Chapter LXXVI: Act 1903: , the powers and duties of the Board of Trade under the (1)
Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Acts, the Sea Fisheries Regulation Acts and other acts relating to the industry of fishing, were transferred from that department to the Board of Agriculture, and its name was changed to its present form. The Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland covers much the same ground. The Annual report of the proceedings of the Board of Agriculture under the Tithe and other Acts for 1902 contains a full account of its powers and duties.
In the British colonies the interests of agriculture are looked after in New South Wales, by an under-secretary for mines and agriculture; in Victoria, by a member of the executive council who holds the portfolio of lands and agriculture; in Queensland, by an under-secretary for agriculture; in New Zealand, by a minister for lands and agriculture; in Canada (see, for more detail, the article Canada, Canadian Agriculture), by a minister for agriculture (the various provinces have also departments of agriculture). The government of India has a secretary of revenue and agriculture. Cape Colony has a secretary for agriculture, a member of the cabinet; in the Transvaal Colony the director of agriculture is a departmental secretary; in Natal, the minister for agriculture is a member of the executive council, and the establishment consists, in addition, of a secretary, a director of agriculture, an entomologist, a dairy expert and a conservator of forests. Cyprus has a director of agriculture.
United States--The Department of Agriculture dates its rank as an executive department from 1889. It was first established as a department in 1862, ranking as a bureau, with a commissioner in charge. In addition to the commissioner there were appointed a statistician, chemist, entomologist and superintendent of a propagatory and experimental farm. Its scope was then somewhat limited, but its work was gradually enlarged by the appointment of a botanist in 1868, a microscopist in 1871, the creation of a forestry department in 1877, a bureau of animal industry in 1884 and the establishment of agricultural experiment stations throughout the country in 1887. In 1889 the department became an executive department, the principal official being designated Secretary of Agriculture, with a seat in the president's cabinet. His salary is $8000 a year. The secretary is now charged with the supervision of all business relating to the agricultural and productive industries. The fisheries have a separate bureau, and the public lands and mining interests are cared for in the Department of the Interior; but with these exceptions, all the productive interests are looked after by the Department of Agriculture. The department now comprises (1) the weather bureau, which has charge of the forecasting of weather; the issue of storm warnings; the display of weather and flood signals for the benefit of agriculture, commerce and navigation; the gauging and reporting of rivers; the reporting of temperature and rainfall conditions for the cotton, rice, sugar and other interests; the display of frost and cold waves signals; and the distribution of meteorological information in the interest of agriculture and commerce; (2) the bureau of animal industry, which makes investigations as to the existence of contagious pleuro-pneumonia and other dangerous and communicable diseases of live stock, superintends the measures for their extirpation, makes original investigations as to the nature and prevention of such diseases, and reports on the conditions and means of improving the animal industries of the country; (3) the bureau of plant industry, which studies plant life in all its relations to agriculture. Its work is classified under the general subjects of pathological investigations, physiological investigations, taxonomic investigations, agronomic investigations, horticultural investigations and seed and plant introduction investigations; (4) the forest service, which is occupied with experiments, investigations and reports dealing with the subject of forestry, and with the dissemination of information upon forestry matters; (5) the bureau of chemistry, which investigates methods proposed for the analysis of plants, fertilizers and agricultural products, and makes such analyses as pertain in general to the interests of agriculture; (6) the bureau of soils, which is entrusted with the investigation, survey and mapping of soils; the investigation of the cause and prevention of the rise of alkali in the soil and the drainage of soils; and the investigation of the methods of growing, curing and fermentation of tobacco in the different tobacco districts; (7) the bureau of entomology, which obtains and disseminates information regarding insects injurious to vegetation; (8) the bureau of biological survey, which studies the geographic distribution of animals and plants, and maps the natural life zones of the country; it also investigates the economic relations of birds and mammals, and recommends measures for the preservation of beneficial, and the destruction of injurious, species; (9) the division of accounts and disbursements; (10) the division of publications; (11) the bureau of statistics, which collects information as to the condition, prospects and harvests of the principal crops, and of the number and status of farm animals. It records, tabulates and co-ordinates statistics of agricultural production, distribution and consumption, and issues monthly and annual crop reports for the information of producers and consumers. The section of foreign markets makes investigations and disseminates information concerning the feasibility of extending the demands of foreign markets for the agricultural products of the United States; the bureau also makes investigations of land tenures, cost of producing farm products, country life education, transportation and other lines of rural economies; (12) the library; (13) the office of experiment stations which represents the department in its relations to the experiment stations which are now in operation in all the states; it collects and disseminates general information regarding agricultural schools, colleges, stations, and publishes accounts of agricultural investigations at home and abroad; it also indicates lines of inquiry for the stations, aids in the conduct of co-operative experiments, reports upon their expenditures and work, and in general furnishes them with such advice and assistance as will best promote the purposes for which they were established; it conducts investigations relative to irrigation and drainage; (14) the office of public roads, which collects information concerning systems of road management, conducts investigations regarding the best method of road-making, and prepares publications on this subject.
In the following countries there are state departments of agriculture:---Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, (industry, agriculture and public works), Bulgaria (commerce and agriculture), Denmark, France, Norway (agriculture and public accounts), Italy, Japan (agriculture and commerce), Prussia (agriculture, woods and forests), Russia (agriculture and crown domains), Sweden.
