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of the Acropolis, and entering through the Propylæa, he describes in order each object which adorned the summit, with an accuracy fully borne out by recent excavations. His last walk in Athens (ch. xxviii. § 4, xxix. § 1) conducts us through the various buildings at the western base of the Acropolis. From the temple of the Semnæ he passes to the court of the Areopagus, and the mention of this leads him to speak of the other judicial courts of Athens. The rest of his first book is occupied with an account of the suburbs of Athens-the Academy, the sacred way to Eleusis, &c., and the topography of Attica in general.

A few words may suffice to describe the ultimate fate of Athens. In the reign of Valerian the northern barbarians first appeared in the north of Greece, where they laid siege to Thessalonica. This extraordinary apparition having alarmed all Greece, the Athenians restored their city wall, which Sulla had dismantled, and otherwise placed the town in a state of defence sufficient to secure it against a coup. de-main. But under Gallienus, the next emperor, Athens was besieged, and the archonship abolished, upon which the strategos or general, who had previously acted as inspector of the Agora, became the chief magistrate. Under Claudius the city was taken, but recovered soon afterwards. Constantine the Great gloried in the title of General of Athens, which had been conferred upon hima, and expressed high satisfaction on obtaining from the people the honour of a statue with an inscription,-a distinction which he acknowledged by sending to the city a yearly gratuity of grain. He also conferred on the governor of Attica and Athens the title of Méyas Aoûέ, or Grand Duke, which soon became hereditary, and his son Constans bestowed several islands on the city, in order to supply it with corn. In the time of Theodosius I., that is, towards the end of the 4th century, the Goths laid wasto Thessaly and Epirus; but Theodorus, general of the Greeks, acted with so much prudence, that he saved the Greek citics from pillage and the inhabitants from captivity, a service which was most gratefully acknowledged. But this deliverance proved only temporary. The fatal period was now fast approaching, and, in a real barbarian, Athens was doomed to experience a conqueror yet more remorseless than Sulla. This was Alaric, king of the Goths, who, under the Emperors Arcadius and Honorius, overran both Italy and Greece, sacking, pillaging, and destroying. Never, indeed, did the fury even of barbarían conquest discharge itself in a fiercer or more desolating tempest. The Peloponnesian cities were overturned; Arcadia and Lacedæmon were both laid waste; the gulfs of Lepanto and Egina were illuminated with the flames of Corinth; and the Athenian matrons were dragged in chains to satisfy the brutal desires of the barbarians. The invaluable treasures of antiquity were removed; stately and magnificent structures were reduced to heaps of ruin; and Athens, stripped of the monuments of her ancient splendour, was compared by Synesius, a writer of that age, to a victim of which the body had been consumed, and the skin only

remained.

After this dreadful visitation Athens sank into insignificance, and became as obscure as it had once been illustrious. We are indeed informed that the cities of Hellas were put in a state of defence by Justinian, who repaired the walls of Corinth, which had been overturned by an earthquake, and those of Athens, which had fallen into decay through But from the time of this einperor a chasm of nearly seven centuries ensues in its history: except that, about the year 1130, it furnished Roger, the first king of Sicily, with a number of artificers, who there introduced the culture of silk, which afterwards passed into Italy The worms, it seems, had been brought from India to Conctantinople in the reign of Justinian.

age.

Doomed, apparently, to become the prey of every spoiler, Athens again emerges from oblivion in the 13th century, under Baldwin and his crusaders, at a time when it was besieged by a general of Theodorus Lascaris, the Greek emperor. In 1427 it was taken by Sultan Amurath IL; but some time afterwards it was recovered from the infidels by another body of crusaders under the marquis of Montferrat, a powerful baron of the West, who bestowed it, along with Thebes, on Otho de la Roche, one of his principal followers. For a considerable time both cities were governed by Otho and his descendants, with the title of dukes; but being unable to maintain themselves in their Greek principality, they were at length succeeded by Walter of Brienne, who, soon after his succession, was expelled by his new subjects, aided by the Spaniards of Catalonia. Athens were the Acciajuoli, an opulent family of Florence, in whose possession it remained until 1455, when it was taken by Omar. a general of Mahomet II.. and thus fell a second time into the hands of the barbarians. victorious sultan settled a Mahometan colony in his new conquest. which he incorporated with the Ottoman empire; and Athens. as well as Grecce. continued to form an integral part of the Turkish dominions, until the treaty of Adrianople in 1829, following up the provisions and stipulatious of the treaty of London, 7th July 1827, established within certain limits the now stato of Grecce, of which Athens is now the capital.

