present day one of the chief sources of prosperity to Girgenti; but its mines of salt (still worked at a place called Aborangi, about 8 miles north of the city), are alluded to both by Pliny and Solinus. (Plin. H. N. xxxi. 7. s. 41; Solin. 5. §§ 18, 19.) Several writers also notice a fountain in the immediate neighbourhood of the city, which produced Petroleum or mineral oil, considered to be of great efficacy as a medicament for cattle and sheep. The source still exists in a garden not far from Girgenti, and is frequently resorted to by the peasants for the same purpose. (Dioscorid. i. 100; Plin. H. N. xxxv. 15. s. 51; Solin. 5. § 22; Fazell. de Reb. Sicul. vi. p. 261; Ferrara, Campi Flegrei della Sicilia, p. 43.) A more remarkable object is the mud volcano (now called by the Arabic name of Maccalubba) about 4 miles N. of Girgenti, the phenomena of which are described by Solinus, but unnoticed by any previous writer. (Solin. 5. § 24; Fazell. p. 262; Ferrara, 1. c. p. 44; Smyth's Sicily, p. 213.)

Among the numerous distinguished citizens to whom Agrigentum gave birth, the most conspicuous is the philosopher Empedocles: among his contemporaries we may mention the rhetorician Polus, and the physician Acron. Of earlier date than these was the comic poet Deinolochus, the pupil, but at the same time the rival, of Epicharmus. Philinus, the historian of the First Punic War, is the latest writer of eminence, who was a native of Agri. gentum.

The extant architectural remains of Agrigentum have been already noticed in speaking of its ancient edifices. Besides these, numerous fragments of buildings, some of Greek and others of Roman date, are scattered over the site of the ancient city: and great numbers of sepulchres have been excavated, some in the plain below the city, others within its walls. The painted vases found in these tombs greatly exceed in number and variety those discovered in any other Sicilian city, and rival those of Campania and Apulia.

But with this exception comparatively few works of art have been discovered. A sarcophagus of marble, now preserved in the cathedral of Girgenti, on which is represented the story of Phaedra and Hippolytus, has been greatly extolled by many travellers, but its merits are certainly over-rated.

There exist under the hill occupied by the modern city extensive catacombs or excavations in the rock, which have been referred by many writers to the ancient Sicanians, or ascribed to Daedalus. It is probable that, like the very similar excavations at Syracuse, they were, in fact, constructed merely in the process of quarrying stone for building purposes. The coins of Agrigentum, which are very numerous and of beautiful workmanship, present as their common type an eagle on the one side and a crab on the other. The one here figured, on which the eagle is represented as tearing a hare, belongs un

COIN OF AGRIGENTUM.

doubtedly to the most flourishing period of Agrigentine history, that immediately preceding the siege and capture of the city by the Carthaginians, B. C. 406. Other coins of the same period have a quadriga on the reverse, in commemoration of their victories at the Olympic games. [E. H. B.]

AGRI'NIUM (Aypiviov), a town of Aetolia, situ ated towards the NE. of Aetolia, near the Achelous. Its position is quite uncertain. From its name we might conjecture that it was a town of the Agraei; but the narrative in Polybius (v. 7) would imply that it was not so far north. In B. C. 314 we find Agrinium in alliance with the Acarnanians, when Cassander marched to the assistance of the latter against the Aetolians. As soon as Cassander returned to Macedonia, Agrinium was besieged by the Aetolians, and capitulated; but the Aetolians treacherously put to death the greater part of the inhabitants (Diod. xix. 67, 68; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. i. p. 156.)

AGRIO'PHAGI (Peripl. Mar. Er. p. 2), were the same people as the Creophagi or flesh-eaters of Aethiopia Troglodytica. In summer they drove their herds down to the pastures of the Astaboras; in the rainy season they returned to the Aethiopian mountains east of that river. As their name and diet imply they were hunters and herdsmen. [AETHIOPIA.] [W. B. D.] AGRIPPINENSIS COLONIA. [COLONIA.] AGYLLA. [CAERE.]

