Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

ADY, in Natural History, the name of the palm-tree of the island of St. Thomas, having a thick, bare, upright stem, growing single on its root, of a light timber, and full of juice, which the natives obtain by incision and make into wine. The fruit of this tree is called by the natives, abanga. It is of the size and shape of a lemon, and contains a kernel very good to eat roasted; and the raw kernels are often mixed with meal, and are supposed to be very cordial. An oil is prepared from this fruit, which answers the purposes of butter; and is used also for anointing stiff or contracted parts of the body.

ADYTUM, in Ancient Mythology, the most retired and sacred place of the Pagan temples, into which none but the priests were admitted. The term signifies inaccessible.

EA, anciently a celebrated city, and port of Colchis, fifteen miles from the sea, according to Pliny. It was famous for containing the golden fleece of Jason at the time he reached this country. Some authors have considered it as the Eapolis of Ptolemy; from the Greek ara, earth, or the Heb. ', island. From this city the Circe obtained the appellation of Eæa. Hoм. Odyss. 1. i. v. 32. VIRGIL, I. iii. v. 386.

EACEA, in Grecian Antiquity, solemn festivals and games celebrated in Ægina, in honour of Eacus, the son of Jupiter, by Egina, who was renowned for his impartial administration of justice, and supposed to have been exalted to the office of judge in Elysium.

EAS, in Ancient Geography, the name of a river of Greece, which rose in Mount Pindus, and flowed into the Adriatic, ten stadia from Apollonia. It is conjectured to be the same with the Aous of STRABO, tom. i. EDESSA, EGEAS, or EGE, in Ancient Geography, a town of Macedonia, near Pella. Caranus, king of Macedon, is said to have followed a flock of goats to this place when they were seeking shelter from a shower of rain; he took the town by surprize, and in memory of the event called it Aryaç, capras, Egeas. It was the burial place of the Macedonian kings, to whom an oracle declared, that so long as the royal family were interred here, the kingdom would continue; and to the circumstance of Alexander's being buried in a different place, some ancient writers attributed the ruin of that kingdom.

ÆDICULA RIDICULI, in Mythology, a Roman DICUtemple to the god of mirth, erected in commemoration of LA RIDIthe repulse of Hannibal by severe weather, when he was advancing upon Rome after the battle of Canna.

EDILE, in Antiquity, a Roman magistrate who was appointed to the care of various public buildings, the preservation of order and equity in the markets, the repair of the roads and streets, and the examination of weights and measures. There were at first only two ædiles, called the adiles plebii, who were created in the same year as the tribunes (A. u. 260) for their assistance in inferior concerns; hence the ædiles were elected every year at the same time as the tribunes. At length these plebeian ædiles refusing to treat the people with the expensive public shows which it had been customary for these officers to give, the patricians offered to provide for them, on condition of their being admitted to the honours of the Edilate. This occasioned the creation of two new ædiles in A. u. 388, who were called ædiles curules, or majores; as having a right when they gave audience, to sit on a curule chair (sella curulis), enriched with ivory; whereas the plebeian ædiles sat on benches. The principal employment of the curule ædiles was, to procure the celebration of the Roman games; they were besides appointed judges in all cases relating to the rate or exchange of estates; they were to inspect all new pieces offered to the theatres, and to be particularly watchful that no new gods, or religious ceremonies were intruded upon the people. To these four ædiles Julius Cæsar added two others, called ædiles cereales, chosen from the patrician order; their office was to inspect the public granaries, and to take care of the corn, which was called donum cereris. The office of ædile continued without much variation, from this period to the reign of Constantine. EDIPSUS, in Ancient. Geography, now DIPSUs, a town in Euboea, remarkable for its hot-baths. EDITUUS, in Roman Antiquity, an officer entrusted with the care of the Roman temples.

ÆDUI, in Ancient Geography, a powerful people of Gaul, who were the first allies of Julius Cæsar in his invasion of that country.