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From the period of the Ottoman conquest to the commencement of the insurrection in 1821 Athens was only known in history by two attempts, on the part of the Venetians, to expel the Turks and make themselves masters of the city. The first of these took place in 1464, only nine years after its capture by the Osmanlis, and proved an entire failure. But the second, which was undertaken in 1687, more than two centuries later, was crowned with a temporary and fatal success. In the month of September of that year, Count Königsinark, a Swede in the service of Venice, having disembarked at the Piraeus a force of 8000 foot and 870 horse, forming part of the armament under Francesco Morosini, afterwards doge, marched to Athens, and having summoned the citadel without effect, he erected a battery of heavy ordnance or. t'e hill of the Pnyx, and placing two mortars near the Latin convont at the western foot of the Acropolis, bombarded for several days. The fire of the cannon was chiefly directed against the Propylæa, and the modern defences below that edifice, whilst the moriars continued, without intermission, to throw shells into the citadel. The consequence was, that the beautiful little temple of Nike Apteros, the fricze of which is now in the British Museum, was completely destroyed by the breaching battery, and the Parthenon, besides being greatly injured by the bursting of the shells, was, towards the close of the attack, almost rent in pieces by the explosion of a powder magazine, which reduced the middle of the temple to a heap of ruins, threw down the whole of the wall at the eastern extremity, and precipitated to the ground every statue on the eastern pediment. western extremity was fortunately less injured, and a part of the Opisthodonos was still left standing, together with some of the lateral colunins of the peristyle adjoining to the cell. But the shock was nevertheless abundantly disastrous; and when the Turks afterwards regained possession of the citadel (from which, on this occasion, they were expelled), they did all in their power to complete the destruction which the Venetians had so vigorously begun, by defacing, mutilating, or burning for lime every fragment of the edifice within their reach.

The

In the course of the revolutionary war Athens sustained three sieges. The first was laid by the Greeks in 1822. Having carried the town by storm, and driven

the Turks into the citadel, they established a strict blockade of the fortress, which was continued until the advance of the Pasha at the head of 4000 men induced them to abandon their enterprise, and fly, with the Athenians, to Salamis and Egina. Two months afterwards, the Pasha having left Athens to the defence of 1500 men, the Greeks again ventured to attack the town, and succeeded in obliging the Turks to seek refuge in the citadel, which they forthwith determined to besiege; but, from ignorance and want of means, no progress whatever was made in the operation until they obtained possession of the well which supplied the garrison with water, when the Turks agreed to capitulate upon condition of being immediately embarked with their families and sent to Asia Minor. On various pretences, however, embarkation was delayed from time to time; and when intelligence at length arrived that a large Turkish force was advancing upon Athens, the Palicari, instead of manning the walls and preparing for a vigorous defence, rushed in a body to the houses where the prisoners were confined, and commenced an indiscriminate massacre. For this atrocity it is no palliation to remember that the Greek character had morally suffered from centuries of servitude, and that they had terrible arrears of vengeance to exact. The third siege was laid by the Turks in 1826. The Greeks had left a strong garrison in the Acropolis, with provisions for several months; and a spring of water having been discovered in the cave of Pan, and enclosed by Odysseus within the defences of the citadel, there was no danger of its being starved into a surrender. But the Turks having established batteries near the Pnyx and on the hill of the Museium, and having drawn a line of trenches round the citadel, with the view of intercepting all communication between the besieged and the Greek army, the garrison was hard pressed; and although Colonel Fabvier succeeded in forcing his way through the Turkish lines with 500 men and a supply of ammunition, and thus affording immediate relief, yet the total defeat of the Greek army under General Church at the battle of Athens, fought in the hope of raising the siege, led soon afterwards to the surrender of the Acropolis, which remained in the hands of the Turks until the termination of the revolutionary war.