AGRIGENTUM (Gr. `Akragas mod. Girgenti (q.v.)), an ancient city on the south coastof Sicily, 2 1/2m. from the sea. It was founded (perhaps on the site of an early Sicanian settlement) by colonists from Gela about 582 B.C., and, though the lastest city of importance founded by the Greeks in Sicily, soon acquired a position second to that of Syracuse alone, owing to its favourable situation for trade with Carthage and to the fertility of its territory. Pindar (Pyth. xii. 2) calls it kallista brotean polion. The buildings for which it is famous all belong to the first two centuries of its existence. Phalaris, who is said to have roasted his enemies to death in a brazen bull (Pindar, Pyth.. i. 184), ruled as tyrant from 570 to 554. What form of government was established after his fall is uncertain; we know only that, after a long interval, Theron became tyrant (488-473); but his son Thrasydaeus was expelled after an unsuccessful war with Hiero in 472 and a democracy established. In the struggle between Syracuse and Athens (415-413) the city remained absolutely neutral. Its prosperity continued to increase (its population is given at over 200,000) until in 405 B.C., despite the help of the Siceliot cities, it was captured and plundered by the Carthaginians, a blow from which it never entirely re-covered. It was colonized by Timoleon in 338 B.C. with settlers from Veha in Lucania, and in the time of the tyrant Phintias (289-279) it had regained some of its power. In the First Punic War, however, it was sacked by the Romans (261) and the Carthaginians (255), and finally in the Second Punic War by the Romans (210). But it still retained its importance as a trading and agricultural centre, even in the Roman period, exporting not only agricultural products but textile fabrics and sulphur. In the local museum are tiles used for stamping cakes of sulphur, which show that the mines, at any rate from the 3rd century, were imperial property leased to contractors.
The site is one of great natural strength and remarkable beauty, though quite unlike that of other Greek cities in Sicily. The northern portion of it consists of a lofty ridge with two summits, the westernmost of which is occupied by the modern town (985 ft.), while the easternmost, which is slightly higher, bears the name of Rock of Athena, owing to its identification in modern days with the acropolis of Acragas as described by Polybius, who places upon it the temple of Zeus Atabyrius (the erection of which was attributed to the half mythical Phalaris) and that of Athena.1 It must be confessed that the available space (about 70 X 20 yds.) on the eastern summit (where there are some remains of ancient buildings) is so small that there would be only room for a single temple, which must have been occupied by the two deities jointly, if the new theory is correct (see Notizie degli scavi, 1902, 387 and reff.). In the modern town, on the other hand, the remains of one temple are to be seen in the church of S. Maria dei Greci, while the other is generally supposed to have occupied the site of the cathedral, though no traces of it are visible. But whichever of these two summits was the acropolis proper2 it is certain that both were included in the circuit of the city walls. On the north both summits are defended by cliffs; on the south the ground slopes away somewhat abruptly from the eastern summit towards the plateau on which the town stood, while the western summit is separated from this plateau by a valley traversed by a branch of the Hypsas [mod. drago], the deep ravine of which forms the western boundary and defence of the city. On the east of the city is the valley of the Acragas [Fiume S. Biagio], from which the city took its name and which, though shallower than that of the Hypsas, still affords a sufficient obstacle to attack, and the two unite a little way to the south of the town; at the mouth was the ancient harbour, small and now abandoned.
The most famous remains of the ancient city are the temples, the most important of which form a row along the low cliffs at the south end of the city. All are built in the Doric style, of the local porous stone, which is of a warm red brown colour, full of fossil shells and easily corroded when exposed to the air. It should be noted that their traditional names, with the exception of that of Zeus and that of Asclepius, have no foundation in fact, while the attribution of the temple in antis, into the cella of which the church of S. Biagio has been built, is uncertain.3 They are described in R. Koldewey and O. Puchstein, Die griechishen Tempel in Unteritalien und Sicilien (Berlin, 1890), 138-184. Of all these temples the oldest is probably that of Heracles, while the best preserved are those of Hera and Concordia, which are very similar in dimensions; the latter, indeed, lacks nothing but its roof, owing its preservation to its conversion into the cathedral in 597 by Gregory II., bishop of Girgenti. Both temples belong to the best period of the Doric style and are among the finest in existence. In front of the former, as in front of those of Heracles and Zeus, stood a huge altar for burnt offerings, as long as the facade of the temple itself. The cella of the temple of Heracles underwent considerable modifications in Roman times, and the discovery in it of a statue of Asclepius seems to show that the cult of this deity superseded the original one.
In the colossal temple of Zeus the huge Atlantes (figures of Atlas), 25 ft. in height, are noticeable. They seem to have stood in the intercolumniations half-way up the outside wall and to have supported the epistyle. The collapse both of this temple and of that of Heracles must be attributed to an earthquake; many fallen blocks of the former were removed in 1756 for the construction of the harbour of Porto Empedocle. The four columns erected on the site of the temple of Castor and Pollux are a modern (and incorrect) restoration in which portions of two buildings have been used. Of that of Hephaestus only two columns remain, while of that of Asclepius, a mile to the south of the town, an anta and two pillars are preserved. It was in the latter temple that the statue of the god by Myron stood; it had probably been carried off to Carthage, was given to the temple by P. Scipio Africanus from the spoils of that city and aroused the cupidity of Verres.
The other remains within the city walls are of surprisingly small importance; near the picturesque church of S. Nicolo is the so-called Oratory of Phalaris, a shrine of the 2nd century B.C., 27 1/4 ft. long (including the porch) by 23 1/3 ft. wide; and not far off on the east is a large private house with white tesselated pavements, probably pre-Roman in origin but slightly altered in the Roman period (R. P. Jones and E. A. Gardner in JOURNAL OF HELLENIC STUDIES, xxvi., 1906, 207). Foundations of other buildings are to be seen in other parts of the site, but of little interest. The huge fishpond, spoken of by Diodorus as being 7 stadia in circumference (xi. 25), is to be seen at the south-west corner of the city; it is an enormous excavation in the rock with drains in its sides, at the bottom of which there is now a flourishing orange garden.
Demeter Hera Con-
(Acragas?) Lacinia. cordia. Heracles. Zeus.