EGADES, EGATES, or INSULE EGUSE, of the Romans, a cluster of islands in the Mediterranean, to the west of Sicily, and north of Cape Lilybæum. Here. the Carthaginians, commanded by Hanno, were defeated by L. Capellus, in a battle which terminated the first Punic war. Also a promontory of Æolia. EGE, or ÆGEAS. See EDESSA.

ÆGALEOS, or EGALEUM, in Ancient Geography, a mountain of Attica, opposite Salamis, on which Xerxes sat during the battle of Salamis.

EGEAN SEA, EGEUM MARE, the ancient name of the Archipelago; that part of the Mediterranean which divides Greece from Asia Minor. Several etymologies of this name have been given. By some authors it is derived from a neighbouring town of Eubea, called Ege, and which gave the name Egeus to Neptune; by others, from Egea, a queen of the Amazons; some again derive it from the circumstance of Egeus, the father of Theseus, having been supposed to drown himself in this sea; while another opinion supposes this name to arise from the number of islands which appear as ayes, goats, above its surface. It extends from north to south more than 400 miles, and contains between 40 and 50 principal islands; their two general

CULI

EGEAN

SEA.

[blocks in formation]

ÆGINETIA.

PELAGO.

ÆGERI, or ÆGERE, a lake in the canton of Zug, Switzerland, which gives the name to a neighbouring community.

ÆGIDA, in Ancient Geography, the capital town of the northern territory of Istria, in Italy, afterwards called Justinopolis, in honour of Justinian, and now Capo d'Istria. N. lat. 45°, 50'. E. lon. 14°, 20'.

EGILOPS, or EGYLOPS, in Surgery (from a, a goat, an w, the eye, because goats are said to be peculiarly subject to it), a disease in the internal canthus of the eye; more properly known by this name before it becomes ulcerous.

EGILOPS, in Botany, a genus of plants, of the order Monccia, and the class Polygamia; also a name given to the holm-oak.

ÆGIMORUS, or EGIMURUS, in Ancient Geography, an island near Libya, in the bay of Carthage, and sometimes called Galetta; near which the Romans and Carthagenians agreed to fix their respective boundaries. This is supposed to be mentioned by Virgil under

the name of Aræ.

ÆGINA, or ENGINA, in Ancient Geography, an island in that part of the Egean sea which formed the Saronic gulph. It was more anciently called Enopia, and Myrmidonia, and was about 180 stadia, or 22 miles in circumference. The inhabitants were once very powerful at sea; they furnished the greatest contingent of vessels to the battle of Salamis, of all the states of Greece, except the Athenians, with whom they disputed the honour of the victory. They afterwards brought seventy ships against Pericles, under whom the Athenians declared war against them; but he defeated and expelled them from the island. After the ruin of Athens, by Lysander, they returned, but never regained their former prosperity. The busy mercantile character of this people (the origin probably of the fable, of the country being re-peopled by ants turned into men, by Jupiter, in the time of acus), is celebrated in history. They completely changed the face of the country, from that of a barren rock to extreme fertility; and money is said to have been first coined amongst them. The island was not more than 18 miles from the Athenian coast.

Here was a magnificient temple to Jupiter, on the summit of the mountain Panhellenius; the ruins of which still remain. It is said to have been built by Eacus, to propitiate that deity in a time of extreme drought; and was of the Doric order, as described by Pausanias, having six columns in front. There was also a splendid temple to Venus on the island, mentioned by the same author.

EGINA, the capital of the above island, was nearly destroyed by an earthquake in the time of Tiberius; it was taken by the Turks in 1536, and burnt. The town and island are now called Engia, and the former contains a Turkish garrison of about 800 troops, an ancient castle, and thirteen mean churches. Travellers have stated the number of partridges in this island to be so great, in modern times, that the inhabitants, to preserve their corn, go out on annual expeditions to destroy the eggs. The revenue is farmed out to a waiwode, or governor.

