AM, or AME, a liquid measure used in most parts of Germany; but different in different towns: the aem commonly contains 20 vertils, or 80 masses; that of Heidelberg is equal to 48 masses; and that of Wirtemberg to 160 masses. See AAM.
ÆMILIUS PAULUS, the son of Æmilius Paulus who was killed at the battle of Cannæ. He was twice consul. In his first consulate he triumphed over the Ligurians; and in the second subdued Perseus king of Macedonia, and reduced that country to a Roman province, on which he obtained the surname of Macedonicus. He returned to Rome loaded with glory, and triumphed for three days. He died 168 years before Christ.
ÆMILIUS, Paulus, a celebrated historian, born at Verona, who obtained such reputation in Italy, that he was invited into France by the cardinal of Bourbon, in the reign of Louis XII. in order to write the history of the kings of France in Latin, and was presented to a canonry in the cathedral of Paris. He was near 30 years in writing that history, which has been greatly admired; and died at Paris on the 5th of May 1529.
ÆMOBOLIUM, in antiquity, the blood of a bull or ram offered in the sacrifices, called taurobolia and criobolia; in which sense the word occurs in ancient inscriptions.
ÆNARIA, in Ancient Geography, an island in the bay of Cumæ, or over-against Cumæ in Italy, (Pliny). It is also called Inarime (Virgil); and now Ischia; scarce three miles distant from the coast, and the promontory Misenum to the west; 20 miles in compass; called Pithecusa by the Greeks. It is one of the Oenotrides, and fenced round by very high rocks, so as to be inaccessible but on one side: it was formerly famous for its earthen-ware. See ISCHIA.
ÆNEAS, in fabulous history, a famous Trojan prince, the son of Anchises and Venus. At the destruction of Troy, he bore his aged father on his back, and saved him from the Greeks; but being too solicitous about his son and household gods, lost his wife Creüsa in the escape. Landing in Africa, he was kindly received by Queen Dido: but quitting her coast, he arrived in Italy, where he married Lavinia the daughter of King Latinus, and defeated Turnus, to whom she had been contracted. After the death of his father-in-law, he was made king of the Latins, over whom he reigned three years: but joining with the Aborigines, he was slain in a battle against the Tuscans. Virgil has rendered the name of this prince immortal, by making him the hero of his poem. See ÆNEID.
ÆNEAS SYLVIUS, Pope. See PIUS II.
ÆNEATORES, in antiquity, the musicians in an army, including those that played trumpets, horns, &c. The word is formed from æneus, on account of the brazen instruments used by them.
ÆNEID, the name of Virgil's celebrated epic poem. Blair's Lectures. The subject of the Æneid, which is the establishment of Æneas in Italy, is extremely happy. Nothing could be more interesting to the Romans than to look back to their origin from so famous a hero. While the object was splendid itself, the traditional history of his country opened interesting fields to the poet; and he could glance at all the future great exploits of the Romans, in its ancient and fabulous state.
As to the unity of action, it is perfectly well preserved in the Æneid. The settlement of Æneas, by the order of the gods, is constantly kept in view. The episodes are linked properly with the main subject. The nodus, or intrigue of the poem, is happily managed. The wrath of Juno, who opposes Æneas, gives rise to all his difficulties, and connects the human with the celestial operations throughout the whole poem.
One great imperfection of the Æneid, however, is, that there are almost no marked characters in it. Achatès, Cloanthes, Gyges, and other Trojan heroes who accompanied Æneas into Italy, are insipid figures. Even Æneas himself is without interest. The character of Dido is the best supported in the whole Æneid.
The principal excellency of Virgil is tenderness. His soul was full of sensibility. He must have felt himself all the affecting circumstances in the scenes he describes; and he knew how to touch the heart by a single stroke. In an epic poem this merit is the next to sublimity. The second book of the Æneid is one of the greatest masterpieces that ever was executed. The death of old Priam, and the family-pieces of Æneas, Anchises, and Creüsa, are as tender as can be conceived. In the fourth book, the unhappy passion and death of Dido are admirable. The episodes of Pallas and Evander, of Nisus and Euryalus, of Lausus and Mezentius, are all superlatively fine.
In his battles Virgil is far inferior to Homer. But in the important episode, the descent into hell, he has outdone Homer by many degrees. There is nothing in antiquity to equal the sixth book of the Æneid.
ÆNGINA, one of the islands of the Archipelago. Engia. It lies in the bay of Engia, and the town of that name contains about 800 houses and a castle; and near it are the ruins of a magnificent structure, which was formerly a temple.