| chiefly through the efforts of the Archæological Society of Athens, but the antiquaries and scholars of all Europe have anxiously watched their endeavours, and France and Prussia have vied with Great Britain in the prosecution of Athenian discovery. The Theseium has become a treasury of ancient sculpture, and a new archeological museum has been also erected to contain the ever-increasing stores of ancient inscriptions and sculptures. The royal palace is a large building of Pentelic marble, situated in the eastern quarter of the city, on the highest part of the gentle eminence which rises from the level of the Ilissus and Cephisus towards Lycabettus. The University (raveπiorýμiov) was founded in 1837, and numbers over 1200 students, while its staff of 52 professors includes the names of some of the most learned Greek archæologists in Europe. In fact, the schools and other educational institutions of Athens are very numerous, and thoroughly efficient. The archæological journals of Athens are full of information concerning the progress of excavations, and publish the texts of newly-discovered inscriptions. The population in 1871 was over 48,000, exclusive of the population of the Piraeus, which would bring the total up to about 60,000. The harbour is visited by ships of all nations. A railway connects the Piraeus with the city, and enters the ancient town about half-way between the site of the Dipylum and Piræan gates The terminus stands in the midst of what once was the Agora in Cerameicus. The principal street is Hermes Street, running from west to east, a little north of the terminus, until it reaches the royal palace. Two other good streets, Athena Street and Eolus Street, traverse this at right angles. The other streets, with the exception of Stadium Street on the N.E., between the chamber of deputies and the University, are generally narrow and winding. Altogether, Athens, like the rest of Greece, is in a condition of increasing prosperity, and reaps the blessings of freedom. It is true that in our own country the ardent philhellenism of forty years ago has cooled down, and Greece is no longer an object of popular and sentimental admiration. Yet never did the scholars of Europe turn with keener zest to the study of her ancient monuments; and if Attica were cleared for ever of brigands, and furnished with satisfactory roads, then in numbers tenfold greater than now would reverent travellers from the west of Europe delight to make their pilgrimage to the birthplace of philosophy, literature, and art.

In 1812 Athens could boast of a population of 12,000 souls, but during the war the greater part of the city was laid in ruins, and most of the inhabitants were dispersed. | In 1834 it was declared the capital of the new kingdom of Greece. Great exertions have been made since then to restore the city; streets have been opened, levelled, widened; the ancient sewers have been cleared and repaired, and the marshes of Cephisus drained. Excavations of ancient sites and buildings have been carried out,

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ATHENS, the name of several towns in the United States of America, the chief of which are the following :(1.) The capital of a county of the same name in the S.E. of the state of Ohio, finely situated on the Hocking River: It is the seat of the Ohio university, which was founded in 1804. Population of county, 23,768. (2.) The capital of Clarke county, Georgia, on the W. bank of the Oconee River. It is the seat of the Georgia university, which was founded in 1801, and the central town of a large cottongrowing district. Population in 1870, 4251. of whom 1967 were coloured.

ATHERTON, or CHOWBENT, a township in the parish of Leigh and hundred of West Derby, in Lancashire, 200 miles from London. It is one of those places which have grown to wealth and populousness through the extension of the cotton trade. Besides its factories, it has collieries and ironworks. Population in 1871, 7531.

|

ATHIAS, JOSEPH, a celebrated rabbi and printer at Amsterdam, whose editions of the Hebrew Bible are noted for the general correctness of the text. Although he was a learned Hebraist, there are occasional errors in the points, especially in the edition of 1661, but many of these were corrected in that of 1667. He also printed several editions of the Bible in the corrupted Hebrew spoken by the Jews of Spain, Germany, Poland, and England. He died in 1700.