Length excluding
steps4 90? 125 129 1/4 220 361
Breadth 40 1/2 55 1/2 55 1/2 83 173 1/2
Length of cella .. 93 96 1/4 156 332
Breadth of cella .. 32 1/2 31 1/2 45 3/4 144 1/4
Height of columns
with capital .. 21 22 33 62 1/2?
Diameter of
columns at
bottom .. 4 1/2 4 1/2 6 1/2 14
Original number
of columns .. 34 34 38 38
Class In antis. Perip- Perip- Perip- Pseudo
teros teros teros Peripteros
hexa- hexa- hexa- hexa-
stylos. stylos. stylos. stylos.
Approximate date 450 B.C. 480-440 440-420 500 B.C. 450 B.C.
B.C. B.C.
Unnamed
Castor near Castor
and and Hephae-
Pollux. Pollux. scus. Asclepius. Athena.
Length excluding
steps (1) .. .. .. .. ..
Breadth .. 67 1/4 57 1/2 30 1/2 45
Length of cella 91 .. .. .. ..
Breadth of cella 33 .. .. .. ..
Height of columns
with capital 19 1/2 .. .. .. ..
Diameter of
columns at
bottom 4 .. 5 3 1/3 4 2/3
Original number
of columns 34 .. .. .. ..
Class Perip- .. Perip- Prostylos Perip-
teros teros pseudo teros
hexa- hexa- perip-
stylos. stylos. teros.
Approximate date 338-210. .. after 338 before 210 488-472
B.C. B.C. B.C. B.C. B.C.
The line of the city walls can be distinctly traced for most of the circuit, but the actual remains of them are inconsiderable. On the east and west the ravines already mentioned afforded, in the main, a sufficient protection, so that a massive wall was unnecessary, while near the south-eastern angle a breastwork was formed by the excavation of the natural rock,5 which in later times was honeycombed with tombs. E. A. Freeman attributes the southern portion of the walls to Theron (Hist. of Sic. ii. 224), but the question depends upon the date of the temple of Heracles; and if Koldewey and Puchstein are right in dating it so early as 500 B.C., it is probable that the wall was in existence by that time. Close to this temple on the west is the site of the gate known in later times as the porta aurea, through which the modern road passes, so that no traces now remain.
Tombs of the Greek period have mainly been found on the west of the town, outside the probable line of the walls, between the Hypsas and a small tributary, the latter having been spanned by a bridge, now called Ponite dei Morti, of which one massive pier, 45 ft. in width, still exists. Just outside the south wall is a Roman necropolis, with massive tombs in masonry, and a Christian catacomb, and a little farther south a tomb in two stories, a mixture of Doric and Ionic architecture, belonging probably to the 2nd century B.C., though groundlessly called the Tomb of Theron. A village of the Byzantine period has been explored at Balatizzo, immediately to the south of the modern town (Notizie degli scavi, 1900, 511-520). The walls of the dwellings are entirely cut out of the natural rock.
See J. Schubring, Historische Topographie von Akragas (Leipzig, 1570); R. Koldewey and O. Puchstein, op. cit.; C. Hulsen in Pauly-Wissowa, Encyclopadie, i. 1187. (T. As.)
1 E. A. Freeman, History of Sicily (Oxford, 1891), i. 438, accepts the name ``Rock of Athena'' and yet puts the acropolis on the site of the modern town, arguing further that the cathedral hill was an acropolis within an acropolis (II. and XVII.).
2 Some writers place Kamikos, the city of the mythical Sican Kokalos, on the site of Acragas or its acropolis; but it appears to have lain to the north-west, possibly at Caltabellotta, 10m. north-east of Sciacca. We hear of it even in the Punic Wars as a fortified post of Acragas (E. A. Freeman, Hist. of Sic. i. 495).
3 The attribution to Demeter is supported by the discovery of votive terra-cottas, representing Demeter and Kore in the neighbourhood, while the conjecture that it was dedicated to the river-god Acragas rests on its position above the river, in the valley of which, indeed, a statue which may represent the deity has been discovered.
4 Dimensions in English feet.
5 Polybius ix. 27 keitai to teixos epi petras akrotomon kai perirrogos e men autofnous e de xeiropoieton.
AGRIMONY (from the Lat. agrimonia, a transformation of argemone, a word of unknown etymology), a slender perennial herb (botanical name, agrimonia eupatoria, natural order Rosaceae), 1 1/2 to 3 ft. high, growing in hedge-banks, copses and borders of fields. The leafy stem ends in spikes of small yellow flowers. The flower-stalk becomes recurved in the fruiting stage, and the fruit bears a number of hooks which enable it to cling to rough objects, such as the coat of an animal, thus ensuring distribution of the seed. The plant is common in Britain and widely spread through the north temperate region. The underground woody stem is astringent and yields a yellow dye.
The name has been unsystematically given to several other plants; for instance: bastard, Dutch, hemp or water agrimony (eupatorium cannabinum); noble or three-leaved agrimony (anemone hellalica); water agrimony (bideus); and wild agrimony (potentilla anserina.)
AGRIONIA, an ancient Greek festival, which was celebrated annually at Orchomenus in Boeotia and elsewhere, in honour of Dionysus Agrionius, by women and priests at night. The women, after playfully pretending for some time to search for the god, desisted, saying that he had hidden himself among the Muses. The tradition is that the daughters of Minyas, king of Orchomenus, having despised the rites of the god, were seized with frenzy and ate the flesh of one of their children. At this festival it was originally the custom for the priest of the god to pursue a woman of the Minyan family with a drawn sword and kill her. (Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 102, Quaest. Graecae 38.)
