked linguistic

talent. In 1854 he published his _Studii orientali e linguistici_, and

in 1860 was appointed professor of philology at Milan. He made various

learned contributions to the study of Indo-European and Semitic

languages, and also of the gipsy language, but his special field was the

Italian dialects. He founded the _Archivio glottologico italiano_ in

1873, publishing in it his _Saggi Ladini_, and making it in succeeding

years the great organ of original scholarship on this subject. He was

universally recognized as the greatest authority on Italian linguistics,

and his article in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (9th ed., revised for

this edition) became the classic exposition in English. (See ITALY:

_Language_.)

ASCOLI PICENO[1] (anc. _Ausculum_) a town and episcopal see of the

Marches, Italy, the capital of the province of Ascoli Piceno, 17 m. W.

of Porto d' Ascoli (a station on the coast railway, 56 m. S.S.E. of

Ancona), and 53 m. S. of Ancona direct, situated on the S. bank of the

Tronto (anc. _Truentus_) at its confluence with the Castellano, 500 ft.

above sea-level, and surrounded by lofty mountains. Pop. (1901) town,

12,256; commune, 28,608. The Porta Romana is a double-arched Roman gate;

adjacent are remains of the massive ancient city walls, in rectangular

blocks of stone 2 ft. in height, and remains of still earlier

fortifications have been found at this point (F. Barnabei in _Notizie

degli scavi_, 1887, 252). The church of S. Gregorio is built into a

Roman tetrastyle Corinthian temple, two columns of which and the _cella_

are still preserved; the site of the Roman theatre can be distinguished;

and the church and convent of the Annunziata (with two fine cloisters

and a good fresco by Cola d' Amatrice in the refectory) are erected upon

large Roman substructures of concrete, which must have supported some

considerable building. Higher up is the castle, which now shows no

traces of fortifications older than medieval; it commands a fine view of

the town and of the mountains which encircle it. The town has many good

pre-Renaissance buildings; the picturesque colonnaded market-place

contains the fine Gothic church of S. Francesco and the original Palazzo

del Comune, now the prefecture (Gothic with Renaissance additions). The

cathedral is in origin Romanesque,[2] but has been much altered, and was

stored in 1888 by Count Giuseppe Sacconi (1855-1905). The frescoes in

the dome, of the same date, are by Cesare Mariani. The cope presented to

the cathedral treasury by Pope Nicholas IV. was stolen in 1904, and sold

to Mr J. Pierpont Morgan, who generously returned it to the Italian

government, and it was then placed for greater safety in the Galleria

Corsini at Rome. The baptistery still preserves its ancient character;

and the churches of S. Vittore and SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio are also

good Romanesque buildings. The fortress of the Malatesta, constructed in

1349, has been in the main destroyed; the part of it which remains is

now a prison. The present Palazzo Comunale, a Renaissance edifice,

contains a fine museum, chiefly remarkable for the contents of

prehistoric tombs found in the district (including good bronze fibulae,

necklaces, amulets, &c., often decorated with amber), and a large

collection of acorn-shaped lead missiles (_glandes_) used by slingers,

belonging to the time of the siege of Asculum during the Social War (89

B.C.). There is also a picture gallery containing works by local

masters, Pietro Alamanni, Cola d' Amatrice, Carlo Crivelli, &c. The

bridges across the ravines which defend the town are of considerable

importance; the Ponte di Porta Cappucina is a very fine Roman bridge,

with a single arch of 71 ft. span. The Ponte di Cecco (so named from

Cecco d' Ascoli), with two arches, is also Roman and belongs to the Via

Salaria; the Ponte Maggiore and the Ponte Cartaro are, on the other

hand, medieval, though the latter perhaps preserves some traces of Roman

work. Near Ascoli is Castel Trosino, where an extensive Lombard

necropolis of the 7th century was discovered in 1895; the contents of

the tombs are now exhibited in the Museo Nazionale delle Terme at Rome

(_Notizie degli scavi_, 1895, 35).

The ancient Asculum was the capital of Picenum, and it occupied a strong

position in the centre of difficult country. It was taken in 268 B.C. by

the Romans, and the Via Salaria was no doubt prolonged thus far at this

period; the distance from Rome is 120 m. It took a prominent part in the

Social War against Rome, the proconsul Q. Servilius and all the Roman

citizens within its walls being massacred by the inhabitants in 90 B.C.

It was captured after a long siege by Pompeius Strabo in 89 B.C. The

leader, Judacilius, committed suicide, the principal citizens were put

to death, and the rest exiled. The Roman general celebrated his triumph

on the 25th of December of that year. Caesar occupied it, however, as a

strong position after crossing the Rubicon; and it received a Roman

colony, perhaps under the triumvirs, and became a place of some

importance. In A.D. 301 it became the capital of Picenum Suburbicarium.

In 545 it was taken by Totila, but is spoken of by Paulus Diaconus as

the chief city of Picenum shortly afterwards. From the time of

Charlemagne it was under the rule of its bishops, who had the title of

prince and the right to coin money, until 1185, when it became a free

republic. It had many struggles with Fermo, and in the 15th century came

more directly under the papal sway.

See N. Persichetti in _Romische Mitteilungen_ (1903), 295 seq. (T.

As.)