ÆGINETIA, in Botany, genus of plants, of the order Angiospermia, and the class Didynamia.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

ÆGIS, in Ancient Mythology, is by some supposed to be the buckler, by others the cuirass of Jupiter and TIA Pallas. It should appear, however, that either the ægis of Jupiter was a common name for his shield, or that the term was sometimes applied generally to the armour of heroes and gods. In Virgil, lib. viii. ver. 437 and 8 of the n. it is said,

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

"Cum sæpe nigrantem

Egida concuteret dextra." Ver. 354. which passage can by no ingenuity be applied to a breast-plate, although it may well allude to a shield or buckler. Servius also makes the same distinction.

The fables of antiquity, generally represent Jupiter to have preserved the skin of the she-goat Amalthea, which had suckled him, and to have covered his buckler with it, whence (at, ayos, she-goat) the buckler took its name. Jupiter presented this ægis to Minerva, who having killed the Gorgon Medusa, fixed her snaky head in the middle of the ægis; and it had the power of converting those who beheld it into stone.

ÆGITHALLUS, in Ancient Geography, a promontory of Sicily, upon which stood a citadel of the same name. It was situated between Drepanum and the Emporium Egistanum. In after times it was called Acellus, and is now known by the name of Capo di Santo Teodoro. Ptolemy writes this place corruptly Egitharson.

ÆGIUM, in Ancient Geography, a town of Achaia Propria, where the Achæans commonly met in council. The worship of Conventional Jupiter was celebrated here; and in this place also was it supposed that that god had been suckled by the shegoat Amalthea mentioned above. Greek imperial medals were struck in this town; and there was a coin formerly in the cabinet of the king of Prussia, with the inscription AIFI, and the impression of a tortoise (the peculiar symbol of Peloponnesus), which demonstrates the antiquity of the medal, and the importance of the place where it was struck.

ÆGOPODIUM, in Botany, a genus of plants; order Digynia, class Pentandria.

GOPRICON, in Botany, a genus of plants, in the Monoecia, Diandria. It is an East Indian tree.

EGOCEROS, in Ancient Astronomy, a name given to the constellation Capricorn by Lucan and others. In Mythology, Pan transformed himself into a goat, and was made a star by this name.

EGOS-POTAMOS, or GOAT'S-RIVER, in Ancient Geography, a town and a road for ships, situated at the mouth of a river of the same name, in the Thracian Chersonesus, falling into the Hellespont to the north of Sestos. Here it was that the Athenians, under Conon, received that signal defeat, by the Lacedemonians, which ended the Peloponnesian war.

EGYPT, see EGYPT.

ÆGYPTIACUM, in Pharmacy, an ointment composed of honey, verdigrease, and vinegar; and a

GYP. name also given to divers unguents of the detergent or ACUM, corrosive kind.

EMOMA. gave

ÆGYPTILLA, in Natural History. The ancients this name to a stone of the cameo, onyx, or sardonyx kind, to which they assigned many fabulous qualities; such as that it possessed the power of turning water into wine, &c.

EGYPTUS, an ancient name applied to the river Nile. Egyptus, in fabulous history, was also the son of Belus, and brother of Danaus.

ÆINAUTÆ, in Antiquity, attravrat, always mariners. The senators of Miletus obtained this name from their constantly holding their councils on board their gallies, and never coming on shore until the matters in debate had been determined.

ELIA CAPITOLINA, a town built by Adrian, nearly upon the site of Jerusalem, about A. D. 134; Elius being the family-name of Adrian, and Capitolinus, the well-known epithet of Jupiter, to whom he here erected a temple. This circumstance so exasperated the Jews, as to urge them to a desperate effort toward regaining their former independence, in which they once more took the city, and reduced it to ashes. The emperor, however, quickly suppressed the rebellion, rebuilt the place, and prohibiting any Jew to approach it on pain of death, he erected a marble statue of a hog (the animal most abhorred by the Jews), over the principal gate, near which he also planted, at Bethlehem, a grove to Adonis. The Jews were now reduced to the necessity of bribing the Roman soldiers, according to Jerome, for permission to weep over this memorable spot; but peculiar indulgence was extended to the Christians, who established a flourishing church in the town. So commonly did it now pass by the name of Elia, that in the coins of Adrian, Antoninus Pius, and Aurelius, we meet with the inscription COL. AEL. CAP. on medals struck here, and the name of Jerusalem was only retained among the Jews and Christians. Constantine restored the ancient name, however, and though he treated the Jews with much cruelty for a new attempt to recover the place, he repaired and beautified the town.