AGRIPPA, a sceptical philosopher, whose date cannot be accurately determined. He must have lived later than Aenesidemus, who is generally said to have been a contemporary of Cicero. To him are ascribed the five tropes pente tropoi which, according to Sextus Empiricus, summarize the attitude of the later ancient sceptics. The first trope emphasizes the disagreement of philosophers on all fundamental points; knowledge comes either from the senses or from reason. Some thinkers hold that nothing is known but the things of sense; others that the things of reason alone are known; and so on. It follows that the only wise course is to be content with an attitude of indifference, neither to affirm nor to deny. The second trope deals with the validity of proof; the proof of one so-called fact depends on another fact which itself needs demonstration, and so on ad infinitum. The third points out that the data of sense are relative to the sentient being, those of reason to the intelligent mind; that in different conditions things themselves are seen or thought to be different. Where, then, is the absolute criterion? Fourthly, if we examine things fairly, we see that in point of fact all knowledge depends on certain hypotheses, or facts taken for granted. Such knowledge is fundamentally hypothetical, and might well be accepted as such without the labour of a demonstration which is logically invalid. The fifth trope points out the impossibility of proving the sensible by the intelligible inasmuch as it remains to establish the intelligible in its turn by the sensible. Such a process is a vicious circle and has no logical validity. A comparison of these tropes with the ten tropes enumerated in the article AENESIDEMUS shows that scepticism has made an advance into the more abtruse questions of metaphysics. The first and the third include all the ideas expressed in the ten tropes, and the other three systematize the more profound difficulties which new thinkers had developed. Aenesidemus was content to attack the validity of sense-given knowledge; Agrippa goes further and impugns the possibility of all truth whatever. His reasons are those of modern scepticism, the reasons which by their very nature are not susceptible of disproof.
See Diogenes Laertius x. 88, and Zeller's Greek Philosophy. Also the articles SCEPTICISM; AENESIDEMUS.
AGRIPPA, HEROD, I. (c. 10 B.C.-A.D. 44), king of Judea, the son of Aristobulus and Berenice, and grandson of Herod the Great, was born about 10 B.C. His original name was Marcus Julius Agrippa. Josephus informs us that, after the murder of his father, Herod the Great sent him to Rome to the court of Tiberius, who conceived a great affection for him, and placed him near his son Drusus, whose favour he very soon won. On the death of Drusus, Agrippa, who had been recklessly extravagant, was obliged to leave Rome, overwhelmed with debt. After a brief seclusion, Herod the Tetrarch, his uncle, who had married Herodias, his sister, made him Agoranomos (Overseer of Markets) of Tiberias, and presented him with a large sum of money; but his uncle being unwilling to continue his support, Agrippa left Judea for Antioch and soon after returned to Rome, where he was welcomed by Tiberius and became the constant campanion of the emperor Gaius (Caligula), then a popular favourite. Agrippa being one day overheard by Eutyches, a slave whom he had made free, to express a wish for Tiberius' death and the advancement of Gaius, was betrayed to the emperor and cast into prison. In A.D. 37 Caligula, having ascended the throne, heaped wealth and favours upon Agrippa, set a royal diadem upon his head and gave him the tetrarchy of Batanaea and Trachonitis, which Philip, the son of Herod the Great, had formerly possessed. To this he added that held by Lysanias; and Agrippa returned very soon into Judea to take possession of his new kingdom. In A.D. 39 he returned to Rome and brought about the banishment of Herod Antipas, to whose tetrarchy he succeeded. On the assassination of Caligula (A.D. 41) Agrippa contributed much by his advice to maintain Claudius in possession of the imperial dignity, while he made a show of being in the interest of the senate. The emperor, in acknowledgment, gave him the government of Judea, while the kingdom of Chalcis in Lebanon was at his request given to his brother Herod. Thus Agrippa became one of the greatest princes of the east, the territory he possessed equalling in extent that held by Herod the Great. He returned to Judea and governed it to the great satisfaction of the Jews. His zeal, private and public, for Judaism is celebrated by Josephus and the rabbis; and the narrative of Acts xii. gives a typical example of it. About the feast of the Passover A.D. 44, James the elder, the son of Zebedee and brother of John the evangelist, was seized by his order and put to death. He proceeded also to lay hands on Peter and imprisoned him. After the Passover he went to Caesarea, where he had games performed in honour of Claudius, and the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon waited on him to sue for peace.. According to the story in Acts xii., Agrippa, gorgeously arrayed, received them in the theatre, and addressed them from a throne, while the audience cried out that his was the voice of a god. But ``the angel of the Lord smote him,'' and shortly afterwards he died ``eaten of worms.'' The story in Acts differs slightly from that in Josephus, who describes how in the midst of his elation he saw an owl perched over his head. During his confinement by Tiberius a like omen had been interpreted as portending his speedy release, with the warning that should he behold the same sight again he would die within' five days. He was immediately smitten with violent pains, and after a few days died. Josephus says nothing of his being ``eaten of worms,'' but the discrepancies between the two stories are of slight moment. A third account omits all the apocryphal elements in the story and says that Agrippa was assassinated by the Romans, who objected to his growing power.
See articles in Ency, Bibl. (W. J. Woodhouse), Jewish Ency. (M. Brann), with further relerences; N. S. Libowitz, Herod and Agrippa (New York, 2nd ed., 1898); Gratz, Geschchte d. Juden, iii. 318-361.
AGRIPPA, HEROD, II. (27-100), son of the preceding, and like him originally Marcus Julius Agrippa, was born about A.D. 27, and received the tetrarchy of Chalcis and the oversight of the Temple on the death of his uncle Herod, A.D. 48. In A.D. 53 he was deprived of that kingdom by Claudius, who gave him other provinces instead of it. In the war which Vespasian carried on against the Jews Herod sent him 2000 men, by which it appears that, though a Jew in religion, he was yet entirely devoted to the Romans, whose assistance indeed he required to secure the peace of his own kingdom. He died at Rome in the third year of . Trajan, A.D. 100. He was the seventh and last king of the family of Herod the Great. It was before him and his sister Berenice (q.v., B.2) that St Paul pleaded his cause at Caesarea (Acts xxvi.). He supplied Josephus with information for his history.
