He was the
introduction
of a new worship.
William Smith - 1844 - Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities - a
xiv.
508), whence Ulysses is called
feelings of delicacy, since the nose of Socrates Totalvos in reference to the particular sort of
furnishes ample matter for raillery in the Sympo speecbes which mark his character. In Hesiod
sium of Plato. Besides, the Athenians caused (Op. el Dies, 200), it has passed into the sense of
Lysippus to erect a statue in his honour, which a moral fable. The alvol or pūbol of Aesop were
had it been sculptured in accordance with the certainly in prose :- they are called by Aristo
above description, would have been the reverse of phanes abyou, and their author (Herod. ii. 134) is
ornamental.
Αίσωπος ο λογόποιος, λόγος being the peculiar
The notices however which we possess of Aesop word for Prose, as fan was for verse, and includ.
are so scattered and of such doubtful authority, ing both fable and history, though afterwards
that there have not been wanting persons to deny restricted to oratory, when that became a separate
his existence altogether. "In poetical philosophy," branch of composition.
says Vico in his Scienza Nuova, “ Aesop will be Following the example of Socrates, Demetrius
found not to be any particular and actually exist- Phalereus (B. C. 320) tumed Aesop's fables into
ing man, but the abstraction of a class of men, or poetry, and collected them into a book! and after
a poetical character representative of the companions him an author, whose name is unknown, pube
and attendants of the heroes, such as certainly lished them in Elegiacs, of which some fragments
existed in the time of the seven Sages of Greece. " are preserved by Suidas. But the only Greek
This however is an excess of scepticism into which versifier of Aesop, of whose writings any whole
it would be most unreasonable to plunge: whether fables are preserved is Babrius, an author of no
Aesop left any written works at all, is a question mean powers, and who may well take his place
which affords considerable room for doubt, and to amongst Fabulists with Phaedrus and La Fon-
which Bentley inclines to give a negative. Thus taine. His version is in Choliambics, i. e. lame,
Aristophanes (Vesp. 1259) represents Philocleon as halting iambics (xãos, Yaubos), verses which fol-
learning his Fables in conversation and not out of a low in all respects the laws of the lambic Tri-
book, and Socrates who turned them into poetry meter till the sixth foot, which is either a spondee
versified those that “ he knew, and could most or trochee, the fifth being properly an iambus.
readily remember. ” (Plat. Phaed. p. 61, b; Bent- This version was made a little before the age of
ley, Dissertation on the Fables of Aesop, p. 136. ) Augustus, and consisted of ten Books, of which a
However this may be, it is certain that fables, few scattered fables only are preserved. Of the
bearing Aesop's name, were popular at Athens in Latin writers of Aesopean fables, Phaedrus is the
its most intellectual age. We find them frequently most celebra'ed.
noticed by Aristophanes. One of the pleasures of The fables now extant in probe, bearing the name
a dicast (Vesp. 566) was, that among the candi- of Aesop, are unquestionably spurious. Of these
dates for his protection and vote some endeavoured there are three principal collections, the one con-
## p. 48 (#68) ##############################################
48
AESOPUS.
AESOPUS.
taining 136 fables, published first A. D. 1610, from A ESO'PUS, & Greek historian, who wrote a
MSS. at Heidelberg. This is so clumsy a forgery, life of Alexander the Great. The original is lost,
that it mentions the orator Demades, who lived 200 but there is a Latin translation of it by Julius
years after Acsop, and contains a whole sentence Valerius (VALERIUS), of which Franciscus Juretus
from the book of Job (youvol yap v Alouev oi had, he says (ad Symmach. Ep. X. 54), a manu-
Távtes, youvol oùv åmea evoóueda). Some of the script. It was first published, however, by A. Mai
passages Bentley bas shewn to be fragments of from a MS. in the Ambrosian library, Milan, 1817,
Choliambic verses, and has made it tolerably cer-4to. , reprinted Frankfort, 1818, 8vo. The title is
tain that they were stolen from Babrius. The " Itinerarium ad Constantinum Augustum, etc. :
other collection was made by the above mentioned accedunt Julii Valeri Res gestae Alexandri Mace-
monk of Constantinople, Maximus Planudes. donis," etc. The time when Aesopus lived is un-
These contain at least one Hebraism (Bowv ev tý certain, and even his existence has been doubted.
Kapôią : compare e. g. Eccles. xi. 1, eltov év (Barth, Adversar. ii. 10. ) Mai, in the preface to
kapdía mov), and among them are words entirely his edition, contended that the work was written
modern, as Boúralis a bird, Buúveupov a beast, and before 389, A. D. , because the temple of Serapis at
also traces of the Choliambics of Babrius. The Alexandria, which was destroyed by order of
third collection was found in a MS. at Florence, Theodosius, is spoken of in the translation (Jul.
and published in 1809. Its date is about a cen- Valer. i. 31) as still standing. But serious objec-
tury before the time of Planudes, and it contains tions to this inference have been raised by Letronno
the life which was prefixed to bis collection, and (Journ. des Savans, 1818, p. 617), who refers it
commonly supposed to be his own.
to the seventh or eighth century, which the weight
Bentley's dissertation on Aesop is appended to of internal evidence would rather point to. The
those on Phalaris. The genuineness of the existing book is full of the most extravagant stories and
forgeries was stoutly maintained by his Oxford glaring mistakes, and is a work of no credit. (A. A. )
antagonists (Preface to Aesopicarum Fabularum AESOʻPUS, CLAU'DIUS or CLO'DIUS, the
Delectus, Oxford 1628); but there is no one in our most celebrated tragic actor at Rome in the Cice
day who disputes his decision.