ATHLETÆ (åλnraí), among the Greeks and Romans, was the designation of persons who contended for prizes (20λa) in the public games, exclusive of musical and other contests, where bodily strength was not called into play, though here also the word was sometimes applied, and it was even extended to horses which had won a race, and again metaphorically, e.g., to persons who had exerted themselves in good deeds (αθλητὰς τῶν καλῶν ἔργων). On the other

hand, the term was restricted so as to exclude those who, for mere exercise, without the incentive of a prize, practised in the daily gymnastic competitions. For such the name was ȧywvioraí, and this distinction was the more necessary in the later period of Greek history, when trained athletes became a professional class (400-300 B.C.) Yet it was not the value of the prizes themselves which led men to devote their lives to athletic exercises. That was at most very insignificant. But from the heroic legends of competitions for prizes, such as those at the obsequies of Patroclus (Iliad, xxiii. 257, foll.), from the great antiquity of the four national games of Greece (the Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian, with the local Panathenæa at Athens), and from the high social position of the competitors in early times, there gradually became attached to victory in one of these games so much glory, that the townsmen of a victor were ready to, and frequently did, erect a statue to him, receive him in triumph, and care for him for the rest of his life. Against specially trained athletes the better class of citizens refused to compete, and the lists of the public games being thus left practically open only to professionals, training became more a matter of system and study, particularly in regard to diet, which was rigorously prescribed for the athletes by a public functionary, styled the Aleiptes, who also had to salve their bodies when practising. At one time their principal food consisted of fresh cheese, dried figs, and wheaten bread. Afterwards meat was introduced, generally beef or pork; but the bread and meat were taken separately, the former at breakfast (aprov), the latter at dinner (δεῖπνον). Except in wine, the quantity was unlimited, and the capacity of some of the heavy weights (Bapeîs ábλnraí) must have been, if such stories as those about Milo are true, enormous. Cases of death from apoplexy are not unknown among them. The Tarentine Iccus was an example of the strictest abstinence. Their instruction consisted, besides the ordinary gymnastic exercises of the palæstra, in carrying heavy loads, lifting weights, bending iron rods, striking at a suspended leather sack (kúpukos) filled with sand or flour, taming bulls, &c. Boxers had to practise delving the ground, to strengthen their upper limbs. The competitions open to athletes were in running, leaping, throwing the discus, wrestling, boxing, and the Pancratium, or combination of boxing and wrestling. Victory in this last was the highest achieve ment of an athlete, and was reserved only for men of extraordinary strength. The competitors were naked, having their bodies salved with oil. Boxers wore the cæstus, i.e., straps of leather, round the wrists and forewith a piece of metal in the fist, which was sometimes employed with great barbarity. An athlete could begin his career as a boy in the contests set apart for boys. He could appear again as a youth against his equals, and though always unsuccessful, could go on competing till the age of 35, when he was debarred, it being assumed that after this period of life he could not improve. It sometimes happened that an athlete would agree to allow his rival to win; but for that and other cases of dishonesty a fiue was imposed, and the money expended in erecting statues, called Záves, with warning inscriptions. The most celebrated of the Greek athletes whose names have been handed down are Milo, Hipposthenes, Polydamas, Promachus, and Glaucus. Cyrene, famous in the time of Pindar for its athletes, appears to have still maintained its reputation to at least the time of Alexander the Great; for in the British Museuni are to be seen six prize vases carried off from the gaines at Athens by natives of that district. These vases, found in the tombs, probably, of the winners, are made of clay, and painted on one side with a representation of the contest in which they were won, and on

