Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/905

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ATH—ATH
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At one time, therefore, her relation to or control of the watery element must have formed a considerable part of her worship. To this also is traced her ancient name of γγα or γκα at Thebes. How she came by the name of Glaucopis, i.e., “owl-eyed,” by which she is so frequently addressed in the Iliad, is not satisfactorily explained, least of all by the recent theory, which, interpreting it as “owl-headed,” maintains that the goddess had originally the head of an owl, and appeals to certain rude clay vases and figures found on the supposed site of Troy, with faces intended to be human, but yet not much unlike the face of an owl. As the goddess of victory she was called Nike, and it was to her in this capacity that the edifice known as the Temple of the Wingless Victory was erected on the Acropolis of Athens. Hippia was her title as the tamer of horses. Erichthonius, at Athens, was the first mortal whom she taught to yoke horses. For Bellerophon, on the Acropolis of Corinth, she bridled the winged horse Pegasus. Besides Corinth, the chief seats of her worship outside of Attica were Argos, Sicyon, Trœzen (in Arcadia, where, with the title of Alea, warm, fostering, she had a celebrated temple), Laconia, Elis, and in Asia Minor, at Ilium, where it survived after her image, the Palladion, which had fallen from heaven, had been removed to Athens or Argos, both of which claimed to have received it. At Athens an ancient image of her existed in the Erechtheum, and was regarded with peculiar sanctity, even in the times when men were familiar with the splendid statue of her by Phidias in the Parthenon. Except at Athens, little is known of the ceremonies or festivals which attended her worship. There we have—(1.) The ceremony of the Three Sacred Ploughs, by which the signal for seed-time was given, and, apparently, dating from a period when agriculture was one of the chief occupations of her worshippers; (2.) The Procharisteria, at the end of winter, at which all the magistrates offered sacrifice; (3.) The Skirophoria, with a procession from the Acropolis to the village of Skiron, in the height of summer, the priests who were to offer sacrifice to Athena walking under the shade of parasols held over them; (4.) The Oschophoria, at the vintage season, with races among boys, and a procession, with songs in praise of Dionysus and Ariadne; (5.) The Chalkeia, with rites referring to her as a goddess presiding jointly with Hephæstus over industrial arts; (6.) The Plynteria and Callynteria, at which the ancient image in the Erechtheum was cleaned, with a procession in which bunches of figs were carried; (7.) The Arrhephoria, at which four girls, between seven and eleven years of age, selected from noble families, brought during the night certain sacred objects from the temple of Aphrodite by an underground passage to the Acropolis; (8.) The Panathenæa, at which the new robes for the image of the goddess were, before being placed on it, carried through the city, spread like a sail on a mast. The last festival was attended by athletic games, open to all who traced their nationality to Athens. As to artistic representations of Athena, we have first the rude figure which seems to be a copy of the Palladion; secondly, the still rude, but otherwise more interesting, figures of her, as, e.g., when accompanying heroes, on the early painted vases; and thirdly, the type of her as produced by Phidias, from which little variation appears to have been made.

ATHENÆUM, a name originally applied to buildings dedicated to Athena (Minerva), was specially used as the designation of a temple in Athens, where poets and men of learning were accustomed to meet and read their productions. The academy for the promotion of learning which the Emperor Hadrian built at Rome, near the Forum, was also called the Athenæum. Poets and orators still met and discussed there, but regular courses of instruction were given by a staff of professors in rhetoric, jurisprudence, grammar, and philosophy. This species of university continued in high repute till the 5th century. The same name was afterwards applied to similar institutions in Lyons and Marseilles; and it has become a very general designation for literary clubs or academies. It has also been used as the title of literary periodicals, particularly of the journal of art criticism edited by the brothers Schlegel, and the two well-known modern papers published in London and Paris.

ATHENÆUS, a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, or man of letters, was a native of Naucratis, a town in Egypt, near the mouth of the Nile. Exceedingly little is known of his life, but from one or two references to known events which occur in his works it may be gathered that he flourished about the end of the 2d and the beginning of the 3d century A.D. Besides a history of the Syrian kings, and a small tract on the identification of the thratta, a peculiar kind of fish, mentioned by the comic poet Archippus, both of which are lost, he wrote the extensive work, in fifteen books, called the Deipnosophistæ, i.e., the Feast of the Learned, or, as it may be translated, the Skilled in Feasting. The first two books, and parts of the third, eleventh, and fifteenth, are only extant in epitome, but otherwise we seem to possess the work entire. It is an immense store-house of miscellaneous information, largely but not exclusively on matters connected with the table, and full of quotations from writers whose works have not come down to us. It has been calculated that nearly 800 writers and 2500 separate writings are referred to by Athenæus; and he boasts of having read 800 plays of the Middle Comedy alone. Of many writers we have no remains, save the excerpts given by him; and a glance at any collection of Greek fragments will show how large is the proportion drawn solely from this source. The plan of the Deipnosophistæ is exceedingly cumbrous, and is badly carried out. It professes to be an account given by the author to his friend Timocrates of a banquet held at the house of Laurentius, a wealthy patron of art. It is thus a dialogue within a dialogue, after the manner of Plato, but a conversation of sufficient length to occupy several days (though represented as taking place in one) could not be conveyed in a style similar to the short conversations of Socrates. Among the twenty-nine guests whose remarks Athenæus reports are Galen and Ulpian, a lawyer, supposed to be the famous jurist. Their conversation ranges from the dishes before them to literary matters of every description, including points of grammar and criticism; and the guests are expected to bring with them extracts from the poets, which are read aloud and discussed at table. The whole is but a clumsy apparatus for displaying the varied and extensive reading of the author. As a work of art it can take but a low rank, but as a repertory of fragments and morsels of information it is invaluable. The text, particularly in the quotations from the minor comic poets, is still in a very corrupt state.

Editions:—Casaubon's, 1597; Schweighäuser's, 14 vols., with translation and copious commentary, 1801–1807; the best recent editions are Dindorf's, 3 vols., 1827, and Meincke's, 4 vols., 1858-66.

ATHENAGORAS, a Christian apologist, was a native of Athens, and lived during the 2d century A.D. The only sources of information regarding him are a short notice by Philip of Sida, and the inscription on his principal work. Philip says that he was at the head of an Alexandrian school (the catechetical), that he lived in the time of Hadrian and Antoninus, to whom he addressed his Apology, and that Clement of Alexandria was his pupil, while Pantænus was the pupil of Clement. This statement is thoroughly inaccurate and worthless. The inscription on the work describes it as the “Embassy of Athenagoras,