ELII PONS, in Ancient Geography, one of the fortresses in the north of England, in the range of the hither Roman wall, which intersected our island from Newcastle, east, to Carlisle, west. The Pons Ælii is represented by Camden as situated somewhere between Newcastle and Morpeth.

ELIUS PONS, the celebrated stone bridge across the Tiber, which is now called il Ponte St. Angelo, or the Bridge of St. Angelo, and leads to the Burgo and Vatican from the city; this also is one of the monuments of the magnificence of Adrian's reign.

ELURUS, in Egyptian Mythology, the god of cats. EM, Aм, or AME, a measure for fluids, used in Germany. The aem of Heidelburg contains 48 masses; the Wirtemburg aem 160 masses; but the one most generally used, is equal to 80 masses, or 20 vertils. EMOBOLIUM, in Antiquity, the blood of a bull slain in the sacrifice called tuurobolia and criobolia. We find this word not unfrequently in inscriptions upon ruined temples and altars.

EMONIA, an ancient name for Thessaly, which gave the epithet Emonius to Achilles. The word has. been applied by some writers to the whole of Greece..

NEID.

ENARIA, in Ancient Geography, an island opposite ÆNARIA Cumæ, in Italy, in the bay of that name. It was once famed for its cypress, as well as its mineral waters; and was called after Eneas, who is supposed to have landed here on his voyage from Troy. It is our modern Ischia.

NEATORES, in Antiquity, the musicians attendant upon an army.

ENEID, the title of Virgil's celebrated epic poem. Availing himself of the pride and superstition of the Roman people, which never abounded more than during the Augustan age, the poet traces the origin and establishment of the" eternal city," to those heroes and actions which had enough in them of what was human and ordinary to excite the sympathy of his countrymen; in termingled with persons and circumstances of an extraordinary and superhuman character, to awaken their admiration and their awe. No subject could have been more happily chosen. It has been admired too for its perfect unity of action; for while the episodes command the richest variety of description, they are always subordinated to the main object of the poem, which is to impress the divine authority under which Æneas first settled in Italy. The wrath of Juno, upon which the whole fate of Æneas seems at first suspended, is at once that of a woman and a goddess: the passion of Dido, and her general character, bring us nearer the present world; but the poet is continually introducing higher and more effectual influences, until by the intervention of the father of gods and men, the Trojan name is to be continued in the Roman, and thus heaven and earth are appeased.

Hinc genus, Ausonio mixtum quod sanguine surget,
Supra homines, supra ire Deos pietate videbis ;
Nec gens ulla tuos æque celebrabit honores.
Annuit his Juno, et mentem lætata retorsit.

Eneid, 1. xii.

The style for sweetness and for beauty, occasionally, and in the author's finished passages, surpasses every other production of antiquity. "I see no founda-tion," says Dr. Blair, "for the opinion entertained by some critics that the Æneid is to be considered as an allegorical poem, which carries a constant reference to the character and reign of Augustus Cesar; or that Virgil's main design in composing the Eneid, was to reconcile the Romans to the government of that prince, who is supposed to be shadowed out under the character of Eneas." "He had sufficient motives, as a poet, to determine him to the choice of his subject, from its being in itself both great and pleasing; from its being suited to his genius, and its being attended with peculiar advantages for the full display of poetical talent." Lectures on Rhetoric,. vol. iii.