ronian period, probably a freedman of the Clodia
It remains to notice briefly the theory which gens. Horace (Ep. ii. 1. 82) and other authors
assigns to Aesop's fables an oriental origin. Among put him on a level with Roscius. (Fronto, p.
the writers of Arabia, one of the most famous is 44, ed. Niebuhr. ) Each was preeminent in his
Lukman, whom some traditions make contempo- own department; Roscius in comedy, being, with
rary with David, others the son of a sister or respect to action and delivery (pronuntiatio), more
aunt of Job, while again he has been represented rapid (citatior, Quintil. Inst. Or. xi. 3. $111); Ae-
as an ancient king or chief of the tribe of Ad. sopus in tragedy, being more weights (grarior,
“ Lukman's wisdom” is proverbial among the Quintil
. Lc. ). Aesopus took great pains to perfect
Arabs, and joined with Joseph's beauty and himself in his art by rarious methods. He dili-
David's melody. (See the Thousand and One gently studied the exhibition of character in real
Nights (Lane's translation), Story of Prince life; and when any important trial was going on,
Kamer-ez-Zeman and Princess Budoor, and Note especially, for example, when Hortensius was to
59 to chapter 2. ) The Persian accounts of this plead, he was constantly in attendance, that he
Lukman represent him as an ugly black slave, and might watch and be able to represent the more
it seems probable that the author of the Life ed- truthfully the feelings which were actually dis
grafted this and other circumstances in the Oriental played on such occasions. (Val
. Max. vii. 10. $ 2. )
traditions of Lukman upon the classical tales re- He never, it is said, put on the mask for the cha-
specting Aesop. The fables ascribed to Aesop bare racter he had to perform in, without first looking
in many respects an eastern character, alluding to
at it attentively from a distance for some time,
Asiatic customs, and introducing panthers, pea- that so in performing he might preserve his voice
cocks, and monkeys among their dramatis personæ. and action in perfect keeping with the appearance
All this makes it likely that the fables attri- he would have. (Fronto, de Elog. 5. , p. 37. )
buted both to Lukman and Aesop are derived from Perhaps this anecdote may confirm the opinion
the same Indo-Persian source.
(Dict. of Ant. s. o. Persona), that masks had only
The principal editions of Aesop's Fables are, lately been introduced in the regular drama at
1. The collection formed by Planudes with a Rome, and were not always used even for leading
Latin translation, published at Milan by Buono characters ; for, according to Cicero (de Div. i. 37),
Accorso at the end of the 15th century. 2. An- Aesopus excelled in power of face and fire of ea-
other edition of the same collection, with some pression (tantum ardorem vultuum atque motuum),
additional fables from a MS. in the Bibliothèque which of course would not have been risible if
du Roi at Paris, by Robert Stephanus, 1546. he had performed only with a mask. From the
3. The edition of Nevelet, 1610, which added to wbole passage in Cicero and from the anec-
these the Heidelberg collection, published at Frank- dotes recorded of him, his acting would seem to
fort on the Main. These have been followed by have been characterised chiefly by strong emphasis
editions of all or some of the Fables, by Hudson at and vehemence. On the whole, Cicero calls him
Oxford (1718), Hauptmann at Leipzig (1741), summus artifex, and says he was fitted to act a
Heusinger at Leipzig (1756), Ernesti at the leading part no less in real life than on the stage.
same place (1781), and G. H. Schaefer again at (Pro Sext. 56. ) It does not appear that he ever
Leipzig (1810, 1818, 1820). Francesco de Furia performed in comedy. Valerius Maximus (viii.
added to the above the new fables from the Flo- 10. $ 2) calls Aesopus and Roscius both “ ludicrae
rentine MS. , and his edition was reprinted by artis peritissimos viros," but this may merely de-
Coray at Paris (1810). All the fables have been note the theatrical art in general, including tragedy
put together and published, 231 in number, by J. as well as comedy. (Comp. Iudicrae tibiue, Plin. li.
G, Schneider, at Breslau, in 1810. [G. E. L. C. ] N. xvi. 36. ) Fronto calls him (p. 87) Truyurs de
## p. 49 (#69) ##############################################
AESYMNETES.
49
AETHER,
who stote
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scus Juretas
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526 written
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order
Slatia (Jul
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DIUS. the
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He dil
empres. From Cicero's remark, however, (de Off. | Eurypylus, who on opening it suddenly fell into a
i. 114), it would seem that the character of Ajax state of madness. The oracle of Delphi, when
was rather too tragic for him. (Comp. Tusc. Quaest. consulted about his recovery, answered, " Where
ïi. 17, iv. 25. )
thou shalt see men performing a strange sacrifice,
Like Roscius, Aesopus enjoyed the intimacy of there shalt thou dedicate the chest, and there shalt
the great actor, who calls him noster Aesopus (ad thou settle. ” When Eurypylus came to Aroë in
Fum. vii. 1), nostor familiaris (ad Qu. Frat. i. 2, Achaia, it was just the season at which its in-
4); and they seem to have sought, from one an- habitants offered every year to Artemis Triclarin a
other's society, improvement, each in his re human sacrifice, consisting of the fairest youth and
spective art During his exile, Cicero received the fairest maiden of the place. This sacrifice was
many valuable marks of Aesopus's friendship. On offered as an atonement for a crime which had
one occasion, in particular, having to perform the once been committed in the temple of the goddess.