AGRIPPA, MARCUS VIPSANIUS (63-12 P.C.), Roman statesman and general, son-in-law and minister of the emperor Augustus, was of humble origin. He was of the same age as Octavian (as the emperor was then called), and was studying with him at Apollonia when news of Julius Caesar's assassination (44) arrived. By his advice Octavian at once set out for Rome. Agrippa played a conspicuous part in the war against Lucius, . brother of Mark Antony, which ended in the capture of Perusia (40). Two years later he put down a rising of the Aquitallians in Gaul, and crossed the Rhine to punish the aggressions of the Germans. On his return he refused a triumph but accepted the consulship (37). At this time Sextus Pompeius, with whom war was imminent, had command of the sea on the coasts of Italy. Agrippa's first care was to provide a safe harbour for his ships, which he accomplished by cutting through the strips of land which separated the Lacus Lucrinus from the sea, thus forming an outer harbour; an inner one was also made by joining the lake Avernus to the Lucrinus (Dio Cassius xlviii. 49; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 24). About this time Agrippa married Pomponia, daughter of Cicero's friend Pomponius Atticus. Having been appointed naval commander-in-chief he put his crews through a course of training, until he felt in a position to meet the fleet of Pompeius. In 36 he was victorious at Mylae and Naulochus, and received the honour of a naval crown for his services. In 33 he was chosen aedile and signalized his tenure of office by effecting great improvements in the city of Rome, restoring and building aqueducts, enlarging and cleansing the sewers, and constructing baths and porticos, and laying out gardens. He also first gave a stimulus to the public exhibition of works of art. The emperor's boast that he had found the city of brick but left it of marble (``marmoream se relinquere, quam latericiam accepisset,'' Suet. Aug. 29) might with greater propriety have been uttered by Agrippa. He was again called away to take command of the fleet when the war with Antony broke out. The victory at Actium (31), which gave the mastery of Rome and the empire of the world to Octavian, was mainly due to Agrippa. As a token of signal regard Octavian bestowed upon him the hand of his niece Marcella (28). We must suppose that his wife Pomponia was either dead or divorced. In 27 Agrippa was consul for the third time, and in the following year the senate bestowed upon Octavian the emperial title of Augustus. Probably in commemoration of the battle of Actium, Agrippa built and dedicated the Pantheum still in existence as La Rotonda. The inscription on the portico states that it was erected by him during his third consulship. His friendship with Augustus seems to have been clouded by the jealousy of his father-in-law Marcellus, which was probably fomented by the intrigues of Livia, the second wife of Augustus, who feared his influence with her husband. The result was that Agrippa left Rome, ostensibly to take over the governorship of Syria --a sort of honourable exile; but as a matter of fact he only sent his legate to the East, while he himself remained at Lesbos. On the death of Marcellus, which took place within a year, he was recalled to Rome by Augustus, who found he could not dispense with his services. It is said that by the advice of Maecenas he resolved to attach Agrippa still more closely to him by making him his son-in-law. He accordingly induced him to divorce Marcella and marry his daughter Julia (21), the widow of Marcellus, equally celebrated for her beauty and abilities and her shameless profligacy. In 19 Agrippa was employed in putting down a rising of the Cantabrians in Spain. He was appointed governor of Syria a second time (17), where his just and prudent administration won him the respect and good-will of the provincials, especially the Hebrew population. His last public service was the bloodless suppression of an insurrection in Pannonia (13). He died at Campania in March of the year following his fifty-first year. Augustus honoured his memory by a magnificent funeral.
Agrippa was also known as a writer, especially on geography. Under his supervision Julius Caesar's design of having a complete survey of the empire made was carried out. From the materials at hand he constructed a circular chart, which was engraved on marble by Augustus and afterwards placed in the colonnade built by his sister Polla. Amongst his writings an autobiography, now lost, is referred to. Agrippa left several children; by Pomponia, a daughter Vipsania, who became the wife of the emperor Tiberius; by Julia three sons, Gaius and Lucius Caesar and Agrippa Postumus, and two daughters, Agrippina the elder, afterwards the wife of Germanicus, and Julia, who married Lucius Aemihus Pauilus.
See Dio Cassius xlix.-liv.; Suetonius, Augustus; Velleius Paternulus ii.; Josephus, Antiq. Jud. xv. 10, xvi. 2; Turnbull, Three Dissertations, one of the characters of Horace, Augustus and Agrippa (1740); Frandsen, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (1836); Motte, Etude sur Marcus Agrippa (1872); Nispi-Landi, Marcus Agrippa e suoi tempi (1901); D. Detlefsen, Ursprung, Einrichtung und Bedeutung der Erdkarte Agrippas (1906); V. Gardthausen, Augustus und seine Zeit, vol. i. 762 foll., ii. 432 foll.
AGRIPPA VON NETTESHEIM, HENRY CORNELIUS (1486-1535) German writer, soldier, physician, and by common reputation a magician, belonged to a family many members of which had been in the service of the house of Habsburg, and was born at Cologne on the 14th of September 1486. The details of his early life are somewhat obscure, but he appears to have obtained a knowledge of eight languages, to have studied at the university of Cologne and to have passed some time in France. When quite young he entered the service of the German king, Maximilian I., and in 1508 was engaged in an adventurous enterprise in Catalonia. He probably served Maximilian both as soldier and as secretary, but his wonderful and varied genius was not satisfied with these occupations, and he soon began to take a lively interest in theosophy and magic. In 1509 he went to the university of Dole, where he lectured on John Reuchlin's De Verbo Mirifico, but his teaching soon caused charges of heresy to be brought against him, and he was denounced by a monk named John Catilinet in lectures delivered at Ghent. As a result Agrippa was compelled to leave Dole; proceeding to the Netherlands he took service again with Maximilian. In 1510 the king sent him on a diplomatic mission to England, where he was the guest of Colet, dean of St Paul's, and where he replied to the accusations brought against him by Catilinet. Returning to Cologne he followed Maximilian to Italy in 1511, and as a theologian attended the council of Pisa, which was called by some cardinals in opposition to a council called by Pope Julius II. He remained in Italy for seven years, partly in the service of William VI., marquis of Monferrato, and partly in that of Charles III., duke of Savoy, probably occupied in teaching theology and practising medicine.