The first six books of the Æneid are the only finished part of the poem; and the author is said to have desired the last six to be committed to the flames after his death. Its imperfections are alleged to be want of originality in some of the principal scenes, and defectiveness in the exhibition of character. That of Dido is by far the most decided and complete. But Voltaire has justly observed upon the strange confusion of interest excited by the story of the wars in Italy, in which one is continually tempted to espouse the cause of Turnus rather than that of Æneas; and to which the:

ENIGM

OLIAN HARP

ÆNEID. exquisite scenes for displaying the tenderness of the poet in narrating the story of Lavinia, seem to have ENIGMA been his only temptation. Though M. la Harpe has endeavoured to convict Virgil of numerous plagiarisms in the Æneid, it would seem to remain an unsupported charge; especially when we consider that a large portion of them are stated to have been committed on the productions of contemporary authors, who would not have failed to assert their own claims.

ENIGMA, a definition or proposition given in obscure, involved, dubious, and often in contradictory terms. Childish as the exercise of resolving ænigmas may appear, it is certain that the practice of their proposition and explanation has existed in the most. remote, and in the most learned ages of the world. Almost the whole of the Egyptian learning is said to have been comprised in ænigmas; and that of the sphinx and the supposed discovery of its celebrated riddle by Edipus, appears to be testified by the numerous Egyptian statues of that fabulous monster. The story is this. A certain monster, having the head and breasts of a woman, the wings of a bird, the claws of a lion, and the body of a dog, had long ravaged the country about Thebes, and could not be destroyed until this riddle was solved, What animal is that which walks on four legs in the morning, at noon on two, and at night on three? The answer of Edipus was, it is man: when the monster, in despair, dashed out its brains against a rock. Sphinxes themselves indeed were ænigmatical of the rising of the Nile; the head of a woman, and the body of a lion, indicating the overflow of that river, when the sun passed through the signs of Virgo and Leo in August; see more of these symbolical forms in the article HIEROGLYPHICS. The Jews were not unacquainted with ænigmas; and Gale (Court of the Gentiles, 4to. p. 76) thinks them borrowed by the Egyptians from the Hebrews. Samson proposed a riddle () rendered by the Septuagint a problem; and it is mentioned as the distinction of Moses (Numb. xii. 8), that God would not speak with him " in dark speeches" () but "face to face". This the Septuagint renders "Kais di' aireyparov" to which the Christian scriptures have been thought to allude in 1 Cor. xiii. 12, "Now (in this state), we see through a mirror ev ayμar, in an ænigmatical manner, but then (in an eternal state) face to face." The Latins had their scrupus, scirpus, or sirpus, and our own Saxon or Belgic ancestors their raeden or arethan; from one of which words comes our popular expression riddle. There are some ænigmas of antiquity, which, in the absence of more useful or more fatiguing pursuits, have furnished an amusing perplexity to critics. We shall copy the celebrated Spanish ænigma from the Bologna marble preserved in the Voltaian family, which is perhaps the most famous specimen of this kind of learning, and an ænigmatical epitaph of a similar description on the fair Rosamond of our Henry II.

D. M.

ELIA LELIA CRISPUS, Nec vir, nec mulier, nec androgyna. Nec puella, nec juvenis, nec anus. Nec casta, nec meretrix, nec pudica.

SED OMNIA.

Sublata,

Neque fame, neque ferro, neque veneno.

SED OMNIBUS.

Nec cœlo, nec aquis, nec terris,

BED UBIQUE JACET.

Nec maritus, nec amator, nec necessarius, Neque mærens, neque gaudens, neque flens, Hanc,

Nec molem, nec pyramidem, nec sepulchrum.

SED OMNIA.

Scit, et nescit cui posuerit; LUCIUS AGATHO PRISCIUS.

ON FAIR ROSAMOND.