AGY RIUM (Ayúpiov: Eth. 'Ayupivaîos Agyrinensis), a city of the interior of Sicily now called S. Filippo d Argirò. It was situated on the summit of a steep and lofty hill, between Enna and Centuripa, and was distant 18 Roman miles from the former, and 12 from the latter. (Tab. Peut. The Itin. Ant. p. 93, erroneously gives only 3 for the former distance.) It was regarded as one of the most ancient cities of Sicily, and according to the mythical traditions of the inhabitants was visited by Heracles on his wanderings, who was received by the inhabitants with divine honours, and instituted various sacred rites, which continued to be observed in the days of Diodorus. (Diod. iv. 24.) Historically speaking, it appears to have been a Sicelian city, and did not receive a Greek colony. It is first mentioned in B. C. 404, when it was under the government of a prince of the name of Agyris, who was on terms of friendship and alliance with Dionysius of Syracuse, and assisted him on various occasions. Agyris extended his dominion over many of the neighbouring towns and fortresses of the interior, so as to become the most powerful prince in Sicily after Dionysius himself, and the city of Agyrium is said to have been at this time so wealthy and populous as to contain not less than 20,000 citizens. (Diod. xiv. 9, 78, 95.) During the invasion of the Carthaginians under Mago in B. c. 392, Agyris continued steadfast to the alliance of Dionysius, and contributed essential service against the Carthaginian general. (Id. xiv. 95, 96.) From this time we hear no more of Agyris or his city during the reign of Dionysius, but in B. c. 339 we find Agyrium under the yoke of a despot named Apolloniades, who was compelled by Timoleon to abdicate his power. The inhabitants were now declared Syracusan citizens: 10,000 new colonists received allotments in its extensive and fertile territory, and the city itself was adorned with a magnificent theatre and other public buildings. (Diod. xvi. 82, 83.)

At a later period it became subject to Phintias, king of Agrigentum: but was one of the first cities

to throw off his yoke, and a few years afterwards we find the Agyrinaeans on friendly terms with Hieron king of Syracuse, for which they were rewarded by the gift of half the territory that had belonged to Ameselum. (Diod. xxii. Exc. Hoesch. pp. 495, 499.) Under the Roman government they continued to be a flourishing and wealthy community, and Cicero speaks of Agyrium as one of the most considerable cities of Sicily. Its wealth was chiefly derived from the fertility of its territory in corn: which previous to the arrival of Verres found employment for 250 farmers (aratores), a number diminished by the exactions of his praetorship to no more than 80. (Cic. Verr. iii. 18, 27-31, 51, 52.) From this period we have little further notice of it, in ancient times. It is classed by Pliny among the "populi stipendiarii" of Sicily, and the name is found both in Ptolemy and the Itineraries. In the middle ages it became celebrated for a church of St. Philip with a miraculous altar, from whence the modern name of the town is derived. It became in consequence a great resort of pilgrims from all parts of the island, and is still a considerable place, with the title of a city and above 6000 inhabitants. (Plin. iii. 8. 14; Ptol. iii. 4. § 13; Fazell. de Reb. Sicul. vol. i. p. 435; Ortolani, Diz. Geogr. della Sicilia, p. 111.)

The historian Diodorus Siculus was a native of Agyrium, and has preserved to us several particulars concerning his native town. Numerous memorials were preserved there of the pretended visit of Heracles: the impression of the feet of his oxen was still shown in the rock, and a lake or pool four stadia in circumference was believed to have been excavated by him. A Temenos or sacred grove in the neighbourhood of the city was consecrated to Geryones, and another to Iolaus, which was an object of peculiar veneration: and annual games and sacrifices were celebrated in honour both of that hero and of Heracles himself. (Diod. i. 4, iv. 24.) At a later period Timoleon was the chief benefactor of the city, where he constructed several temples, a Bouleuterion and Agora, as well as a theatre which Diodorus tells us was the finest in all Sicily, after that of Syracuse, (Id. xvi. 83.) Scarcely any remains of these buildings are now visible, the only vestiges of antiquity being a few undefined fragments of masonry. The ruined castle on the summit of the hill, attributed by some writers to the Greeks, is a work of the Saracens in the tenth century. (Amico, ad Fazell. p. 440; Lex. Topogr. Sic. vol. i. p. 22.) [E. H. B.]

ATYPINAION

COIN OF AGYRIUM.

AHARNA, a town of Etruria, mentioned only by Livy (x. 25) during the campaign of Fabius in that country, B.C. 295. He affords no clue to its position, which is utterly unknown. Cluverius and other writers have supposed it to be the same with ARNA, but this seems scarcely reconcilable with the circumstances of the campaign. (Cluver. Ital p. 626.) [E. H. B.]