In 1515 he lectured at the university of Pavia on the Pimander of Hermes Trismegistus, but these lectures were abruptly terminated owing to the victories of Francis I., king of France. In 1518 the efforts of one or other of his patrons secured for Agrippa the position of town advocate and orator, or syndic, at Metz. Here, as at Dole, his opinions soon brought him into collision with the monks, and his defence of a woman accused of witchcraft involved him in a dispute with the inquisitor, Nicholas Savin. The consequence of this was that in 1520 he resigned his office and returned to Cologne, where he stayed about two years. He then practised for a short time as a physician at Geneva and Freiburg, but in 1524 went to Lyons on being appointed physician to Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I. In 1528 he gave up this position, and about this time was invited to take part in the dispute over the legality of the divorce of Catherine of Aragon by Henry VIII.; but he preferred an offer made by Margaret, duchess of Savoy and regent of the Netherlands, and became archivist and historiographer to the emperor Charles V. Margaret's death in 1530 weakened his position, and the publication of some of his writings about the same time aroused anew the hatred of his enemies; but after suffering a short imprisonment for debt at Brussels he lived at Cologne and Bonn, under the protection of Hermann of Wied, archbishop of Cologne. By publishing his works he brought himself into antagonism with the Inquisition, which sought to stop the printing of De occulta philosophia. He then went to France, where he was arrested by order of Francis I. for some disparaging words about the queen-mother; but he was soon released, and on the 18th of February 1535 died at Grenoble. He was married three times and had a large family. Agrippa was a man of great ability and undoubted courage, but he lacked perseverance and was himself responsible for many of his misfortunes. In spite of his inquiring nature and his delight in novelty, he remained a Catholic, and had scant sympathy with the teaching of the reformers. His memory was nevertheless long defamed in the writings of the monks, who placed a malignant inscription over his grave. Agrippa's work, De occulta philosophia, was written about 1510, partly under the influence of the author's friend, John Trithemius, abbot of Wurzburg, but its publication was delayed until 1531, when it appeared at Antwerp. It is a defence of magic, by means of which men may come to a knowledge of nature and of God, and contains Agrippa's idea of the universe with its three worlds or spheres. His other principal work, De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum et Artium Atque Excellentia Verbi Dei Declamatio, was written about 1527 and published at Antwerp in 1531. This is a sarcastic attack on the existing sciences and on the pretensions of learned men. In it Agrippa denounces the accretions which had grown up around the simple doctrines of Christianity, and wishes for a return to the primitive belief of the early Christian church. He also wrote De Nobilitate et Praecellentia Deminei Sexus, dedicated to Margaret of Burgundy, De Matrimonii Sacramento and other smaller works. An edition of his works was published at Leiden in 1550 and they have been republished several times. See H. Morley, Life of H. C. Agrippa (London, 1856); A. Prost, Les Sciences at les arts occultes au xvi. Siecle: Corneille Agrippa sa vie et ses oeuvres (Paris, 1881); A. Daguet, Cornelius Agrippa (Paris, 1856).
AGRIPPINA, the ``elder,'' daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa by his third wife Julia, was the grand-daughter of Augustus and the wife of Germanicus. She accompanied her husband to Germany, when the legions on the Rhine revolted after the death of Augustus (A.D. 14). Three years later she was in the East with Germanicus (q.v.), who died at Antioch in 19, poisoned, it was said, by order of Cn. Calpurnius Piso, governor of Syria. Eager to avenge his death, she returned to Rome and boldly accused Piso of the murder of Germanicus. To avoid public infamy Piso committed suicide. Tiberius and his favourite Sejanus feared that her ambition might lead her to attempt to secure the throne for her children, and she was banished to the island of Pandataria off the coast of Campania, where she died on the 18th of October 33, starved to death by herself, or, according to some, by order of Tiberius. Two of her sons, Nero and Drusus, had already fallen victims to the machinations cf Sejanus. Agrippina had a large family by Germanicus, several of whom died young, while only two are of importance-- Agrippina the ``younger'' and Gaius Caesar, who succeeded Tiberius under the name of Caligula. It is remarkable that, although Tiberius had ordored the execution of his elder brothers, by his will he left Caligula one of the heirs of the empire. Agrippina was a woman of the highest character and exemplary morality. There is a portrait of her in the Capitoline Museum at Rome, and a bronze medal in the British Museum representing the bringing back of her ashes to Rome by order of Caligula.
See Tac. Ann. i.-vi.; Suetonius, Tiberius, 53; Dio Cassius lvii. 6, lviii. 22, lix. 3; Elizabeth Hamilton, Memoirs of the Life of Agrippina (1804): Burkhard, Agrippina, des Agrippa Tochter (1846); Stahr, Romische Kaiserfrauen (1880).
