ATHENEA, in antiquity, a feast celebrated by the ancient Greeks in honour of Minerva, who was called Athena.

ATHENÆUM, in antiquity, a public place wherein the professors of the liberal arts held their assemblies, the rhetoricians declaimed, and the poets rehearsed their performances. These places, of which there were a great number at Athens, were built in the manner of amphitheatres, encompassed with seats, called curules. The three most celebrated Athenæa were those at Athens, at Rome, and at Lyons, the second of which was built by the emperor Adrian.

ATHENÆUS, a physician, born in Cilicia, contemporary with Pliny, and founder of the pneumatic feet. He taught that the fire, air, water, and earth, are not the true elements, but that their qualities are, viz. heat, cold, moisture, and dryness; and to these he added a fifth element, which he called spirit, whence his feet had its name.

ATHENÆUS, a Greek grammarian, born at Naucratis. cratis in Egypt in the 3rd century, one of the most learned men of his time. Of all his works we have none extant but his Deipnosophis, i.e. the sophists at table. There is an infinity of facts and quotations in this work which render it very agreeable to admirers of antiquity.

There is also a mathematician of this name, who wrote a treatise on mechanics, which is inserted in the works of the ancient mathematicians, printed at Paris in 1693, in folio, in Greek and Latin.