an ancient and very savage people of Libya. Herodotus tells us that they were unacquainted with marriage, and had all their women in common. The children were brought up by their mothers till they were able to walk: after which they were introduced to an assembly of the men, who met every three months; and the man to whom any child first spoke, acknowledged himself its father. They celebrated annually a feast in honour of Minerva, in which the girls divided into two companies, fought with sticks... and stones, and those who died of their wounds were concluded not to have been virgins.

**Ausimum**, or **Aximum**, an ancient Roman colony in the Picenum; now Qfino or Qfino, in the marquisate of Ancona in Italy. E. Long. 15° N. Lat. 43° 20'.

**Ausitae**, or **Aesitae**, a tribe of ancient Arabs, supposed by Bochart to have inhabited the land of Uz mentioned in Scripture.

**Ausona**, in *Ancient Geography*, a town of the Ausones, a people who anciently occupied all the Lower Italy, from the Promontorium Circeum down to the straits of Sicily (Livy), but were afterwards reduced to a much narrower compass; namely, between the Montes Circei and Massici: nor did they occupy the whole of this, but other people were intermixed. Concerning Ausona or its remains there is nothing particular recorded.

**Ausonia**, the ancient name of Italy, from its most ancient inhabitants the Ausones (Virgil, Servius).

**Ausoneum Mare**, in *Ancient Geography*, a part of the Ionian sea, extending southwards from the promontory Japygium to Sicily, which it washes on the east, as it does the Bruttii and Magna Graecia on the south and east. It is separated from the Tuscan sea by the strait of Messina.