[1] O. Gruppe (_Griechische Mythologie_, ii. p. 1194) thinks that it
probably means "without mother's milk," either in an active or in a
passive sense "not giving suck," or "unsuckled," in her character as
the virgin goddess, or as springing from the head of Zeus. In support
of this view he refers to Hesychius [Greek: thaenion gala] and a
passage in Athenagoras (_Legatio pro Christianis_, 17), where it is
stated that Athena was sometimes called [Greek: Athela] or [Greek:
Athele]. For Pallas, he prefers the old etymology from [Greek: palla]
(to "shake"), rather in the sense of "earth-shaker" than
"lance-brandisher."
[2] According to J.E. Harrison in Classical Review (June 1894),
Athena Ergane is the goddess of the fruits of the field and the
procreation of children.
ATHENAEUM, a name originally applied in ancient Greece ([Greek:
Athaenaion]) to buildings dedicated to Athena, and specially used as the
designation of a temple in Athens, where poets and men of learning were
accustomed to meet and read their productions. The academy for the
promotion of learning which the emperor Hadrian built (about A.D. 135)
at Rome, near the Forum, was also called the Athenaeum. Poets and
orators still met and discussed there, but regular courses of
instruction were given by a staff of professors in rhetoric,
jurisprudence, grammar and philosophy. The institution, later called
Schola Romana, continued in high repute till the 5th century. Similar
academies were also founded in the provinces and at Constantinople by
the emperor Theodosius II. In modern times the name has been applied to
various academies, as those of Lyons and Marseilles, and the Dutch high
schools; and it has become a very general designation for literary
clubs. It is also familiar as the title of several literary periodicals,
notably of the London literary weekly founded in 1828.
ATHENAEUS, of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian,
flourished about the end of the 2nd and the beginning of the 3rd century
A.D. Suidas only tells us that he lived "in the times of Marcus"; but
the contempt with which he speaks of Commodus (died 192) shows that he
survived that emperor. Athenaeus himself states that he was the author
of a treatise on the _thratta_--a kind of fish mentioned by Archippus
and other comic poets--and of a history of the Syrian kings, both of
which works are lost. We still possess the _Deipnosophistae_, which may
mean dinner-table philosophers or authorities on banquets, in fifteen
books. The first two books, and parts of the third, eleventh and
fifteenth, are only extant in epitome, but otherwise we seem to possess
the work entire. It is an immense storehouse of miscellaneous
information, chiefly on matters connected with the table, but also
containing remarks on music, songs, dances, games, courtesans. It is
full of quotations from writers whose works have not come down to us;
nearly 800 writers and 2500 separate writings are referred to by
Athenaeus; and he boasts of having read 800 plays of the Middle Comedy
alone. The plan of the _Deipnosophistae_ is exceedingly cumbrous, and is
badly carried out. It professes to be an account given by the author to
his friend Timocrates of a banquet held at the house of Laurentius (or
Larentius), a scholar and wealthy patron of art. It is thus a dialogue
within a dialogue, after the manner of Plato, but a conversation of
sufficient length to occupy several days (though represented as taking
place in one) could not be conveyed in a style similar to the short
conversations of Socrates. Among the twenty-nine guests are Galen and
Ulpian, but they are all probably fictitious personages, and the
majority take no part in the conversation. If Ulpian is identical with
the famous jurist, the _Deipnosophistae_ must have been written after
his death (228); but the jurist was murdered by the praetorian guards,
whereas Ulpian in Athenaeus dies a natural death. The conversation
ranges from the dishes before the guests to literary matters of every
description, including points of grammar and criticism; and they are
expected to bring with them extracts from the poets, which are read
aloud and discussed at table. The whole is but a clumsy apparatus for
displaying the varied and extensive reading of the author. As a work of
art it can take but a low rank, but as a repertory of fragments and
morsels of information it is invaluable.
Editio princeps, Aldine, 1524; Casaubon, 1597-1600; Schweighauser,
1801-1807; Dindorf, 1827; Meineke, 1859-1867; Kaibel, 1887-1890;
English translation by Yonge in Bohn's _Classical Library_.
ATHENAGORAS, a Christian apologist of the 2nd century A.D., was,
according to an emendator of the Paris Codex 451 of the 11th century, a
native of Athens. The only sources of information regarding him are a
short notice by Philip of Side, in Pamphylia (c. A.D. 420), and the
inscription on his principal work. Philip--or rather the compiler who
made excerpts from him--says that he was at the head of an Alexandrian
school (the catechetical), that he lived in the time of Hadrian and
Antoninus, to whom he addressed his _Apology_, and that Clement of
Alexandria was his pupil; but these statements are more than doubtful.
The inscription on the work describes it as the "Embassy of Athenagoras,
the Athenian, a philosopher and a Christian concerning the Christians,
to the Emperors Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus,
&c." This statement has given rise to considerable discussion, but from
it and internal evidence the date of the _Apology_ ([Greek: Presbeia
peri Christianon]) may be fixed at about A.D. 177. Athenagoras is also
the author of a discourse on the resurrection of the body, which is not
authenticated otherwise than by the titles on the various manuscripts.