part of Telamon, banished from his country, in one But an oracle had declared to them, that they
of Accius's plays, the tragedian, by his manner and should be released from the necessity of making
skilful emphasis, and an occasional change of a this sacrifice, if a foreign divinity should be
word, added to the evident reality of his feelings, brought to them by a foreign king. This oracle
and succeeded in leading the audience to apply the was now fulfilled. Eurypylus on seeing the vic-
whole to the case of Cicero, and so did him more tims led to the altar was cured of his madness and
essential service than any direct defence of himself perceived that this was the place pointed out to
could have done. The whole house applauded. him by the oracle; and the Aroëans also, on sec-
(Pro Sest. 56. ) On another occasion, instead of ing the god in the chest, remembered the old
“ Brulus qui libertatem civium stabiliverat,” he prophecy, stopped the sacrifice, and instituted a
substituted Tullius, and the audience gave utter- festival of Dionysus Aesymnetes, for this was the
nnce to their enthusiasm by encoring the passage name of the god in the chest. Nine men and nine
a thousand times” (millies revocatum est, Pro women were appointed to attend to his worship.
Sezt. 58). The time of his death or his age can- During one night of this festival a priest car-
not be fixed with certainty ; but at the dedication ried the chest outside the town, and all the
of the theatre of Pompey (8. c. 55), he would seem children of the pluce, adorned, as formerly the
to have been elderly, for he was understood previ- victims used to be, with garlands of corn-ears,
ously to have retired from the stage, and we do went down to the banks of the river Meilichius,
not hear of his being particularly delicate : yet, which had before been called Ameilichius, hung
from the passage, ill-health or age would appear to up their garlands, purified themselves, and then
have been the reason of his retiring. On that oc put on other garlands of ivy, after which they ro
casion, however, in honour of the festival, he ap tumed to the sanctuary of Dionysus Aesymnetes.
peared again ; but just as he was coming to one (Paus. vii. 19 and 20. ) This tradition, though
of the most emphatic parts, the beginning of an otherwise very obscure, evidently points to a time
onth, Si sciens fallo, etc. , his voice failed him, and when buman sacrifices were abolished at Aroë by
he could not go through with the speech.
He was the introduction of a new worship. At Patrae in
evidently unable to proceed, so that any one Achaia there was likewise a temple dedicated to
would readily have excused him: a thing which, Dionysus Aesymnetes. (Paus. vii. 21. & 12. ) [L. S. )
as the passage in Cicero implies (ad Fam. vii. 1), AETHA'LIDES (Aidanions), a son of Hermes
a Roman audience would not do for ordinary per' and Eupolemeia a daughter of Myrmidon. He
formers. Aesopus, though far from frugal (Plin. was the herald of the Argonauts, and had received
H. N. x. 72), realized, like Roscius, an immense from his father the faculty of remembering every-
fortune by his profession. He left about 200,000 thing, even in Hades. He was further allowed to
sesterces to his son Clodius, who proved a foolish reside alternately in the upper and in the lower
spendthrift. (Val. Max. ix. 1. & 2. ) It is said, for world. As his soul could not forget anything even
instance, that be dissolved in vinegar and drank a after death, it remembered that from the body of
pearl worth about £8000, which he took from the Aethalides it had successively migrated into those
ear-ring of Caecilia Metella (Hor. Sat. ii. 3, 239 ; of Euphorbus, Hermotimus, Pyrrhus, and at last
Val. Max. ix. 1. & 2; Macrob. Sut. ü. 10. ; Plininto that of Pythagoras, in whom it still retained
H. N. ix. 59), a favourite feat of the extra- the recollection of its former migrations. (Apollon.
vagant monomania in Rome. (Compare Suet. Rhod. i. 54, 640, &c. ; Orph. Argon. 131 ; Hygin.
Calig. 37; Macrob. Sat. ii. 13. ) The connexion Fab. 14; Diog. Laert. viii. 1. & 4, &c. ; Val. Flacc.
of Cicero's son-in-law Dolabella with the same i. 437. )
(I. S. )
lady no doubt increased the distress which Cicero AETHER (Aiono), a personified idea of the
felt at the dissolute proceedings of the son of his mythical cosmogonies. According to that of Hy-
old friend. (Ad Att. xi. 13. )
[A. A. ] ginus (Fab. Pref. p. 1, ed. Staveren), he was, to
AESYMNEʼTES (Alouurons), a surname of gether with Night, Day, and Erebus, begotten by
Dionysus, which signifies the Lord, or Ruler, and Chaos and Caligo (Darkness). According to that
under which he was worshipped at Aroë in Achaia of Hesiod (Theog. 124), Aether was the son of
The story about the introduction of his worship Erebus and his sister Night, and a brother of
there is as follows: There was at Troy an ancient Day. (Comp. Phomut. De Nat. Deor. 16. ) The
image of Dionysus, the work of Hephaestus, which children of Aether and Day were Land, Heaven,
Zeus had once given as a present to Dardanus. and Sea, and from his connexion with the Earth
It was kept in a chest, and Cassandra, or, accord there sprang all the vices which destroy the human
ing to others, Aenens, left this chest behind when race, and also the Giants and Titins. (Hygin.
she quitted the city, because she knew that it Fab. Pref. p. 2, &c. ) These accounts shew that,
would do injury to him who possessed it. When in the Greek cosmogonies, Aether was considered
the Greeks divided the spoils of Troy among them as one of the elementary substances out of wbich
selves, this chest fell to the share of the Thessalian ! the Universe was formed. In the Orphic hymns
ter in real
= going car,
Tus 25 10
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FOTUS
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calls him
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1. Plin. II.
uyki do
## p. 50 (#70) ##############################################
50
AETHICUS.