Hic jacet Rosa munda, non Rosa mundi, Non redolet, sed olet, quæ redolere solet. ENONA, in Ancient Geography, a city of Liburnia, denominated by Piiny, Pasini Civitas. It is now known by the name of Nona. It lies opposite the island Gissa, westward, and is almost surrounded by the Adriatic Sea. E. lon. 16°. N. lat. 28°.

ENUS, in Ancient Geography, a well known river of Germany, now called the Inn, it takes its source in the Rhætian Alps, and thence flows into and through the Grisons, the country of Tyrol, the dutchy of Bavaria, and into the Danube by way of Passau.

ENUS, in Ancient Geography, now called Eno, and too often undistinguished from neia, which Æneas founded. Enus was an independent city of Thrace, situate eastward at the mouth of the Hebrus. The brother of Cato of Utica died, and his memory was perpetuated by a marble monument, in this city.

OLIA, or EOLIS, in Ancient Geography. This country takes its name from the colony of Greeks, called the Eolians, who settled in this part of Hither Asia, or Asia Minor. It was sometimes a name given to a very extensive line of coast from Ionia to the Propontis; others, however, speak of it as confined by Troas to the north, and Ionia to the south; though Strabo makes it reach from the river Hermus to the promontory Lectus; and Herodotus mentions eleven cities belonging to Eolis. Ptolemy gives it the boundaries of Caycus northward, and Hermus southward. The Eolians according to the opinion of Josephus were derived from Elishah, one of the sons of Javan, and the Grecian historians rather confirm than contradict this when they say they descended from Eolus, the third son of Ion, who descended from Deucalion. The Eolians migrated from Troy, as did the Ionians and the Dorians, about half a century after the taking of that town; although their settlement here, preceded that of the Ionians and the Dorians, it is calculated, by about a century. Æolis is now a district of Anatolia, and has sunk into utter unimportance.

ÆOLIÆ INSULÆ, in Ancient Geography, a cluster of seven islands between Sicily and Italy; viz. Lipara, Hiera, Strongyle, Didyme, Ericusa, Phoenicusa, and Euonymos. They appear to have been called Æoliæ, from their having been fabled to have been the retreat of the winds, and the kingdom of Eolus, the god of the winds. They are also sometimes called Vulcaniæ, and Hephæstiades, by the ancients, and are known in Modern Geography as the Lipari Islands.

EOLIAN HARP, or HARP of EOLUS, a musical instrument which evidently received its name from the effects produced upon it by the air without human aid. It is a simple box of thin fibrous wood (generally of deal), to which are attached a certain number of fine catgut strings, sometimes to the number of fifteen, of equal size and length, and consequently unisons, stretched on low bridges at each end. Its

ON.

IAN length is generally made to correspond with the size RP. of the window or aperture in which it is intended to be placed; its width is about five or six inches, and its depth two or three. The sash must be raised to admit it with the strings uppermost, under which is a circular opening in the centre, as in the belly of the guitar. When the wind blows athwart the strings, it produces the effect of a choir of music in the air, sweetly mingling all the harmonic notes, and swelling or diminishing its sounds according to the strength or weakness of the blast. A more recent Æolian harp of Mr. Crosthwaite's, has no sounding box, but consists merely of several strings extended between two deal boards.

This instrument is generally ascribed to Father Kircher, because he is the first European author who has described it. But the learned Mr. Richardson (Dissertation on the Languages and Manners of the East, p. 180), says, that an instrument of the kind has been long in use in the eastern countries. As Kircher, however, was a great student in the Rabbins, it is probable he borrowed it from them: for it is mentioned, Berach (fol. 6) that when David hung up his harp in the night it vibrated to the north wind; and there can be but little doubt that the invention of the Eolian harp originated in some such accidental circumstance. Kircher's harp was but five palins, or about 15 inches in length, not above half the width of the modern instrument; he cloathed it with sounding boards, or valves as he called them, so placed as to catch and concentrate the breeze, but these have been discontinued by subsequent manufacturers as inconvenient and of no perceptible service; while the increased length of the instrument gives a more sonorous and organlike tone to the notes.

