Notwithstanding its small extent Aegina was one of the most celebrated islands in Greece, both in the mythical and historical period. It is said to have been originally called Oenone or Oenopia, and to have received the name of Aegina from Aegina, the daughter of the river-god Asopus, who was carried to the island by Zeus, and there bore him a son Aeacus. It was further related that at this time Aegina was uninhabited, and that Zeus changed the ants (uópMAKES) of the island into men, the Myrmidones, over whom Aeacus ruled (Paus. ii. 29. §2.; Apollod. iii. 12. §6; Ov. Met. vii. 472, seq.) Some modern writers suppose that this legend contains a mythical account of the colonization of the island, and that the latter received colonists from Phlius on the Asopus and from Phthia in Thessaly, the seat of the Myrmidons. Aeacus was regarded as the tutelary deity of Aegina, but his sons abandoned the island, Telamon going to Salamis, and Peleus to Phthia. All that we can safely infer from these legends is that the original inhabitants of Aegina were Achaeans. It was afterwards taken possession of by Dorians from Epidaurus, who introduced into the island the Doric customs and dialect. (Herod. viii. 46; Paus. ii. 29. § 5.) Together with Epidaurus and other cities on the mainland it became subject to Pheidon, tyrant of Argos, about B. C. 748. It is usually stated on the authority of Ephorus (Strab. p. 376), that silver money was first coined in Aegina by Pheidon, and we know that the name of Aeginetan was given to one of the two scales of weights and measures current throughout Greece, the other being the Euboic. There seems, however, good reason for believing with Mr. Grote that what Pheidon did was done in Argos and nowhere else; and that the name of Aeginetan was given to his coinage and scale, not from the place where they first originated, but from the people whose commercial activity tended to make them most generally known. (Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 432.) At an early period Aegina became a place of great commercial importance, and gradually acquired a powerful navy. As early as B. C. 563, in the reign of Amasis, the Aeginetans established a footing for its merchants at Naucratis in Egypt, and there erected a temple of Zeus. (Herod. ii. 178.) With the increase of power came the desire of political independence; and they renounced the authority of the Epidaurians, to whom they had hitherto been subject. (Herod. v. 83.) So powerful did they become that about the year 500 they held the empire of the sea. According to the testimony of Aristotle (Athen. p. 272), the island contained 470,000 slaves; but this number is quite incredible, although we may admit that Aegina contained a great population. At the time of their prosperity the Aeginetans founded various colonies, such as Cydonia in Crete, and another in Umbria. (Strab. p. 376.) The government was in the hands of an aristocracy. Its citizens became wealthy by commerce, and gave great encouragement to the arts. In fact, for the half

The Aeginetans were at the height of their power when the Thebans applied to them for aid in their war against the Athenians about B. c. 505. Their request was readily granted, since there had been an ancient feud between the Aeginetans and Athenians. The Aeginetans sent their powerful fleet to ravage the coast of Attica, and did great damage to the latter country, since the Athenians had not yet any fleet to resist them. This war was continued with some interruptions down to the invasion of Greece by Xerxes. (Herod. v.81, seq., vi. 86, seq.; Thuc. i. 41.) The Aeginetans fought with 30 ships at the battle of Salamis (B. C. 480), and were admitted to have distinguished themselves above all the other Greeks by their bravery. (Herod. viii. 46, 93.) From this time their power declined. In 460 the Athenians defeated them in a great naval battle, and laid siege to their principal town, which after a long defence surrendered in 456. The Aeginetans now became a part of the Athenian empire, and were compelled to destroy their walls, deliver up their ships of war, and pay an annual tribute. (Thuc. i. 105, 108.) This humiliation of their ancient enemies did not, however, satisfy the Athenians, who feared the proximity of such discontented subjects. Pericles was accustomed to call Aegina the eye-sore of the Peiraeus ( Anμn Toù Пeparéws, Arist. Rhet. iii. 10.; comp. Cic. de Off. iii. 11); and accordingly on the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war in 431, the Athenians expelled the whole population from the island, and filled their place with Athenian settlers. The expelled inhabitants were settled by the Lacedaemonians at Thyrea. They were subsequently collected by Lysander after the battle of Aegospotami (404), and restored to their own country, but they never recovered their former state of prosperity. (Thuc. ii. 27; Plut. Per. 34; Xen. Hell. ii. 2. § 9; Strab. p. 375.) Sulpicius, in his celebrated letter to Cicero, enumerates Aegina among the examples of fallen greatness (ad Fam. iv. 5).