ÆNIGMA denotes any dark saying, wherein some well known thing is concealed under obscure language. The word is Greek, ἀνύξις, formed of ἀνύξια, obscure ἴννειν, to hint a thing darkly, and of αὐστ, an obscure speech or discourse. The popular name is riddle; from the Belgic raeden, or the Saxon aræthan, to interpret. F. Bouhours, in the memoirs of Trevoix, defines an enigma, a discourse or painting, including some hidden meaning, which is proposed to be guessed.
Painted Ænigmas, are representations of the works of nature or art, concealed under human figures, drawn from history or fable.
A Verbal Ænigma, is a witty, artful, and abstruse description of any thing.—In a general sense, every dark saying, every difficult question, every parable, may pass for an enigma. Hence obscure laws are called Ænigmata Juris. The alchemists are great dealers in the enigmatic language, their processes for the philosopher's stone being generally wrapt up in riddles: e.g. Fac ex mare et femina circulum, inde quadrangulum hinc triangulum, fac circulum, et habebis lapidem philosophorum.—F. Menestrier has attempted to reduce the composition and resolution of enigmas to a kind of art, with fixed rules and principles, which he calls the philosophy of enigmatic images.
The Subject of an Ænigma, or the thing to be concealed and made a mystery of, he justly observes, ought not to be such in itself; but, on the contrary, common, obvious, and easy to be conceived. It is to be taken, either from nature, as the heaven or stars; or from art, as painting, the compass, a mirror, or the like.
The Form of Ænigmas consists in the words, which, whether they be in prose or verse, contain either some description, a question, or a prosopopoeia. The last kind are the most pleasing, inasmuch as they give life and action to things which otherwise have them not. To make an enigma, therefore, two things are to be pitched on which bear some resemblance to each other, as the sun and a monarch; or a ship and a house; and on this resemblance is to be raised a superstructure of contrarieties to amuse and perplex. It is easier to find great subjects for enigmas in figures than in words; inasmuch as painting attracts the eyes and excites the attention to discover the sense. The subjects of enigmas in painting are to be taken either from history or fable: the composition here is a kind of metamorphosis, wherein, e.g. human figures are changed into trees, and rivers into metals. It is essential to enigmas, that the history or fable, under which they are presented, be known to every body: otherwise it will be two enigmas instead of one; the first of the history or fable, the second of the sense in which it is to be taken. Another essential rule of the enigma is, that it only admits of one sense. Every enigma which is susceptible of different interpretations, all equally natural, is so far imperfect. What gives a kind of erudition to an enigma, is the invention of figures in situations, gestures, colours, &c. authorised by passages of the poets, the customs of artists in statues, basso relivos, inscriptions, and medals.—In foreign colleges,
The Explication of Ænigmas makes a considerable exercise; and that one of the most difficult and amusing, where wit and penetration have the largest field.—By explaining an enigma, is meant the finding a motto corresponding to the action and persons represented in a picture, taken either from history or mythology. The great art of this exercise consists in the choice of a motto, which either by itself, or the circumstances of time, place, person who speaks, or those before whom he is speaking, may divert the spectators, and furnish occasion for strokes of wit; also in showing to advantage the conformities between the figure and thing figured, giving ingenious turns to the reasons employed to support what is advanced, and in artfully introducing pieces of poetry to illustrate the subject and awaken the attention of the audience.
As to the solution of enigmas, it may be observed, that those expressed by figures are more difficult to explain than those consisting of words, by reason images may signify more things than words can; so that to fix them to a particular sense, we must apply every situation, symbol, &c. and without omitting a circumstance.—As there are few persons in history, or mythology, but have some particular character of vice or virtue, we are, before all things, to attend to this character, in order to divine what the figure of a person represented in a painting signifies, and to find what agreement this may have with the subject whereof we would explain it. Thus, if Proteus be represented in a picture, it may be taken to denote inconstancy, and applied either to a physical or moral subject, whose character is to be changeable, e.g. an almanack, which expresses the weather, the seasons, heat, cold, storms, and the like. The colours of figures may also help to unriddle what they mean: white, for instance, is a mark of innocence, red of modesty, green of hope, black of sorrow, &c. When figures are accompanied with symbols, they are less precarious; these being, as it were, the soul of enigmas, and the key that opens the mystery of them. Of all the kinds of symbols which may be met with in those who have treated professedly on the subject, the only true enigmatical are those of Pythagoras, which, under dark proverbs, hold forth lessons of morality; as when he says Stateram ne transitas, to signify, Do no injustice.