AETHIOPS.
1
(4) Aether appears as the soul of the world, from to the preceding part, the Expositio, by the words
which all life emanates, an idea which was also Hanc quadripurtiam totius terrue continentiam hi
adopted by some of the early philosophers of qui dimensi sunt. From this it would appear that
Greece. In later times Aether was regarded as Aethicus borrowed it from Orosius.
the wide space of Heaven, the residence of the The work abounds in errors. Sometimes the
gods, and Zeus as the Lord of the Aether, or Aether same name occurs in different lists ; as, for exam-
itself personified. (Pacuv. ap. Cic. de Nat. Deur. ple, Cyprus and Rhodes both in the north and in
ii. 36, 40; Lucret. v. 499; Virg. Aen. xii. 140, the east; Corsica both in the west and in the
Georg. ii. 325. )
[L. S. ) south; or a country is put as a town, as Arabia ;
AETHE'RIE. (HELIADES. ]
Noricum is put among the islands. Mistakes of
AEʻTHICUS, HISTER or ISTER, a Roman this kind would easily be made in copying lists,
writer of the fourth century, a native of Istria ac- especially if in double columns. But from other
cording to his surname, or, according to Rabanus reasons and from quotations given by Dicuil, a
Maurus, of Scythia, the author of a geographical writer of the 9th century, from the Cosmographia,
work, called Aethici Cosmographia. We learn differing from the text as we have it, the whole
from the preface that a measurement of the whole appears to be very corrupt. The whole is a very
Roman world was ordered by Julius Caesar to be meagre production, but presents a few valuable
made by the most able men, that this measurement points. Many successful emendations have been
was begun in the consulship of Julius Caesar and made by Salmasius in his Exercitationes Philolo
M. Antonius, i. e. B. C. 44; that three Greeks were gicae, and there is a very valuable essay on the
appointed for the purpose, Zenodoxus, Theodotus, whole subject by Ritschl in the Rheinisches Museum
and Polyclitus ; that Zenodoxus measured all the (1842), i. 4.
eastern part, which occupied him twenty-one years, The sources of the Cosmographia appear to have
five months, and nine days, on to the third consul- been the measurements above described, other offi-
ship of Augustus and Crassus ; that Theodotus cial lists and documents, and also, in all probability,
measured the northern part, which occupied him Agrippa's Commentarii, which are constantly re-
twenty-nine years, eight months, and ten days, on ferred to by Pliny (Hist. Nat. iii. iv. v. vi. ) as an
to the tenth consulship of Augustus; and that authority, and his Chart of the World, which was
Polyclitus measured the southem part, which oc- founded on his Commentari. (Plin. Hist. Nat. iii.
cupied him thirty-two years, one month, and ten 2. )
days; that thus the whole (Roman) world was Cassiodorus (de instit. divin. 25) describes a
gone over by the measurers within thirty-two (? ) cosmographical work by Julius Honorius Crator
years; and that a report of all it contained was in terms which suit exactly the work of Aethicus;
laid before the senate. So it stands in the edd. ; and Salmasius regards Julius Honorius as the real
but the numbers are evidently much corrupted : author of this work, to which opinion Ritschl seems
the contradictoriness of Polyclitus's share taking to lean, reading Ethnicus instead of Aethicus, and
more than 32 years, and the whole measurement considering it as a mere appellative. In some
being made in less than (intra) 32 years is obvious. MSS. the appellatives Sophista and Philosophus
It is to be observed that, in this introductory are found.
statement, no mention is made of the western part One of the oldest MSS. , if not the oldest, is the
(which in the work itself comes next to the east- Vatican one. This is the only one which speaks
ern), except in the Vatican MS. , where the eastern of the west in the introduction. But it is care
part is given to Nicodomus, and the western to lessly written : consulibus (e. g. ) is several times
Didymus.
put for consulatum. Suis is found as a contrac
A census of all the people in the Roman subjec- tion (? ) for suprascriptis. The introduction is very
tion was held under Augustus. (Suidas, s. v. different in this and in the other MSS.
Aŭyovotos. ) By two late writers (Cassiodorus, The first edition of the Cosmographia was by
Var. iji. 52, by an emendation of Huschke, p. 6, Simler, Basel, 1575, together with the luinerarium
über den zur Zeit der Geburt Jesu Christi gehaltenen Antonini. There is an edition by Henry Stephens,
Census, Breslau, 1840 ; and Isidorus, Orig. v. 36. & 1577, with Simler's notes, which also contains
4), this numbering of the people is spoken of as Dionysius, Pomponius Mela, and Solinus. The
connected with the measurement of the land. This last edition is by Gronovius, in his edition of Pom-
work in fact consists of two separate pieces. The ponius Mela Leyden, 1722.
[A. A. )
first begins with a short introduction, the substance AETHILLA (Αίθιλλα or AYθυλλα), a daughter
of which has been given, and then proceeds with of Laomedon and sister of Priam, Astyoche, and
an account of the measurement of the Roman world Medesicaste. After the fall of Troy she became
under four heads, Orientalis, Occidentalis, Septen- the prisoner of Protesilaus, who took her, together
trionalis, Meridiana pars. Then come series of with other captives, with him on his voyage home.
lists of names, arranged under heads, Maria Insu- He landed at Scione in Thrace in order to take in
lae, Montes, Provinciae, Oppida, Flumina and fresh water, While Protesilaus bad gone inland,
Gentes. These are bare lists, excepting that the Aethilla persuaded her fellow-prisoners to set fire
rivers have an account of their rise, course, and to the ships. This was done and all remained on
length annexed. This is the end of the first part, the spot and founded the town of Scione. (Tzetz.
the Expositio. The second part is called Alia to- ad Lycophr. 921, 1075; Conon, Narrat.
feelings of delicacy, since the nose of Socrates Totalvos in reference to the particular sort of
furnishes ample matter for raillery in the Sympo speecbes which mark his character. In Hesiod
sium of Plato. Besides, the Athenians caused (Op. el Dies, 200), it has passed into the sense of
Lysippus to erect a statue in his honour, which a moral fable. The alvol or pūbol of Aesop were
had it been sculptured in accordance with the certainly in prose :- they are called by Aristo
above description, would have been the reverse of phanes abyou, and their author (Herod. ii. 134) is
ornamental.