AGRIPPINA, the ``younger'' (A.D. 16-59), daughter of Germanicus and Agrippina the elder, sister of Caligula and mother of Nero, was born at Oppidum Ubiorum on the Rhine, afterwards named in her honour Colonia Agrippinae (mod. Cologne). Her life was notorious for intrigue and perfidy. By her first husband, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, she was the mother of the emperor Nero; her second husband was Passienus Crispus, whom she was accused of poisoning. Assisted by the influential freedman Tallas, she induced her uncle the emperor Claudius to marry her after the death of Messalina, and adopt the future Nero as heir to the throne in place of Britannicus. Soon afterwards she poisoned Claudius and secured the throne for her son, with the intention of practically ruling on his behalf. Being alarmed at the influence of the freedwoman Acte over Nero, sbe threatened to support the claims of the rightful heir Britannicus. Nero thereupon murdered the young prince and decided to get rid of his mother. Pretending a reconciliation, he invited her to Baiae, where an attempt was made to drown her on a vessel especially constructed to founder. As this proved a failure, he had her put to death at her country house. Agrippina wrote memoirs of her times, referred to by Tacitus (Ann. iv. 53). Her character is set forth in Racine's Britannicus.
See Tac.Ann. xii., xiii., xiv.; Dio Cassius lix.-lxi.; Suetonius, NERO, 34; Stahr, Agrippina. die Mutter Neros (1880); Raffay, Die Memoiren der Kaiserin Agrippina (1884); B. W. Henderson, The Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero (1903); also article NERO.
AGROTERAS THUSIA, an annual festival held at Agrae near Athens, in honour of Artemis Agrotera, in fulfilment of a vow made by the city, before the battle of Marathon, to offer in sacrifice a number of goats equal to that of the Persians slain in the conflict. The number being so great, it was decided to offer 100 goats yearly.
See Plutarch, De Malignitate Herodoti, 26; Xenophon, Anab. iii. 2. 12; Aelian, Var. Hist. ii. 25; Schol. on Aristophanes, Equites, 660.
AGUADILLA, a town and port near the northern extremity of the W. coast of Porto Rico. Pop. (1899) 6425. It has a fairly good and safe anchorage, and is the commercial outlet for a very fertile agricultural district. The town is attractively situated and well built, and is connected by railway with Mayaguez, 20 m. distant, and also with Ponce and San Juan. The neighbouring district produces sugar-cane, tobacco, cattle, cocoanuts, oranges and lemons. The bay is supposed to have been first visited by Columbus (November 1493), though the town was not founded until 1775.
AGUADO, ALEXANDRE MARIE, marquis de Las Marismas del Guadalquivir, viscount de Monte Ricco (1784-1842), Spanish banker, was born of Jewish parentage at Seville, on the 29th of June 1784. He began life as a soldier, fighting with distinction in the Spanish war of independence on the side of Joseph Bonaparte. After the battle of Baylen (1808) he entered the French army, in which he rose to be colonel and aide-de-camp to Marshal Soult. He was exiled in 1815, and immediately started business as a commission-agent in Paris, where, chiefly through his family connexions in Havana and Mexico, he acquired in a few years enough wealth to enable him to undertake banking. The Spanish government gave him full powers to negotiate the loans of 1823, 1828, 1830 and 1831; and Ferdinand VII. rewarded him with the title of marquis, the decorations of several orders and valuable mining concessions in Spain. Aguado also negotiated the Greek loan of 1834. In 1828, having become possessed of large estates in France, including the chateau Margaux, famous for its wine, he was naturalized as a French citizen. He died at Gijon in Spain on the 14th of April 1842, leaving a fortune computed at 60,000,000 francs, and a splendid collection of pictures which at his death was bought by the French government.
AGUASCALIENTES, an inland state of Mexico, bounded N., E. and W. by the state of Zacatecas, and S. by Jalisco. Pop. (est. 1900) 102,416, a gradual decrease since the census years of 1895 and 1879; area, 2970 sq. m. The state occupies an elevated plateau, extending from two spurs of the Sierra Madre, called the Sierra Fria and Sierra de Laurel, eastward to the rolling fertile plains of its eastern and south-eastern districts. It is well watered by numerous small streams and one larger river, the Aguascalientes or Rio Grande, and has a mild healthy climate with a moderate rainfall. The fertile valleys of the north and west are devoted to agriculture and the plains to stockraising. Indian corn, flour, cattle, horses, mules and hides are exported to the neighbouring states. Mining industries are still undeveloped, but considerable progress has been made in manufactures, especially of textile fabrics. The state has good railway communications and a prosperous trade. The capital, Aguascalientes, named from the medicinal hot springs near it, is a flourishing commercial and manufacturing city. Pop. (est. 1900) 35,052. It has cotton factories, smelting works, potteries. tanneries, distilleries, and wagon and tobacco factories. It is a station on the Mexican Central railway, 364 m. by rail north-west of the city of Mexico, and is connected by rail with Tampico on the Gulf of Mexico. The city is well built, has many fine churches and good public buildings, street cars and electric lights. The surrounding district is well cultivated and produces an abundance of fruit and vegetables. Other prominent towns of the state are Rincon de Romos (or Victoria de Calpulalpam), Asientos de Ibarra and Calvillo, the first having more and the others less than 5000 inhabitants.
AGUE (from Lat. acuta, sharp; sc. febris, fever), the common name given to a form or stage of malarial disease; the ague fit is the cold, shivering stage, and hence the word is also loosely used for any such paroxysm. Simple ague is of much the same type whether in temperate or tropical climates, and may take various forms (quotidian, tertian, quartan), passing into ``remittent fever.'' The symptoms are discussed, together with causation, &c., in the article MALARIA. For ``brow-ague'' see NEURALGIA.