But it must be added, that we meet with some enigmas, in history, complicated to a degree which much transcends all rules, and has given great perplexity to the interpreters of them. Such is that celebrated ancient one, Elia Laeta Crispis, about which many of the learned have puzzled their heads. There are two exemplars of it: one found 140 years ago, on a marble near Bologna: the other in an ancient MS. written in Gothic letters at Milan. It is controverted between the two cities, which is to be reputed the more authentic.
The Bononian Enigma.
D. M. Elia Laeta Crispis, Nec vir, nec mulier, Nec androgyna; Nec puella, nec juvenis, Nec AEN
Nec anus; Nec casta, nec meretrix, Nec pudica; Sed omnia: Sublata Neque fame, neque ferro, Neque veneno; Sed omnibus: Nec calo, nec terris, Nec aquis, Sed ubique jacet. Lucius Agatho Priscius, Nec maritus, nec amator, Nec necessarius; Neque moerens, neque gaudens, Neque flens; Hanc, Nec molem, nec pyramidem, Nec sepulchrum, Sed omnia, Scit et nescit, cui posuerit.
That is to say, To the gods manes, Elia Laelia Crispis, neither man, nor woman, nor hermaphrodite; neither girl, nor young woman, nor old; neither chaste, nor a whore; but all these: killed neither by hunger, nor steel, nor poison; but by all these: rests neither in heaven, nor on earth, nor in the waters; but everywhere. Lucius Agatho Priscius, neither her husband, nor lover, nor friend; neither sorrowful, nor joyful, nor weeping, certain, or uncertain, to whom he rears this monument, neither erects her a temple, nor a pyramid, nor a tomb, but all these. In the MS. at Milan, instead of D. M. we find A. M. P. P. D. and at the end the following addition:
Hoc est sepulchrum intus cadaver non habens. Hoc est cadaver sepulchrum extra non habens, Sed cadaver idem est et sepulchrum.
We find near 50 several solutions of this enigma advanced by learned men. Marius Michael Angelio maintains Elia Laelia Crispis to signify rain water falling into the sea. Ri. Vitus first explained it of Niobe, turned to a stone, afterwards of the rational soul, and afterwards of the Platonic idea; Jo. Turrius, of the materia prima; Fr. Schottus, of an eunuch; Nic. Bernardus, of the philosopher's stone, in which he is followed by Borrichius; Zach. Pontinus, of three human bodies, in the same situation; and buried by three different men at the same time; Nesmondius, of a law-suit; Jo. Gas. Gerartus, of love; Zu. Boxhornius, of a shadow; P. Terronus, of music; Fort. Licetus, of generation, friendship and privation; M. Ov. Montalbanus, of hemp; Car. Caes. Malvasia, of an abortive girl promised in marriage; Pet. Mengulus, of the rule of chastity, prescribed by the founder of the military religion of St Mary; M. de Ciconia, of Pope Joan; Heumannus, of Lot's wife; and lastly, J. C. S. an anonymous writer in the Leipsic Acts, of the Christian church.
ÆNIGMATOGRAPHY, or ÆNICMATHOLOGY, the art of resolving or making enigmas.
ÆNONA, in Ancient Geography, a city of Liburnia, called by Pliny Civitas Prasini, the reason of which is unknown; also Enona; and is now called Nona; on the Adriatic, by which it is for the greater part surrounded; over against the island Gissa, from which it is distant four miles to the west. E. Long. 16°. N. Lat. 28°.
ÆNUS, in Ancient Geography, now the Inn, a river of Germany, which, rising in the country of the Grisons, out of the Alps, in the district called Gotteshaus-punt, runs through the Grisons, the county of Tyrol, the duchy of Bavaria, and through Passau into the Danube.
ÆNUS, Ænos, or Ænum, in Ancient Geography, a town of Thrace, situated on the eastmost mouth of the Hebrus, which has two mouths; and said to be built by the Cumeans. It was a free town, in which stood the tomb of Polydorus, (Pliny); Ænus is the epithet. Here the brother of Cato Uticensis died, and was honoured with a monument of marble in the forum of the Ænii, (Plutarch); called Ænei, (Stephanus). Livy says that the town was otherwise called Absynthus. Now Enos.
ÆNITHOLOGIUS, in Poetry, a verse of two dactyls and three trochei; as Praetia diva placent truci juvente.
ÆOLIAE INSULÆ, now Isoli Lipari, in Ancient Geography, seven islands, situated between Sicily and Italy; so called from Æolus, who reigned there about the time of the Trojan war. The Greeks call them Hephaestiades; and the Romans Vulcaniae, from their fiery eruptions. They are also called Liparacorum Insulae, from their principal island Lipara. Dionysius Periegetes calls them Πλάναι, because circumnavigable.
ÆOLIC, in a general sense, denotes something belonging to Æolis.
