AEDESIA.
AEDON.
23
walls of white marble. Aeacus was believed in later times to be buried under the aluir in this ssicred enclosure. (Paus. ii. 29. § 6.) A legend preserved in Pindar {01. viii. 39, &c.) relates that Apollo and Poseidon took Aeacus as their assistant in building the walls of Troy. When the work was completed, three dragons rushed against the wall, and while the two of them which attacked those parts of the wall built by the gods fell down dead, the third forced its way into the city through the part built by Aeacus. Hereupon Apollo pro- phesied that Troy would fall through the hands of the Aeacids. Aeacus was also believed by tlie Aeginetans to have surrounded their island with high cliffs to protect it against pirates. (Paus. ii. 29. § 5.) Several other incidents connected with the story of Aeacus are mentioned by Ovid. ( l^let. vii. 50(i, &c., ix. 435, &c.) By Endei's Aeacus had two sons, Telaraon and Peleus, and by Psamathe a son, Phocus, whom he preferred to the two others, who contrived to kill Phocus during a contest, and then fled from their native island. [Peleus ; Telamox.] After his death Aeacus became one of the three judges in Hades (Ov. Met. xiii. 2.5; Hor. Cann. ii. 13. 22), and accord- ing to Plato (Gorg. p. 523 ; compare Apolog. p. 41 ; Isocrat. Emg. 5) especiallj^ for the shades of Europeans. In works of art he was represented bearing a sceptre and the keys of Hades. (ApoUod. iii. 12. § 6 ; Pind. Isthm. viii. 47, &c.) Aeacus had sanctuaries both at Athens and in Aegina (Paus. ii. 29. § 6 ; Hesych. s. v.; Schol. ad Find. Ke/n. xiii. 155), and the Aeginetans regarded him as the tutelary deity of their island. (Pind. Nem. viii. 22.) [L. S.]
AEAEA (Aj'ata). 1. A surname of Medeia,
derived from Aea, the country where her father
Aeetes ruled. (ApoUon. Rhod. iii. 1135.)
2. A surname of Circe, the sister of Aeetes. (Horn. Od. ix. 32 ; Apollon. Rhod. iv. 559 ; Virg. yien. iii. 386.) Her son Telegonus is likewise mentioned with this surname. {Acaeus, Propert. ii. 23. § 42.)
3. A surname of Calypso, who was believed to have ijihabited a small island of the name of Aeaea in the straits between Italy and Sicily. (Pomp. Mela, ii. 7; Propert. iii. 10. 51.) [L. S.]
AEA′NTIDES (Αἰαντίδης). 1. The tyrant of Lampsacus, to whom Hippias gave his daughter Archedice in marriage. (Thuc. vi. 59.)
2. A tragic poet of Alexandria, mentioned as one of the seven poets who formed the Tragic Pleiad. He lived in the time of the second Ptolemy. (Schol. ad Hephaest. p. 32, 93, ed. Paw.)
AEBU'TIA GENS, contained two fiunilies, the
names of which are Carus and Elva. The for-
mer was plebeian, th," latter patrician ; but the
gens was originally pa'.rician. Cornuen does not
stiem to have been a f.imily-name, but only a sur-
name given to Postumus Acjbutius Elva, who was
consul in B. c. 442. This gens was distinguished
in the early ages, but from the time of the above-
mentioned Aebutius Elva, no patrician member of
it held any curule office till the praetorship of M.
Aebutius Elva in B. c. 1 76.
It is doubtful to which of the family P. Aebutius
belonged, who disclosed to the consul the existence
of the Bacchanalia at Rome, and was rewarded by
the senate ia consequence, B. c. 186. (Li v. xxxix.
9, 11,1. Q.)
AEDE'SIA (AlSe(r/o),a female philosopher of the
new Platonic school, lived in the fifth century after
Christ at Alexandria. She was a relation of Syria-
nus and the wife of Hermeias, and was equally
celebrated for her beaut}' and her virtues. After
the death of her husband, she devoted herself to
relieving the wants of the distressed and the edu-
cation of her children. She accompanied the latter
to Athens, where they went to study philosophy,
and was received with great distinction by all the
philosophers there, and especially by Proclus, to
whom she had been betrothed by Syrianus, when
she was quite young. She lived to a considerable
age, and her funeral oration was pronounced by
Damascius, who was then a young man, in hexa-
meter verses. The names of her sons were Am-
monias and Heliodorus. (Suidas, s. v. ; Damascius,
ap. Phot. cod. 242, p. 341, b. ed. Bekker.)
AEDE'SIUS (AtSco-tos), a Cappadocian, called
a Platonic or perhaps more correctly an Eclectic
philosopher, who lived in the fourth century, the
friend and most distinguished disciple of lamblichus.
After the death of his master the school of Syria
was dispersed, and Aedesius fearing the real or
fancied hostility of the Christian emperor Constan-
tine to philosoph}', took refuge in divination. An
oracle in hexameter verse represented a pastoral
life as his only retreat, but his disciples, perhaps
calming his fears by a metiiphorical interpretation,
compelled him to resume his instructions. He
settled at Pergamus. where he numbered among
his pupils the emperor Julian. After the ascession
of the latter to the imperial purple he invited
Aedesius to continue his instructions, but the de-
clining strength of the sage being unequal to the
tiisk, two of his most learned disciples, Chrysanthes
and Eusebius, were by his own desire appointed to
supply his place. (Ennn]). Vit. Aedes.) [B. J.]
AEDON ('A7j5co</). 1. A daughter of Panda-
reus of Ephesus. Accordhig to Homer (Od. xix.
517, &c.) she was the wife of Zethus, king of
Thebes, and the mother of Itylus. Envious of
Niobe, the wife of her brother Amphion, who had
six sons and six daughters, she formed the plan of
killing the eldest of Niobe's sons, but by mistake
slew her own son Itylus. Zeus relieved her grief
by changing lier into a nightingale, whose melan-
choly tunes are represented by the poet as Aedon's
lamentations about her child. (Compare Phere-
cydes, Fragm. p. 138, ed. Sturz ; Apollod. iii.
5. § 5.) According to a later tradition preserved
in Antoninus Liberalis (c. 11), Aedon was the
wife of Polytechnus, an artist of Colophon, and
boasted that she lived more happily with him than
Hera with Zeus. Hera to revenge herself ordered
Eris to induce Aedon to enter upon a contest with
her husband. Polytechnus was then making a
chair, and Aedon a piece of embroidery, and they
agreed that whoever should finish the work first
should receive from the other a female slave as the
prize. When Aedon had conquered her husband,
he went to her father, and pretending that his
wife wished to see her sister Chelidonis, he took
her with him. On his way home he ravished her,
dressed her in slave's attire, enjoined her to observe
the strictest silence, and gave her to his wife as
the promised prize. After some time Chelidonis,
believing herself unobserved, lamented her own
fate, but she was overheard by Aedon, and the
two sisters conspired against Polytechnus and
killed his son Itys, whom they placed before him in a dish. Aedon fled with Chelidonis to hei