Αίσωπος ο λογόποιος, λόγος being the peculiar
The notices however which we possess of Aesop word for Prose, as fan was for verse, and includ.
are so scattered and of such doubtful authority, ing both fable and history, though afterwards
that there have not been wanting persons to deny restricted to oratory, when that became a separate
his existence altogether. "In poetical philosophy," branch of composition.
says Vico in his Scienza Nuova, “ Aesop will be Following the example of Socrates, Demetrius
found not to be any particular and actually exist- Phalereus (B. C. 320) tumed Aesop's fables into
ing man, but the abstraction of a class of men, or poetry, and collected them into a book! and after
a poetical character representative of the companions him an author, whose name is unknown, pube
and attendants of the heroes, such as certainly lished them in Elegiacs, of which some fragments
existed in the time of the seven Sages of Greece. " are preserved by Suidas. But the only Greek
This however is an excess of scepticism into which versifier of Aesop, of whose writings any whole
it would be most unreasonable to plunge: whether fables are preserved is Babrius, an author of no
Aesop left any written works at all, is a question mean powers, and who may well take his place
which affords considerable room for doubt, and to amongst Fabulists with Phaedrus and La Fon-
which Bentley inclines to give a negative. Thus taine. His version is in Choliambics, i. e. lame,
Aristophanes (Vesp. 1259) represents Philocleon as halting iambics (xãos, Yaubos), verses which fol-
learning his Fables in conversation and not out of a low in all respects the laws of the lambic Tri-
book, and Socrates who turned them into poetry meter till the sixth foot, which is either a spondee
versified those that “ he knew, and could most or trochee, the fifth being properly an iambus.
readily remember. ” (Plat. Phaed. p. 61, b; Bent- This version was made a little before the age of
ley, Dissertation on the Fables of Aesop, p. 136. ) Augustus, and consisted of ten Books, of which a
However this may be, it is certain that fables, few scattered fables only are preserved. Of the
bearing Aesop's name, were popular at Athens in Latin writers of Aesopean fables, Phaedrus is the
its most intellectual age. We find them frequently most celebra'ed.
noticed by Aristophanes. One of the pleasures of The fables now extant in probe, bearing the name
a dicast (Vesp. 566) was, that among the candi- of Aesop, are unquestionably spurious. Of these
dates for his protection and vote some endeavoured there are three principal collections, the one con-
## p. 48 (#68) ##############################################
48
AESOPUS.
AESOPUS.
taining 136 fables, published first A. D. 1610, from A ESO'PUS, & Greek historian, who wrote a
MSS. at Heidelberg. This is so clumsy a forgery, life of Alexander the Great. The original is lost,
that it mentions the orator Demades, who lived 200 but there is a Latin translation of it by Julius
years after Acsop, and contains a whole sentence Valerius (VALERIUS), of which Franciscus Juretus
from the book of Job (youvol yap v Alouev oi had, he says (ad Symmach. Ep. X. 54), a manu-
Távtes, youvol oùv åmea evoóueda). Some of the script. It was first published, however, by A. Mai
passages Bentley bas shewn to be fragments of from a MS. in the Ambrosian library, Milan, 1817,
Choliambic verses, and has made it tolerably cer-4to. , reprinted Frankfort, 1818, 8vo. The title is
tain that they were stolen from Babrius. The " Itinerarium ad Constantinum Augustum, etc. :
other collection was made by the above mentioned accedunt Julii Valeri Res gestae Alexandri Mace-
monk of Constantinople, Maximus Planudes. donis," etc. The time when Aesopus lived is un-
These contain at least one Hebraism (Bowv ev tý certain, and even his existence has been doubted.
Kapôią : compare e. g. Eccles. xi. 1, eltov év (Barth, Adversar. ii. 10. ) Mai, in the preface to
kapdía mov), and among them are words entirely his edition, contended that the work was written
modern, as Boúralis a bird, Buúveupov a beast, and before 389, A. D. , because the temple of Serapis at
also traces of the Choliambics of Babrius. The Alexandria, which was destroyed by order of
third collection was found in a MS. at Florence, Theodosius, is spoken of in the translation (Jul.
and published in 1809. Its date is about a cen- Valer. i. 31) as still standing. But serious objec-
tury before the time of Planudes, and it contains tions to this inference have been raised by Letronno
the life which was prefixed to bis collection, and (Journ. des Savans, 1818, p. 617), who refers it
commonly supposed to be his own.
to the seventh or eighth century, which the weight
Bentley's dissertation on Aesop is appended to of internal evidence would rather point to. The
those on Phalaris. The genuineness of the existing book is full of the most extravagant stories and
forgeries was stoutly maintained by his Oxford glaring mistakes, and is a work of no credit. (A. A. )
antagonists (Preface to Aesopicarum Fabularum AESOʻPUS, CLAU'DIUS or CLO'DIUS, the
Delectus, Oxford 1628); but there is no one in our most celebrated tragic actor at Rome in the Cice
day who disputes his decision.