ÆOLIC, or ÆOLIAN, in Grammar, denotes one of the five dialects of the Greek tongue. It was first used in Boeotia; whence it passed into Æolia, and was that which Sappho and Alceus wrote in. The Æolic dialect generally throws out the aspirate or sharp spirit, and agrees in so many things with the Doric dialect, that the two are usually confounded together.
The Æolic digamma is a name given to the letter F, which the Æolians used to prefix to words beginning with vowels, as Fave, for ave; also to insert between vowels, as oΓις, for ois.
ÆOLIC Verse, in Prosody, a verse consisting of an iambus, or spondee; then of two anapests, separated by a long syllable; and, lastly, of another syllable. Such as, O stelliferi conditor orbis. This is otherwise called eulogic verse; and, from the chief poets who used it, Archilochian and Pindaric.
ÆOLIPILE, in Hydraulics, is a hollow ball of metal, generally used in courses of experimental philosophy, in order to demonstrate the possibility of converting water into an elastic steam or vapour by heat. The instrument, therefore, consists of a slender neck, or pipe, having a narrow orifice inserted into the ball by means of a shouldered screw. This pipe being taken out, the ball is filled almost full of water, and the pipe being again screwed in, the ball is placed on a pan of kindled charcoal, where it is well heated, and there issues from the orifice a vapour, with prodigious violence and great noise, which continues till all the included water is discharged. The stronger the fire is, the more elastic and violent will be the steam; but care must be taken that the small orifice of the pipe be not, Æolipile by any accident, stopped up; because the instrument would in that case infallibly burst in pieces, with such violence as might greatly endanger the lives of the persons near it. Another way of introducing the water is to heat the ball red hot when empty, which will drive out almost all the air; and then by suddenly immersing it in water, the pressure of the atmosphere will force in the fluid, till it is nearly full. Des Cartes and others have used this instrument to account for the natural cause and generation of the wind: and hence it was called Æolipila: q. d. pila Æoli, the ball of Æolus or of the god of the winds.
ÆOLIS, or ÆOLIA, in Ancient Geography, a country of the Hither Asia, settled by colonies of Æolian Greeks. Taken at large, it comprehends all Troas, and the coast of the Hellespont to the Proponitis, because in those parts there were several Æolian colonies: more strictly, it is situated between Troas to the north, and Ionia to the south. The people are called Æoles or Æoliti.
ÆOLIUM MARE, in Ancient Geography, a part of the Ægean sea, washing Æolis; called also Mystium, from Mysia. Now called Golfo di Smyrna.
ÆOLUS, in heathen mythology, the god of the winds, was said to be the son of Jupiter by Acasta, or Sigesia, the daughter of Hippotus: or, according to others, the son of Hippotus by Menecelea, daughter of Hyllus king of Lipara. He dwelt in the island Strongyle, now called Strombolo, one of the seven islands called Æolian from their being under the dominion of Æolus. Others say, that his residence was at Rhegium, in Italy: and others again place him in the island Lipara. He is represented as having authority over the winds, which he held enclained in a vast cavern, to prevent their continuing the devastations they had been guilty of before they were put under his direction. Mythologists explain the original of these fables, by saying, that he was a wise and good prince; and, being skilled in astronomy, was able, by the flux and reflux of the tides, and the nature of the volcano in the island Strongyle, to foretell storms and tempests.
Harp of Æolus, or the Æolian lyre. See Acoustics.
ÆON, a Greek word, properly signifying the age or duration of any thing.
ÆON, among the followers of Plato, was used to signify any virtue, attribute, or perfection: hence they represented the deity as an assemblage of all possible æons; and called him pleroma, a Greek term signifying fulness. The Valentinians, who, in the first ages of the church, blended the conceits of the Jewish cabalists, the Platonists, and the Chaldean philosophers, with the simplicity of the Christian doctrine, invented a kind of Theogony, or Genealogy of Gods (not unlike that of Hesiod), whom they called by several glorious names, and all by the general appellation of Æons: among which they reckoned Zon, Life; Λεύς, Word; Μονογενής, Only-begotten; Πληρόμας, Fulness; and many other divine powers and emanations, amounting in number to thirty; which they fancied to be successively derived from one another; and all from one self-originated deity, named Bythus, i.e. profound or unfathomable; whom they called likewise, The most high and ineffable Father. See Valentinians.