AIAS or AEAS (Atas opos, Ptol. iv. 5. §14;

range which separates Upper Egypt from the Red Sea. It was in the parallel of Thebes, and S. of the modern Koseir (Philoteras), in lat. 29. The district occupied by the Icthyophagi commenced a little to the north of the headland of Aias. [W. B. D.] ALABANDA (ἡ ̓Αλάβανδα, τὰ ̓Αλάβανδα: Εth. 'Aλabavõeús, Alabandeus, Alabandensis, Alabandenus: Adj. Alabandicus), a city of Caria, was situated 160 stadia S. of Tralles, and was separated from the plain of Mylasa by a mountain tract. Strabo describes it as lying at the foot of two hills (as some read the passage), which are so close together as to present the appearance of an ass with its panniers on. The modern site is doubtful; but Arab Hissá, on a large branch of the Maeander, now called the Tahina, which joins that river on the S. bank, is supposed by Leake to represent Alabanda; and the nature of the ground corresponds well enough with Strabo's description. The Tshina may probably be the Marsyas of Herodotus (v. 118). There are the remains of a theatre and many other buildings on this site; but very few inscriptions. Alabanda was noted for the luxurious habits of the citizens. Under the Roman empire it was the seat of a Conventus Juridicus or court house, and one of the most flourishing towns of the province of Asia. A stone called "lapis Alabandicus," found in the neighbourhood, was fusible (Plin. xxxvi. 8. s. 13), and used for making glass, and for glazing vessels.

Stephanus mentions two cities of the name of Alabanda in Caria, but it does not appear that any other writer mentions two. Herodotus, however (vii. 195), speaks of Alabanda in Caria (TV èv Tỷ Kapin), which is the Alabanda of Strabo. The words of description added by Herodotus seem to imply that there was another city of the name; and in fact he speaks, in another passage (viii. 136), of Alabanda, a large city of Phrygia. This Alabanda of Phrygia cannot be the town on the Tshina, for Phrygia never extended so far as there. [G. L.]

ALABASTRA or ALABASTRON ('Aλаbασтpå, 'Aλásaσтрwv móλis, Ptol. iv. 5. § 59; Plin. v. 9 s. 11, xxxvii. 8. s. 32), a city of Egypt, whose site is differently stated by Pliny and Ptolemy. Pliny places it in Upper Egypt; Ptolemy in the Heptanomis. It would accordingly be either south or north of the Mons Alabastrites. It was doubtless connected with the alabaster quarries of that mountain. If Alabastra stood in the Heptanomis, it was an inland town, connected with the Nile by one of the many roads which pervade the region between that river and the Arabian hills. [W. B. D]

ALABASTRITES MONS ('Αλαβαστρινὸν ὄρος, Ptol. iv. 5. § 27), formed a portion of the limestone rocks which run westward from the Arabian hills into Upper and Middle Egypt. This upland ridge or spur was to the east of the city of Hermopolis Magna, in lat. 271, and gave its name to the town of Alabastra. It contained large quarries of the beautifully veined and white alabaster which the Egyptians so largely employed for their sarcophagi and other works of art. The grottoes in this ridge are by some writers supposed to occupy the site of the city Alabastra (see preceding article), but this was probably further from the mountain. They were first visited by Sir Gardner Wilkinson in 1824. The grottoes of Koum-el-Ahmar are believed to be the same with the ancient excavations. They contain the names of some of the earliest Egyptian kings,

within the Imaus, near the "Unknown Land;" | and here, too, we find mountains of the same name (à 'Aλavá ŏpn, §§ 3, 11), E. of the Hyperborei M.; he is generally supposed to mean the N. part of the Ural chain, to which he erroneously gives a direction W. and E.