ronian period, probably a freedman of the Clodia
It remains to notice briefly the theory which gens. Horace (Ep. ii. 1. 82) and other authors
assigns to Aesop's fables an oriental origin. Among put him on a level with Roscius. (Fronto, p.
the writers of Arabia, one of the most famous is 44, ed. Niebuhr. ) Each was preeminent in his
Lukman, whom some traditions make contempo- own department; Roscius in comedy, being, with
rary with David, others the son of a sister or respect to action and delivery (pronuntiatio), more
aunt of Job, while again he has been represented rapid (citatior, Quintil. Inst. Or. xi. 3. $111); Ae-
as an ancient king or chief of the tribe of Ad. sopus in tragedy, being more weights (grarior,
“ Lukman's wisdom” is proverbial among the Quintil
. Lc. ). Aesopus took great pains to perfect
Arabs, and joined with Joseph's beauty and himself in his art by rarious methods. He dili-
David's melody. (See the Thousand and One gently studied the exhibition of character in real
Nights (Lane's translation), Story of Prince life; and when any important trial was going on,
Kamer-ez-Zeman and Princess Budoor, and Note especially, for example, when Hortensius was to
59 to chapter 2. ) The Persian accounts of this plead, he was constantly in attendance, that he
Lukman represent him as an ugly black slave, and might watch and be able to represent the more
it seems probable that the author of the Life ed- truthfully the feelings which were actually dis
grafted this and other circumstances in the Oriental played on such occasions. (Val
. Max. vii. 10. $ 2. )
traditions of Lukman upon the classical tales re- He never, it is said, put on the mask for the cha-
specting Aesop. The fables ascribed to Aesop bare racter he had to perform in, without first looking
in many respects an eastern character, alluding to
at it attentively from a distance for some time,
Asiatic customs, and introducing panthers, pea- that so in performing he might preserve his voice
cocks, and monkeys among their dramatis personæ. and action in perfect keeping with the appearance
All this makes it likely that the fables attri- he would have. (Fronto, de Elog. 5. , p. 37. )
buted both to Lukman and Aesop are derived from Perhaps this anecdote may confirm the opinion
the same Indo-Persian source.
(Dict. of Ant. s. o. Persona), that masks had only
The principal editions of Aesop's Fables are, lately been introduced in the regular drama at
1. The collection formed by Planudes with a Rome, and were not always used even for leading
Latin translation, published at Milan by Buono characters ; for, according to Cicero (de Div. i. 37),
Accorso at the end of the 15th century. 2. An- Aesopus excelled in power of face and fire of ea-
other edition of the same collection, with some pression (tantum ardorem vultuum atque motuum),
additional fables from a MS. in the Bibliothèque which of course would not have been risible if
du Roi at Paris, by Robert Stephanus, 1546. he had performed only with a mask. From the
3. The edition of Nevelet, 1610, which added to wbole passage in Cicero and from the anec-
these the Heidelberg collection, published at Frank- dotes recorded of him, his acting would seem to
fort on the Main. These have been followed by have been characterised chiefly by strong emphasis
editions of all or some of the Fables, by Hudson at and vehemence. On the whole, Cicero calls him
Oxford (1718), Hauptmann at Leipzig (1741), summus artifex, and says he was fitted to act a
Heusinger at Leipzig (1756), Ernesti at the leading part no less in real life than on the stage.
same place (1781), and G. H. Schaefer again at (Pro Sext. 56. ) It does not appear that he ever
Leipzig (1810, 1818, 1820). Francesco de Furia performed in comedy. Valerius Maximus (viii.
added to the above the new fables from the Flo- 10. $ 2) calls Aesopus and Roscius both “ ludicrae
rentine MS. , and his edition was reprinted by artis peritissimos viros," but this may merely de-
Coray at Paris (1810). All the fables have been note the theatrical art in general, including tragedy
put together and published, 231 in number, by J. as well as comedy. (Comp. Iudicrae tibiue, Plin. li.
G, Schneider, at Breslau, in 1810. [G. E. L. C. ] N. xvi. 36. ) Fronto calls him (p. 87) Truyurs de
## p. 49 (#69) ##############################################
AESYMNETES.
49
AETHER,
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empres. From Cicero's remark, however, (de Off. | Eurypylus, who on opening it suddenly fell into a
i. 114), it would seem that the character of Ajax state of madness. The oracle of Delphi, when
was rather too tragic for him. (Comp. Tusc. Quaest. consulted about his recovery, answered, " Where
ïi. 17, iv. 25. )
thou shalt see men performing a strange sacrifice,
Like Roscius, Aesopus enjoyed the intimacy of there shalt thou dedicate the chest, and there shalt
the great actor, who calls him noster Aesopus (ad thou settle. ” When Eurypylus came to Aroë in
Fum. vii. 1), nostor familiaris (ad Qu. Frat. i. 2, Achaia, it was just the season at which its in-
4); and they seem to have sought, from one an- habitants offered every year to Artemis Triclarin a
other's society, improvement, each in his re human sacrifice, consisting of the fairest youth and
spective art During his exile, Cicero received the fairest maiden of the place. This sacrifice was
many valuable marks of Aesopus's friendship. On offered as an atonement for a crime which had
one occasion, in particular, having to perform the once been committed in the temple of the goddess.
