18 ASKIERES which, under its founder Mattathias, the great- grandson of Asmonffius, and his five sons, lib- erated Judea from the yoke of Antiochus Epi- phanes and his successors, and subsequently held both the high-priestly and the princely dignity, until supplanted by Herod. They are also known, though not properly, as Macca- bees. Mattathias raised the standard of revolt in 167 B. C., dying soon after. His fifth son Jonathan, and his grandson John Hyrcanus, fully established the independence of the coun- try ; and the son of the latter, Aristobulns I., assumed the royal title (106). The rivalry of Hyrcanns II. and his brother Aristobulus II., nephew of Aristobulus I., brought about the intervention of Rome, and the disguised sub- jection to her under Herod. Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, who was the last to fight for the rights of his house, perished by the hand of the Romans (37), and Herod succes- sively extirpated the rest of the house, inclu- ding his own wife Mariamne and his two sons by her. (See HEBREWS.) ASMKRKS, a village of France, in the depart- ment of the Seine, on the railroad from Paris to St. Germain, nearly 4 m. N. W. of Paris ; pop. in 1866, 5,455. The kings of France formerly had a castle here. The place, with its sur- roundings, was very conspicuous in the fights of the Paris communists with the government troops in the early days of April, 1871. ASOPDS. I. A river of Boaotia, now called the Oropo. It rises about 6 m. N. of Mt. Ela- tea (anc. Citharori), flows E. through Boeotia, and empties into the channel of Egripo in the territory of Attica, near the town of Oropus; length about 25 m. II. A river of Pelopon- nesus, now called the Hagios Georgios (St. George). It flows from the mountains S. of Phlius N". E. through Argolis into the bay of Corinth. III. A river god, identified in legend with each of the above described rivers. The legends connecting him with the Asopus in Peloponnesus trace his descent from Neptune. He married Metope, daughter of Ladon, and by her had two sons and twelve or twenty daughters. Jupiter bore off his daughter ^Egi- na, whereupon Asopus revolted, bnt was struck by a thunderbolt and reduced to submission. ASP, a name given to more than one species of the venomous serpents. By naturalists it is confined to the vipera aspis (Sohl.), which is a native of the European Alps. The historical asp, with which Cleopatra is believed to have destroyed herself after the death of Antony, is generally supposed to have been the cerastes Hasselqiiittii. From many circumstances, how- ever, and more especially from the description of Pliny, it is evident that the asp of the Ro- man writers generally, and therefore doubtless the asp of Cleopatra, is the common and cele- brated Egyptian species, the naya haye of the modern Arabs. This reptile was chosen by the ancient Egyptians as the emblem of the good deity, Cneph, and as the mark of regal dignity. It is closely allied with the cobra de ASPARAGUS capello, naia tripvdians, called nag by the Hindoos, which is still worshipped in some of the temples in India. The Hindoos believe that, in sagacity and its malicious tenacity in treasuring up a wrong to avenge it, this ser- pent is in no wise inferior to a man. The naya is of a dark greenish hue marked with brownish ; is hooded like the cobra when it expands itself in rage, but wants the peculiar mark on the back of the neck which character- izes the Asiatic species, and which has been compared to a pair of spectacles. It varies in length from three to five feet, and is one of the deadliest serpents known. The bite produces acute local pain in the first instance ; then a sense of deadly sickness ; after which the suf- ferer falls into a comatose state, with convul- sive fits, each less violent than the preceding one. In the last of these he dies, usually not many minutes after being struck. Owing to the almost instantaneous dispersion of the poi- son through the blood, it is not believed that excision could be of the slightest utility ; nor is any certain antidote known against the deadly fluid when once in the veins. ASPARAGUS, a genus of perennial plants, of the natural order liliacea and the sub- order asparagece, and differing only in the fruit from the asphodeletK. The genus is distin- guished by tube- rous root stocks, branching steins, thread-like leaves, join ted pedicels, a G-partedperumtli. small greenish- yellow or white flowers, and a spherical berry. It embraces 2(5 species, many of which become hardy shrubs, and climb with their spiny branches as if by tendrils. A few of them are common in the East Indies and Common Asparagus (Asparagus nrnnnd tho Afprii officinalis). Root, Fruit Flow- er, Shoot, and Mature Sprig. terranean ; most