The chief town in the island was also called Aegina, and was situated on the north-western side. A description of the public buildings of the city is given by Pausanias (ii. 29, 30). Of these the most important was the Aeaceium (Alάketov), or shrine of Aeacus, a quadrangular inclosure built of white marble, in the most conspicuous part of the city. There was a theatre near the shore as large as that of Epidaurus, behind it a stadium, and likewise numerous temples. The city contained two harbours: the principal one was near the temple of Aphrodite; the other, called the secret harbour, was near the theatre. The site of the ancient city is marked by numerous remains, though consisting for the most part only of foundations of walls and scattered blocks of stone. Near the shore are two Doric columns of the most elegant form. To the S. of these columns is an oval port, sheltered by two ancient moles, which leave only a narrow passage in the middle, between the remains of towers, which stood on either side of the entrance. In the same direction we find another oval port, twice as large as the former, the entrance of which is protected in the same manner by ancient walls or moles, 15 or 20 feet thick. The latter of these ports seems to have been the large harbour,

D

and the former the secret harbour, mentioned by Pausanias. The walls of the city are still traced through their whole extent on the land side. They were about 10 feet thick, and constructed with towers at intervals not always equal. There appear to have been three principal entrances.

On the hill in the north-eastern extremity of the island are the remains of a magnificent temple of the Doric order, many of the columns of which are still

RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF AEGINA.

standing. It stood near the sea in a sequestered and lonely spot, commanding a view of the Athenian coast and of the acropolis at Athens. The beautiful sculptures, which occupied the tympana of the pediment, were discovered in 1811, buried under the ruins of the temple. They are now preserved at Munich,

and there are casts from them in the British Museum. The subject of the eastern pediment appears to be the expedition of the Aeacidae or Aeginetan heroes against Troy under the guidance of Athena: that of the western probably represents the contest of the Greeks and Trojans over the body of Patroclus. Till comparatively a late period it was considered that this temple was that of Zeus Panhellenius, which Aeacus was said to have dedicated to this god. (Paus. ii. 30. §§ 3, 4.) But in 1826 Stackelberg, in his work on the temple of Phigalia, started the hypothesis, that the temple, of which we have been speaking, was in reality the temple of Athena, mentioned by Herodotus (iii. 59); and that the temple of Zeus Panhellenius was situated on the lofty mountain in the S. of the island. (Stackelberg, Der Apollotempel zu Bassae in Arcadien, Rom, 1826.) This opinion has been adopted by several German writers and also by Dr. Wordsworth, but has been ably combated by Leake. It would require more space than our limits will allow to enter into this controversy; and we must therefore content ourselves with referring our readers, who wish for information on the subject, to the works of Wordsworth and Leake quoted at the end of this article. This temple was probably erected in the sixth century B. C., and apparently before B. c. 563, since we have already seen that about this time the Aeginetans built at Naucratis a temple to Zeus, which we may reasonably conclude was in imitation of the great temple in their own island.

In the interior of the island was a town called | OEA (On), at the distance of 20 stadia from the city of Aegina. It contained statues of Damia and Auxesia. (Herod. v. 83; Paus. ii. 30. § 4.) The position of Õea has not yet been determined, but its name suggests a connection with Oenone, the ancient name of the island. Hence it has been conjectured that it was originally the chief place of the island, when safety required an inland situation for

the capital, and when the commerce and naval power which drew population to the maritime site had not yet commenced. On this supposition Leake supposes that Oea occupied the site of Paleá-Khora, which has been the capital in modern times whenever safety has required an inland situation. Pausanias (iii. 30. § 3) mentions a temple of Aphaea, situated on the road to the temple of Zeus Panhellenius. The Heracleum, or temple of Hercules, and Tripyrgia

A

town to the ordinary place of embarkation. great part of the town was destroyed by an earthquake in 1819, of which an account is given under HELICE. The principal remains of the ancient town have been lately discovered on a hill to the E. of Vostitza. There are also several fragments of architecture and sculpture, inserted in the walls of the houses at Vostitza. (Leake, Morea, vol. iii. p. 185, seq.; Curtius, Peloponnesos, vol. i. p. 459, seq.)

AEGOSPO'TAMI (Alyds woτauol, Aegos flumen, Pomp. Mel. ii. 2; Plin. ii. 59: Eth. AlyoσTOTаμÍTηs), i. e. the Goat-River, a stream in the Chersonesus, with, at one time, a town of the same name upon it. It was here that the famous defeat of the Athenian fleet by Lysander took place, B. C. 405, which put a close to the Peloponnesian war. There seems, however, to have been no town there at this time, for it is mentioned as a great error on the part of the Athenian generals, that they remained at a station where they had no town at hand to supply a market for provisions. (Plut. Alc. 36; Diod. xiii. 105; Strab. p. 287; comp. Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. viii. p. 293.) In later times there must have been a town there, as the geographers especially mention it (Steph. Byz. s. v.), and there [H. W.]

are coins of it extant.

22000.