In the _Apology_, after contrasting the judicial treatment of Christians
with that of other accused persons, he refutes the accusations brought
against the Christians of atheism, eating human flesh and
licentiousness, and in doing so takes occasion to make a vigorous and
skilful attack on pagan polytheism and mythology. The discourse on the
resurrection answers objections to the doctrine, and attempts to prove
its truth from considerations of God's purpose in the creation of man,
His justice and the nature of man himself. Athenagoras is a powerful and
clear writer, who strives to comprehend his opponents' views and is
acquainted with the classical writers. He used the _Apology_ of Justin,
but hardly the works of Aristides or Tatian. His theology is strongly
tinged with Platonism, and this may account for his falling into
desuetude. His discussion of the Trinity has some points of speculative
interest, but it is not sufficiently worked out; he regards the Son as
the Reason or Wisdom of the Father, and the Spirit as a divine
effluence. On some other points, as the nature of matter, the
immortality of the soul and the principle of sin, his views are
interesting.
EDITIONS.--J.C. Th. Eg. de Otto, _Corpus Apol. Christ. Saec._ II. vol.
vii. (Jena, 1857); E. Schwartz in _Texte und Untersuchungen_, iv. 2
(Leipzig, 1891).
TRANSLATIONS.--Humphreys (London, 1714); B.P. Pratten (_Ante-Nic.
Fathers_, Edinburgh, 1867).
LITERATURE.--A. Harnack, _Gesch. der altchr. Litt._ pp. 526-558, and
similar works by O. Bardenhewer and A. Ehrhard; Herzog-Hauck,
_Realencyk._; G. Kruger, _Early Chr. Lit._ p. 130 (where additional
literature is cited). In 1559 and 1612 appeared in French a work on
_True and Perfect Love_, purporting to be a translation from the Greek
of Athenagoras; it is a palpable forgery.
ATHENODORUS, the name of two Stoic philosophers of the 1st century B.C.,
who have frequently been confounded.
1. ATHENODORUS CANANITES (c. 74 B.C.-A.D. 7), so called from his
birthplace Canana near Tarsus (not Cana in Cilicia nor Canna in
Lycaonia), was the son of one Sandon, whose name indicates Tarsian
descent, not Jewish as many have held. He was a personal friend of
Strabo, from whom we derive our knowledge of his life. He taught the
young Octavian (afterwards Augustus) at Apollonia, and was a pupil of
Posidonius at Rhodes. Subsequently he appears to have travelled in the
East (Petra and Egypt) and to have made himself famous by lecturing in
the great cities of the Mediterranean. Writing in 50 B.C., Cicero speaks
of him with the highest respect (cf. _Ep. ad. Att._, xvi. 11. 4, 14. 4),
a fact which enables us to fix the date of his birth as not later than
about 74. His influence over Augustus was strong and lasting. He
followed him to Rome in 44, and is said to have criticized him with the
utmost candour, bidding him repeat the letters of the alphabet before
acting on an angry impulse. In later years he was allowed by Augustus to
return to Tarsus in order to remodel the constitution of the city after
the degenerate democracy which had misgoverned it under Boethus. He
succeeded (c. 15-10 B.C.) in setting up a timocratic oligarchy in the
imperial interest (see TARSUS). Sir W.M. Ramsay is inclined to attribute
to the influence of Athenodorus the striking resemblances which can be
established between Seneca and Paul, the latter of whom must certainly
have been acquainted with his teachings. According to Eusebius and
Strabo he was a learned scientist for his day, and some attribute to him
a history of Tarsus. He helped Cicero in the composition of the _De
Officiis_. His works are not certainly known, and none are extant. (See
Sir W.M. Ramsay in the _Expositor_, September 1906, pp. 268 ff.)
2. ATHENODORUS CORDYLION, also of Tarsus, was keeper of the library at
Pergamum, and was an old man in 47 B.C. In his enthusiasm for Stoicism
he used to cut out from Stoic writings passages which seemed to him
unsatisfactory. He also settled in Rome, where he died in the house of
the younger Cato.
Among others of the name may be mentioned (3) ATHENODORUS OF TEOS, who
played the cithara at the wedding of Alexander the Great and Statira
at Susa (324 B.C.); (4) a Greek physician of the 1st century A.D., who
wrote on epidemic diseases; and two sculptors, of whom (5) one
executed the statues of Apollo and Zeus which the Spartans dedicated
at Delphi after Aegospotami; and (6) the other was a son of Alexander
of Rhodes, whom he helped in the Laocoon group.
ATHENRY, a market town of county Galway, Ireland, 14 m. inland (E.) from
Galway on the Midland Great Western main line. Pop. (1901) 853. Its name
is derived from _Ath-na-riogh_, the ford of kings; and it grew to
importance after the Anglo-Norman invasion as the first town of the
Burgs and Berminghams. The walls were erected in 1211 and the castle in
1238, and the remains of both are noteworthy. A Dominican monastery was
founded with great magnificence by Myler de Bermingham in 1241, and was
repaired by the Board of Works in 1893. Of the Franciscan monastery of
1464 little is left. The town returned two members to the Irish
parliament from the time of Richard II. to the Union; but it never
recovered from the wars of the Tudor period, culminating in a successful
siege by Red Hugh O'Donnell in 1596.
ATHENS [[Greek: Athaenai], _Athenae_, modern colloquial Greek [Greek:
Athaena]], the capital of the kingdom of Greece, situated in 23 deg. 44'
E. and 37 deg. 58' N., towards the southern end of the central and
principal plain of Attica. The various theories with regard to the
origin of the name are all somewhat unconvincing; it is conceivable
that, with the other homonymous Greek towns, such as Athenae Diades in
Euboea, [Greek: Athaenai] may be connected etymologically with [Greek:
anthos], a flower (cf. _Firenze_, Florence); the patron goddess, Athena,
was probably called after the place of her cult.