Our fullest information respecting the Alani is derived from Ammianus Marcellinus, who flourished during the latter half of the fourth century (about 350-400). He first mentions them with the Roxolani, the lazyges, the Maeotae, and the laxamatae, as dwelling on the shores of the Palus Macotis (xxii. 8. § 30); and presently, where the Riphaei M. subside towards the Maeotis, he places the Arimphaci, and near them the Massagetae, Alani, and Sargetae, with many other peoples little known (obscuri, quorum nec vocabula nobis sunt nota, nec mores). Again (S 48) on the NW. of the Euxine, about the river Tyras (Dniester), he places "the European Alani and the Costobocae, and innumerable tribes of Scythians, which extend to lands beyond human knowledge;" a small portion of whom live by agriculture; the rest wander through vast solitudes and get their food like wild beasts; their habitations and scanty furniture are placed on waggons made of the bark of trees; and they migrate at pleasure, waggons and all. His more detailed account of the people is given when he comes to relate that greater westward movement of the Huns which, in the reign of Valens, precipitated the Goths upon the Roman empire, A. D. 376. After describing the Huns (xxxi. 2), he says that they advanced as far as "the Alani, the ancient Massagetae," of whom he undertakes to give a better account than had as yet been published. From the Ister to the Tanaïs dwell the Sauromatae; and on the Asiatic side of the Tanaïs the Alani inhabit the vast solitudes of Scythia; having their name from that of their mountains (ex montium appellatione cognominati, which some understand to mean that Alani comes from ala, a word signifying a mountain). By their conquests they extended their name, as well as their power, over the neighbouring nations; just as the Persian name was spread. He then describes these neighbouring nations; the Neuri, inland, near lofty mountains; the Budini and Geloni; the Agathyrsi; the Melanchlaeni and Anthropophagi; from whom a tract of uninhabited land extended E.wards to the Sinae. At another part the Alani bordered on the Amazons, towards the E. (the Amazons being placed by him on the Tanaïs and the Caspian), whence they were scattered over many peoples throughout Asia, as far as the Ganges. Through these immense regions, but often far apart from one another, the various tribes of the Alani lived a nomade life and it was only in process of time that they came to be called by the same name. He then describes their manners. They neither have houses nor till the land; they feed on flesh and milk, and dwell on waggons. When they come to a pasture they make a camp, by placing their waggons in a circle; and they move on again when the forage is exhausted. Their flocks and herds go with them, and their chief care is for their horses. They are never reduced to want, for the country through which they wander consists of grassy fields, with fruit-trees interspersed, and watered by many rivers. The weak, from age or sex, stay by the waggons and perform the lighter offices; while the young men are trained together from their first boyhood to the practice of horsemanship and a sound knowledge af.

the art of war. They despise going on foot. In person they are nearly all tall and handsome; their hair is slightly yellow; they are terrible for the tempered sternness of their eyes. The lightness of their armour aids their natural swiftness; a circum. stance mentioned also, as we have seen, by Arrian, and by Josephus (B.J. vii. 7. § 4), from whom we find that they used the lasso in battle: Lucian, too, describes them as like the Scythians in their arms and their speech, but with shorter hair (Toxaris, 51, vol. ii. p 557). In general, proceeds Animianus, they resemble the Huns, but are less savage in form and manners. Their plundering and hunting excursions had brought them to the Maeotis and the Cimmerian Bosporus, and even into Armenia and Media; and it is to their life in those parts that the description of Ammianus evidently refers. Danger and war was their delight; death in battle bliss; the loss of life through decay or chance stamped disgrace on a man's memory. Their greatest glory was to kill a foe in battle, and the scalps of their slain enemies were hung to their horses for trappings. They frequented neither temple nor shrine; but, fixing a naked sword in the ground, with barbaric rites, they worshipped, in this symbol, the god of war and of their country for the time being. They practised divination by bundles of rods, which they released with secret incantations, and (it would seem) from the way the sticks fell they presaged the future. Slavery was unknown to them; all were of noble birth. Even their judges were selected for their long-tried pre-eminence in war. Several of these particulars are confirmed by Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, 24). Claudian also mentions the Alani as dwelling on the Maeotis, and connects them closely with the Massagetae (In Rufin. i. 312): “Massagetes, caesamque bibens Maeotida Alanus."

Being vanquished by the Huns, who attacked them in the plains E. of the Tanaïs, the great body of the Alani joined their conquerors in their invasion of the Gothic kingdom of Hermanric (A. D. 375), of which the chief part of the European Alani were already the subjects. In the war which soon broke out between the Goths and Romans in Maesia, so many of the Huns and Alani joined the Goths, that they are distinctly mentioned among the invaders who were defeated by Theodosius, Aa. d. 379–382. Henceforth we find, in the W., the Alani constantly associated with the Goths and with the Vandals, so much so that Procopius calls them a tribe of the Goths (Torikdy čtvos: Vand. i. 3). But their movements are more closely connected with those of the Vandals, in conjunction with whom they are said to have settled in Pannonia; and, retiring thence through fear of the Goths, the two peoples invaded Gaul in 406, and Spain in 409. (Procop. I. c.; Jornandes, de Reb. Get. 31; Clinton, F. R. s. a.; comp. Gibbon, c. 30, 31.)

In 411 the Alani are found in Gaul, acting with the Burgundians, Alamanni, and Franks. (Clinton, s. a.) As the Goths advanced into Spain, 414, the Alani and Vandals, with the Silingi, retreated before them into Lusitania and Baetica. (Clinton, s. a. 416.) In the ensuing campaigns, in which the Gothic king Wallia conquered Spain (418), the Alans lost their king Ataces, and were so reduced in numbers that they gave up their separate nationality, and transferred their allegiance to Gunderic, the king of the Vandals. (Clinton, s. a. 418.) After Gunderic's death, in 428, the allied barbarians