ÆORA, among ancient writers on medicine, is used for gestation; which sort of exercise was often prescribed by the physicians of those days. Other exercises consisted principally in the motion of the body; but in the æora the limbs were at rest, while the body was carried about and moved from place to place, in such a manner as the physician prescribed. It had therefore the advantage of exercise, without the fatigue of it.—This exercise was promoted several ways: sometimes the patient was laid in a sort of hammock, supported by ropes, and moved backward and forward; sometimes his bed run nimbly on its feet. And sometimes he was carried in a litter, in a boat or ship, or on even ground in a chariot.—Asclepiades was the first who brought gestation into practice, which was used as a means to recover strength after a fever, &c.
ÆPINUS, F. U. T. a German mathematician and philosopher. See Supplement.
ÆQUANA JUGA, in Ancient Geography, mountains of Picenum, in the kingdom of Naples, now called Montagna di Sorrento, denominated from the town Æqua, which being destroyed, was replaced by Vicus, now Vico di Sorrento: called also Æquana, (Sil. Italicus).
ÆQUIMELIUM, in antiquity, a place in Rome, where stood the house of Spurius Melius, who, by largesses corrupting the people, affected the supreme power: refusing to appear before the dictator Cincinnatus, he was slain by Servilius Ahala, master of the horse; his house was razed to the ground; and the spot on which it stood was called Area Equimelii, (Livy).
ÆRA, in chronology, a fixed point of time from whence any number of years is begun to be counted.
It is sometimes also written in ancient authors Era. The origin of the term is contested, though it is generally allowed to have had its rise in Spain. Sepulveda supposes it formed from A. ER. A. the note or abbreviations of the words, annus erat Augusti, occasioned by the Spaniards beginning their computation from the time their country came under the dominion of Augustus, or that of receiving the Roman calender. This opinion, however ingenious, is rejected by Scaliger, not only on account that in the ancient abbreviations A never stood for annus, unless when preceded by V for vixit; and that it seems improbable they should put ER for erat, and the latter A, without any discrimination, both for annus and Augustus. Vossius nevertheless favours the conjecture, and judges it at least as probable, as either that of Isidore, who derives æra from æs, the "tribute-money," wherewith Augustus taxed the world: or that of Scaliger himself, who deduces it likewise from æs, though in a different manner. Æs, he observes, was used among the ancients for an article or item in an account; and hence it came also to stand for a sum or number itself. From the plural æra, came by corruption æra, æram, in the singular: much as Ostia, Ostiam, the name of a place, from Ostia, the mouths of the Tyber.
The difference between the terms æra and epoch is, that the æras are certain points fixed by some people, or nation; and the epochs are points fixed by chronologists and historians. The idea of an æra comprehends also a certain succession of years proceeding from a fixed point of time, and the epoch is that point itself. Thus the Christian æra began at the epoch of the birth of Jesus Christ. See Chronology, where the different Eras, &c. are enumerated and explained.
ÆRARIIUM, the treasury or place where the public money was deposited amongst the Romans.
ÆRARIIUM Sanctius contained the moneys arising from the twentieth part of all legacies: this was kept for the extreme necessities of the state.
ÆRARIIUM Privatum was the emperor's privy purse, or the place where the money arising from his private patrimony was deposited.
ÆRARIIUM Vicesimarum, the place where the money arising from the taxes levied from foreign countries was laid up, so called because it most commonly consisted of a twentieth part of the produce.
ÆRARIIUM Ithilae, or Junonis Lucinae, was where the moneys were deposited which parents paid for the birth of each child.
There are several other treasuries mentioned in history, as the ærarium Juventutis, Veneris, &c. The temple of Saturn was the public treasury of Rome, either because Saturn first taught the Italians to coin money, or, which is most likely, because this temple was the strongest and most secure, and therefore the fittest, place for that purpose.
Ærarium differs from fiscus, as the first contained the public money, the second that of the prince. The two are, however, sometimes indiscriminately used for each other.
ÆRARIIUS, a name given by the Romans to a degraded citizen, who had been struck off the list of his century. Such persons were so called, because they were liable to all the taxes (ara), without enjoying any of its privileges.
The ærarii were incapable of making a will, of inheriting, of voting in assemblies, of enjoying any post of honour or profit; in effect, were only subject to the burdens, without the benefits of society; yet they retained their freedom, and were not reduced to the condition of slaves. To be made an ærarius was a punishment inflicted for some offence, and reputed one degree more severe than to be expelled a tribe, tribu moveri.
ÆRARIIUS was also an officer instituted by Alexander Severus, for the distribution of the money given in largesses to the soldiery or people.
ÆRARIIUS was also used for a person employed in coining or working brass.
These are sometimes called ærarii fusores; at other times, ærarinus is distinguished from fusor; the former answering to what we now call coppersmiths, the latter to founders.
ÆRARIIUS was likewise applied to a soldier who receives pay.