part of Telamon, banished from his country, in one But an oracle had declared to them, that they
of Accius's plays, the tragedian, by his manner and should be released from the necessity of making
skilful emphasis, and an occasional change of a this sacrifice, if a foreign divinity should be
word, added to the evident reality of his feelings, brought to them by a foreign king. This oracle
and succeeded in leading the audience to apply the was now fulfilled. Eurypylus on seeing the vic-
whole to the case of Cicero, and so did him more tims led to the altar was cured of his madness and
essential service than any direct defence of himself perceived that this was the place pointed out to
could have done. The whole house applauded. him by the oracle; and the Aroëans also, on sec-
(Pro Sest. 56. ) On another occasion, instead of ing the god in the chest, remembered the old
“ Brulus qui libertatem civium stabiliverat,” he prophecy, stopped the sacrifice, and instituted a
substituted Tullius, and the audience gave utter- festival of Dionysus Aesymnetes, for this was the
nnce to their enthusiasm by encoring the passage name of the god in the chest. Nine men and nine
a thousand times” (millies revocatum est, Pro women were appointed to attend to his worship.
Sezt. 58). The time of his death or his age can- During one night of this festival a priest car-
not be fixed with certainty ; but at the dedication ried the chest outside the town, and all the
of the theatre of Pompey (8. c. 55), he would seem children of the pluce, adorned, as formerly the
to have been elderly, for he was understood previ- victims used to be, with garlands of corn-ears,
ously to have retired from the stage, and we do went down to the banks of the river Meilichius,
not hear of his being particularly delicate : yet, which had before been called Ameilichius, hung
from the passage, ill-health or age would appear to up their garlands, purified themselves, and then
have been the reason of his retiring. On that oc put on other garlands of ivy, after which they ro
casion, however, in honour of the festival, he ap tumed to the sanctuary of Dionysus Aesymnetes.
peared again ; but just as he was coming to one (Paus. vii. 19 and 20. ) This tradition, though
of the most emphatic parts, the beginning of an otherwise very obscure, evidently points to a time
onth, Si sciens fallo, etc. , his voice failed him, and when buman sacrifices were abolished at Aroë by
he could not go through with the speech.
He was the introduction of a new worship. At Patrae in
evidently unable to proceed, so that any one Achaia there was likewise a temple dedicated to
would readily have excused him: a thing which, Dionysus Aesymnetes. (Paus. vii. 21. & 12. ) [L. S. )
as the passage in Cicero implies (ad Fam. vii. 1), AETHA'LIDES (Aidanions), a son of Hermes
a Roman audience would not do for ordinary per' and Eupolemeia a daughter of Myrmidon. He
formers. Aesopus, though far from frugal (Plin. was the herald of the Argonauts, and had received
H. N. x. 72), realized, like Roscius, an immense from his father the faculty of remembering every-
fortune by his profession. He left about 200,000 thing, even in Hades. He was further allowed to
sesterces to his son Clodius, who proved a foolish reside alternately in the upper and in the lower
spendthrift. (Val. Max. ix. 1. & 2. ) It is said, for world. As his soul could not forget anything even
instance, that be dissolved in vinegar and drank a after death, it remembered that from the body of
pearl worth about £8000, which he took from the Aethalides it had successively migrated into those
ear-ring of Caecilia Metella (Hor. Sat. ii. 3, 239 ; of Euphorbus, Hermotimus, Pyrrhus, and at last
Val. Max. ix. 1. & 2; Macrob. Sut. ü. 10. ; Plininto that of Pythagoras, in whom it still retained
H. N. ix. 59), a favourite feat of the extra- the recollection of its former migrations. (Apollon.
vagant monomania in Rome. (Compare Suet. Rhod. i. 54, 640, &c. ; Orph. Argon. 131 ; Hygin.
Calig. 37; Macrob. Sat. ii. 13. ) The connexion Fab. 14; Diog. Laert. viii. 1. & 4, &c. ; Val. Flacc.
of Cicero's son-in-law Dolabella with the same i. 437. )
(I. S. )
lady no doubt increased the distress which Cicero AETHER (Aiono), a personified idea of the
felt at the dissolute proceedings of the son of his mythical cosmogonies. According to that of Hy-
old friend. (Ad Att. xi. 13. )
[A. A. ] ginus (Fab. Pref. p. 1, ed. Staveren), he was, to
AESYMNEʼTES (Alouurons), a surname of gether with Night, Day, and Erebus, begotten by
Dionysus, which signifies the Lord, or Ruler, and Chaos and Caligo (Darkness). According to that
under which he was worshipped at Aroë in Achaia of Hesiod (Theog. 124), Aether was the son of
The story about the introduction of his worship Erebus and his sister Night, and a brother of
there is as follows: There was at Troy an ancient Day. (Comp. Phomut. De Nat. Deor. 16. ) The
image of Dionysus, the work of Hephaestus, which children of Aether and Day were Land, Heaven,
Zeus had once given as a present to Dardanus. and Sea, and from his connexion with the Earth
It was kept in a chest, and Cassandra, or, accord there sprang all the vices which destroy the human
ing to others, Aenens, left this chest behind when race, and also the Giants and Titins. (Hygin.
she quitted the city, because she knew that it Fab. Pref. p. 2, &c. ) These accounts shew that,
would do injury to him who possessed it. When in the Greek cosmogonies, Aether was considered
the Greeks divided the spoils of Troy among them as one of the elementary substances out of wbich
selves, this chest fell to the share of the Thessalian ! the Universe was formed. In the Orphic hymns
ter in real
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## p. 50 (#70) ##############################################
50
AETHICUS.
AETHIOPS.