The Eolian harp was introduced into this country about half a century ago, but is rather too delicate for our climate, except in summer, as it will not bear the violence of storms and rain. It is, however, a very pleasing piece of furniture in a summer parlour. Various improvements have been attempted in their structure; and Mr. Robert Bloomfield, author of the Farmer's Boy, now a manufacturer of Eolian harps, has published an interesting collection of extracts and observations on the subject. He says that he has tried to cover the strings with silver wire, which appeared to deaden the sounds; while a covering of oil wholly stopped them: that silk strings will give a most delicate note, but are with difficulty made to endure sufficient tension. He advises that the instrument be so placed as to catch the wind rather in a vertical than a horizontal direction. For the theory of this instrument (as of others) we must refer to Sor ND, Drv. ii. EOLIC, an adjective, formed from the name Æolus, and applied to any thing belonging to that god, or to the country of Eolia. The Eolic digamma, among the Eolians, is the letter F prefixed to words beginning with vowels, or inserted between words to separate

vowels.

[blocks in formation]

66

son or thing. Anciently used in this literal sense, and applied to all the varieties and terms of existence, it was gradually adopted by philosophers to express the duration of spiritual and immortal life, in distinction from that which is corporeal and liable to change, for which they used the word xporos. Possessing an immutable being," says Aristotle, speaking of the gods, "free from external impressions, happy and self-sufficient, they exist throughout all aura, eternity." He then adds, "For this word has been divinely spoken by the ancients: for the consummation containing the time of every life is called its age (its period of duration). For the same reason, the consummation of the whole heaven, and the consummation containing the unlimited duration, and the immensity of all things is eternity, deriving its name from always being-immortal and divine." Lib. i. Cal. c. 10. By a natural metonymy, this word was frequently used to express those beings themselves to whom such existence was attributed; and the Gnostics, and other ancient sectaries, taking advantage of this ambiguity of language, formed the notion of an invisible world of AONS, entities or virtues, of which ours was one of the extreme links, and the Supreme God the other. Sometimes they assigned to the divine nature itself a distinction of this kind:-" a celestial family, immutable in its nature, and above the power of mortality, was called by these philosophers on," formed in the process of time out of the PLEROMA, or divine fulness. MOSHEIM's Eccles. History, vol. i.

EORA, in Ancient Physics, signified the gestation, or bearing about the body, without a correspondent motion of the limbs, as in a chariot, or in a boat.

ERA, in Chronology, is used synonymously with Epoch, or Epocha, for a fixed point of time from which any computation of it is reckoned. Era is more correctly the range or circuit of years within certain points of time, and an epoch is one of those points itself. The word Æra has been supposed to be derived from the abridgement, or initial letters, of Annus Erat Augusti, A. ER. A., a mode of computing time in Spain, from the year of the conquest of that country by the Romans; and Vossius favours this opinion. Various principal Eras have been given by chronologists, which must regulate all our researches into history:-we speak correctly of the Christian Era, or that space of time between the epoch of the birth of Christ and the present year; the Mahometan Era, of which the flight of Mahomet is the epoch, &c. The Jewish Era dates from the Creation, and embraces the whole duration of the world; that of the ancient Greeks was marked by the Olympiads; and of the Romans, by the building of the city of Rome. See CHRONOLOGY, and EPOCH.

ÆRARIUM, in Roman Antiquities, the treasury of the public money. It differed from the fiscus, inasmuch as the latter contained the money of the prince. They are sometimes, however, used synonymously; and with various epithets attached; as the Erarium Sanctius which contained the legal tax on all legacies, and was reserved for peculiar exigencies of the state; the Erarium Vicesimarum, where the foreign levies were deposited, &c.

ÆRARIUS, a name denoting a citizen of Rome who had been degraded, and struck from off his century. These people were incapable of making wills, or of holding any post in the state, but were liable to its burdens.

T

ON.

ZERA

RIUS.

« НазадПродовжити »