AGUESSEAU, HENRI FRANCOIS D' (1668-1751), chancellor of France, illustrious for his virtues, learning and talents, was born at Limoges, of a family of the magistrature. His father, Henri d' Aguesseau, a hereditary councillor of the parlement of Metz, was a man of singular ability and breadth of view who, after holding successively the posts of intendant of Limousin, Guyenne and Languedoc, was in 1685 called to Paris as councillor of state, appointed director-general of commerce and manufactures in 1695, president of the council of commerce in 1700 and a member of the council of the regency for finance. By him Francois d'Aguesseau was early initiated into affairs and brought up in religious principles deeply tinged with Jansenism. He studied law under Jean Domat, whose influence is apparent in both the legal writings and legislative work of the chancellor. When little more than twenty-one years of age he was, through his father's influence with the king, appointed one of the three advocates-general to the parlement of Paris; and the eloquence and learning which he displayed in his first speech gained him a very high reputation. D'Aguesseau was in fact the first great master of forensic eloquence in France.
In 1700 he was appointed procurator-general; and in this office, which he filled for seventeen years, he gained the greatest popularity by his defence of the rights of the Gallican Church in the Quietist troubles and in those connected with the bull Unigenitus (see JANSENISM.) In February 1717 he was made chancellor by the regent Orleans; but was deprived of the seals in January of the following year and exiled to his estate of Fresnos in Brie, on account of his steady opposition to the projects of the famous John Law, which had been adopted by the regent and his ministers. In June 1720 he was recalled to satisfy public opinion; and he contributed not a little by the firmness and sagacity of his counsels to calm the public disturbance and repair the mischief which had been done. Law himself had acted as the messenger of his recall; and it is said that d'Aguesseau's consent to accept the seals from his hand greatly diminished his popularity. The parlement continuing its opposition to the registering of the bull UNIGENITUS, d'Aguesseau, fearing a schism and a religious war in France, assisted Guillaume Dubois, the favourite of the regent, in his endeavour to force the parlement to register the bull, acquiesced in the exile of the magistrates and allowed the Great Council to assume the power of registration, which legally belonged to the parlement alone. The people unjustly attributed his conduct to a base compliance with the favourite. He certainly opposed Dubois in other matters; and when Dubois became chief minister d'Aguesseau was deprived of his office (March 1, 1722).
He retired to his estate, where he passed five years of which he always spoke with delight. The Scriptures, which he read and compared in various languages, and the jurisprudence of his own and other countries, formed the subjects of his more serious studies; the rest of his time was devoted to philosophy, literature and gardening. From these occupations he was recalled to court by the advice of Cardinal Fleury in 1727, and on the 15th of August was named chancellor for the third time, but the seals were not restored to him till ten years later. During these years he endeavoured to mediate in the disputes between the court and the parlement. When he was at last reinstated in office, he completely withdrew from all political affairs, and devoted himself entirely to his duties as chancellor and to the achievement of those reforms which had long occupied his thoughts. He aimed, as others had tried before him, to draw up in a single code all the laws of France, but was unable to accomplish his task. Besides some important enactments regarding donations, testaments and successions, he introduced various regulations for improving the forms of procedure, for ascertaining the limits of jurisdictions and for effecting a greater uniformity in the execution of the laws throughout the several provinces. These reforms constitute an epoch in the history of French jurisprudence, and have placed the name of d'Aguesseau in the same rank with those of L'Hopital and Lamoignon. As a magistrate also he was so conscientious that the duc de Saint-Simon in his Memoirs complained that he spent too much time over the cases that came before him.
In 1750, when upwards of eighty-two years of age, d'Aguesseau retired from the duties without giving up the rank of chancellor. He died on the 9th of February of the following year.
His grandson, HENRI CARDIN JEAN BAPTISTE, MARQUIS D'AGUESSEAU (1746-1826), was advocate-general in the parlement of Paris and deputy in the Estates-General. Under the Consulate he became president of the court of appeal and later minister at Copenhaaen. He was elected to the French Academy in 1787.
Of d'Aguesseau's works the most complete edition is that of the eminent lawyer Jean Marie Pardessus, published in 16 vols. (1818-1820); his letters were edited separately by Rives (1823); a selection of his works, OEuvres Choisies, was issued, with a biographical notice, by E. Falconnet in 2 vols. (Paris, 1865). The far greater part of his works relate to matters connected with his profession, hut they also contain an elaborate treatise on money; several theological essays; a life of his father, which is interesting from the account which it gives of his own early education; and Metaphysical Meditations, written to prove that, independently of all revelation and all positive law, there is that in the constitution of the human mind which renders man a law to himself.
See Boullee, Histoire de la vie et les ouvrages de chancelier d'Aguesseau (Paris, 1835); Fr. Monnier, Le Chancelier d'Aguesseau (Paris, 1860; 2nd ed., 1863); Charles Butler, Mem. of Life of H. F. d'Aguesseau, &c. (1830).
AGUILAR, GRACE (1816-1847), English writer, the daughter of a Jewish merchant in London, was born in June 1816. Her works consist chiefly of religious fiction, such as The Vale of Cedars (1850) and Home Influence (1847). She also wrote, in defence of her faith and its professors, The Spirit of Judaism (1842) and other works. Her services were acknowledged gratefully by the ``women of Israel'' in a testimonial which they presented shortly before her death, which took place at Frankfort-on-the-Main on the 16th of September 1847.
AGUILAR, or AGUILAR DE LA FRONTERA, a town of southern Spain, in the province of Cordova; near the small river Cabra, and on the Cordova-Malaga railway. Pop. (1900) 13,236. Aguilar ``of the Frontier'' was so named in the middle ages from its position on the border of the Moorish territories, which were defended by the castle of Anzur, now a ruin; but the spacious squares and modern houses of the existing town retain few vestiges of Moorish dominion. The olives and white wine of Aguilar are celebrated in Spain, although the wine, which somewhat resembles sherry, is known as Montilla, from the adjacent town of that name. Salt springs exist in the neighbourhood, and to the south there are two small lakes, Zonar and Rincon, which abound in fish.
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The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia, Volume 1 of 28Chapter LXXVI: Act 1903: , the powers and duties of the Board of Trade under the (1)
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