1
(4) Aether appears as the soul of the world, from to the preceding part, the Expositio, by the words
which all life emanates, an idea which was also Hanc quadripurtiam totius terrue continentiam hi
adopted by some of the early philosophers of qui dimensi sunt. From this it would appear that
Greece. In later times Aether was regarded as Aethicus borrowed it from Orosius.
the wide space of Heaven, the residence of the The work abounds in errors. Sometimes the
gods, and Zeus as the Lord of the Aether, or Aether same name occurs in different lists ; as, for exam-
itself personified. (Pacuv. ap. Cic. de Nat. Deur. ple, Cyprus and Rhodes both in the north and in
ii. 36, 40; Lucret. v. 499; Virg. Aen. xii. 140, the east; Corsica both in the west and in the
Georg. ii. 325. )
[L. S. ) south; or a country is put as a town, as Arabia ;
AETHE'RIE. (HELIADES. ]
Noricum is put among the islands. Mistakes of
AEʻTHICUS, HISTER or ISTER, a Roman this kind would easily be made in copying lists,
writer of the fourth century, a native of Istria ac- especially if in double columns. But from other
cording to his surname, or, according to Rabanus reasons and from quotations given by Dicuil, a
Maurus, of Scythia, the author of a geographical writer of the 9th century, from the Cosmographia,
work, called Aethici Cosmographia. We learn differing from the text as we have it, the whole
from the preface that a measurement of the whole appears to be very corrupt. The whole is a very
Roman world was ordered by Julius Caesar to be meagre production, but presents a few valuable
made by the most able men, that this measurement points. Many successful emendations have been
was begun in the consulship of Julius Caesar and made by Salmasius in his Exercitationes Philolo
M. Antonius, i. e. B. C. 44; that three Greeks were gicae, and there is a very valuable essay on the
appointed for the purpose, Zenodoxus, Theodotus, whole subject by Ritschl in the Rheinisches Museum
and Polyclitus ; that Zenodoxus measured all the (1842), i. 4.
eastern part, which occupied him twenty-one years, The sources of the Cosmographia appear to have
five months, and nine days, on to the third consul- been the measurements above described, other offi-
ship of Augustus and Crassus ; that Theodotus cial lists and documents, and also, in all probability,
measured the northern part, which occupied him Agrippa's Commentarii, which are constantly re-
twenty-nine years, eight months, and ten days, on ferred to by Pliny (Hist. Nat. iii. iv. v. vi. ) as an
to the tenth consulship of Augustus; and that authority, and his Chart of the World, which was
Polyclitus measured the southem part, which oc- founded on his Commentari. (Plin. Hist. Nat. iii.
cupied him thirty-two years, one month, and ten 2. )
days; that thus the whole (Roman) world was Cassiodorus (de instit. divin. 25) describes a
gone over by the measurers within thirty-two (? ) cosmographical work by Julius Honorius Crator
years; and that a report of all it contained was in terms which suit exactly the work of Aethicus;
laid before the senate. So it stands in the edd. ; and Salmasius regards Julius Honorius as the real
but the numbers are evidently much corrupted : author of this work, to which opinion Ritschl seems
the contradictoriness of Polyclitus's share taking to lean, reading Ethnicus instead of Aethicus, and
more than 32 years, and the whole measurement considering it as a mere appellative. In some
being made in less than (intra) 32 years is obvious. MSS. the appellatives Sophista and Philosophus
It is to be observed that, in this introductory are found.
statement, no mention is made of the western part One of the oldest MSS. , if not the oldest, is the
(which in the work itself comes next to the east- Vatican one. This is the only one which speaks
ern), except in the Vatican MS. , where the eastern of the west in the introduction. But it is care
part is given to Nicodomus, and the western to lessly written : consulibus (e. g. ) is several times
Didymus.
put for consulatum. Suis is found as a contrac
A census of all the people in the Roman subjec- tion (? ) for suprascriptis. The introduction is very
tion was held under Augustus. (Suidas, s. v. different in this and in the other MSS.
Aŭyovotos. ) By two late writers (Cassiodorus, The first edition of the Cosmographia was by
Var. iji. 52, by an emendation of Huschke, p. 6, Simler, Basel, 1575, together with the luinerarium
über den zur Zeit der Geburt Jesu Christi gehaltenen Antonini. There is an edition by Henry Stephens,
Census, Breslau, 1840 ; and Isidorus, Orig. v. 36. & 1577, with Simler's notes, which also contains
4), this numbering of the people is spoken of as Dionysius, Pomponius Mela, and Solinus. The
connected with the measurement of the land. This last edition is by Gronovius, in his edition of Pom-
work in fact consists of two separate pieces. The ponius Mela Leyden, 1722.
[A. A. )
first begins with a short introduction, the substance AETHILLA (Αίθιλλα or AYθυλλα), a daughter
of which has been given, and then proceeds with of Laomedon and sister of Priam, Astyoche, and
an account of the measurement of the Roman world Medesicaste. After the fall of Troy she became
under four heads, Orientalis, Occidentalis, Septen- the prisoner of Protesilaus, who took her, together
trionalis, Meridiana pars. Then come series of with other captives, with him on his voyage home.
lists of names, arranged under heads, Maria Insu- He landed at Scione in Thrace in order to take in
lae, Montes, Provinciae, Oppida, Flumina and fresh water, While Protesilaus bad gone inland,
Gentes. These are bare lists, excepting that the Aethilla persuaded her fellow-prisoners to set fire
rivers have an account of their rise, course, and to the ships. This was done and all remained on
length annexed. This is the end of the first part, the spot and founded the town of Scione. (Tzetz.
the Expositio. The second part is called Alia to- ad Lycophr. 921, 1075; Conon, Narrat.