FAITO

COIN OF AEGOSPOTAMI.

AEGO'STHENA (тà Aiyóσ@eva: Eth. Aiyoolevírns: Ghermanó), a town in Megaris, on the Alcyonian or Corinthian gulf, at the foot of Mount Cithaeron, and on the borders of Boeotia. It possessed a temple of the seer Melampus. Between Aegosthena and Creusis, the port-town of Boeotia, there was no passage along the shore except a path on the mountain's side. The Lacedaemonians under Cleombrotus, in marching from Creusis to Aegosthena along this road in the winter of B. c. 379-378, were overtaken by a violent tempest; and such was the force of the wind, that the shields of the soldiers were wrested from their hands, and many of the asses that carried the burthens were blown over the precipices into the sea. It was by this road that the Lacedaemonians retreated after their defeat at Leuctra in 371. There was a sweet wine grown at Aegosthena. (Paus. i. 44. § 4, seq.; Xen. Hell. v. 4. §§ 16-18, vi. 4. §§ 25-26; Athen. p. 440.; Steph. B. s. v.; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 405.)

AEGUSA. [AEGATES.]
AEGYPSUS. [AEGISSUS.]

AEGYPTUS AlуUTтos: Eth. Aiyúrtios, Aegyptius). I. Names and boundaries of Egypt. Egypt, properly so called, is that portion of the valley of the Nile which lies between lat. 24° 3′ and lat. 31° 37' N., or between the islands of Philae and Elephantine, and the Mediterranean Sea. In the language of the earliest inhabitants it was entitled CHEMI, or the Black Earth; by the Hebrews it was called MIZRAIM; by the Arabians MESR (comp. MéσTρn, Joseph. Antiq. i. 1); by

the Greeks Alyvaтos; and by the Copts ELKEBIT, or inundated land. The boundaries of Egypt have in all ages been nearly the same, to the S., Aethiopia; to the E., the Arabian Gulf, the Stony Arabia, Idumaca, and the southwestern frontier of Palestine; to the N., the Mediterranean Sea; and to the W., the Libyan desert. Homer (Od. iv. 477) calls the Nile itself & Alyvπтos; nor is the appellation misapplied. For the Valley of Egypt is emphatically the "Gift of the Nile," without whose fertilising waters the tract from Syene to Cercasorum would only be a deep furrow in the sandy and gravelly desert running parallel with the Red Sea.

An account of the Nile is given elsewhere. [NILUS.] Here it is sufficient to remark that the valley which it irrigates is generally, except in the Delta or Lower Egypt, a narrow strip of alluvial deposit, occupying less than half the space between the Arabian mountains and the Libyan desert. The average breadth of this valley from one of these barriers to the other, as far as lat. 30° N., is about 7 miles; while that of the cultivable land, depending upon the overflow of the river, scarcely exceeds 5 miles. Between Cairo in Lower and Edfoo (Apollinopolis Magna) in Upper Egypt the extreme breadth is about 11 miles: the narrowest part, including the river itself, is about 2 miles. But northward, between Edfoo and Assouan (Syene), the valley contracts so much that, in places, there is scarcely any soil on either side of the river, and the granite or limestone springs up from its banks a mural entrenchment. The whole area of the valley between Syene and the bifurcation of the Nile at Cercasorum contains about 2255 square miles, exclusive of the district of Fayoom (Arsinoe, Moeris), which comprises about 340. The Delta itself is estimated at 1976 square miles between the main branches of the river- the modern Damietta and Rosetta arms. But both E. and W. of this tract stretches a considerable level of irrigated land, which, including the Delta, embraces about 4500 square miles. The length of Egypt from Syene to the Mediterranean is about 526 miles. The total surface of modern Egypt is somewhat larger than that of the country in ancient times, since, in spite of a less regular system of irrigation, the inundations of the Nile have increased since the eras of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies.

Egypt, in its general configuration, is a long rock-bound valley, terminating in a deep bay, and resembling in form an inverted Greek upsilon [x]. Its geological structure is tripartite. The Nilevalley shelves down to the Mediterranean in a series of steps, consisting of sandy or gravelly plateaus, separated by granite or limestone ridges, which the river cuts diagonally. From Syene to Edfoo granite or red sandstone prevails: at Edfoo limestone succeeds; until in lat. 30° 10' the rocks diverge NE. and NW., and the alluvial Delta fills up an embayed triangle, whose apex is at Cercasorum, and whose base is the sea.

The political and physical divisions of Egypt so nearly coincide that we may treat of them under one head. From Syene to Cercasorum the whole of the Nile-valley was denominated Upper Egypt: with the fork of the river Lower Egypt began. This was indeed a natural division between the primitive and the alluvial regions: and the distinction was recognised from the earliest times by different monumental symbols-natural and