arms,

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the other side with a figure of Pallas Athena, with an inscription telling where they were gained, and in some cases adding the name of the eponymous magistrate of Athens, from which the exact year can be determined Among the Romans, fond as they were of exhibitions of physical, skill and strength, the profession of athletes was entirely an exotic, and was even under the empire with difficulty transplanted from Greece. The system and the athletes themselves were always purely Greek. (A. S. M.) ATHLETIC SPORTS. Although this term is undoubtedly derived from the ancient åλŋraí, the derivation does not exactly indicate its present meaning, inasmuch as our modern athletes are distinctly defined to be amateurs, in contradistinction to professionals. In fact, the former pursue the agonistic art, and should be styled "agonistics," if we may be allowed to invent such a word, rather than athletes. How the pastime came to be thus named in Britain some fifteen years ago it is hard to say. Till about 1860, all exercises wherein the feet played the principal part wele lightly styled "pedestrianism." Up to that period all prizes, whether contended for by amateurs or professionals, were invariably in money. As the practice of the pastime, however, rapidly spread amongst the former, it was naturally found they were loth to compete on the same terms with, and for similar trophies as, the latter. Hence arose the modern definition of an amateur athlete, viz., Any person who has never competed in an open competition, or for public money, or for admission money, or with professionals for a prize, public money, or admission money; nor has ever at any period of his life, taught, or assisted in the pursuit of athletic exercises as a means of livelihood; nor is a mechanic, artisan, or labourer." The moment this definition was brought into force a wide barrier arose between the two classes, and amateurs ceased to compete for money prizes amongst themselves, or against professionals, on any terms, unless they were willing to forfeit their status. A generic term was required for the new pastime, and in lieu of a better it was entitled "athletic sports," and its votaries "athletes." Hence the haphazard origin of the name. The birthplace of the modern pastime was undoubtedly the great universities and the military and public schools. Cricket has always been justly considered the national game of Great Britain during the summer months, and football fills the same position in the winter. For a month or six weeks in spring and autumn the weather and condition of the ground are in a transition state, and fit for neither of these pastimes, and athletic sports step in and appropriately fill the vacuum. About the year 1812 the Royal Military College at Sandhurst inaugurated modern athletic sports; but the example was not followed till about 1840, when Rugby School, Eton College, Harrow School, Shrewsbury Royal School, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, came to the front. Fifteen years later college meetings had become pretty general both at Oxford and Cambridge. Kensington Grammar School had founded the first annual series of gatherings held in London, whilst Cheltenham College led the van amongst English public schools. After a few months' negotiations the first Oxford v. Cambridge annual meeting was held in 1864, and is justly considered the premier réunion of the whole year, the interest shown and the attendance of spectators being little, if anything, less than at the annual boat race between the same two scats of learning. Two years later the annual amateur championship meeting was founded in London, when the Oxford and Cambridge victors meet representatives from all parts of the United Kingdom, and contend for the "blue ribands" of the various events. The principal athletic society at present in existence is undoubtedly the "London Athletic Club," which takes the lead in all matters pertaining to athletics throughout the United Kingdom. In

England, moreover, there is now scarcely a country town, sea-side watering-place, cricket, rowing, or football club of importance, and probably not a single university or school, which does not hold its annual gathering for athletic purposes. Across the border the professional still far eclipses the amateur element, and there is no meeting of amateurs which can by any means be compared with the autumn Highland gatherings at Braemar and elsewhere. Until recently the two classes contended indiscriminately together, and the prowess displayed by such amateurs as the late Professor Wilson affords ample testimony that gentlemen were quite capable of holding their own against professionals. The number of annual amateur gatherings held in Scotland is, however, extremely limited, and scarcely extends beyond the universities and chief schools connected with Edinburgh, St Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. In Ireland the origin of the pastime is again attributable to the leading university, viz., Trinity College, Dublin, where the decision of isolated events, from about the year 1845, has given rise to the meetings now annually held in the picturesque College Park at Dublin. The Irish civil service meeting was inaugurated in 1867, since which time the pastime has made marvellous strides in the island, as is testified by important meetings now held annually in Belfast, Cork, and Galway; whilst the recently formed Irish Champion Athletic Club takes the lead, and stands in the same relation to Ireland as the London Athletic Club does to the whole of Great Britain. Athletic sports are also now extending on the Continent, at many great watering-places where Englishmen are in the habit of congregating. Our great colonies of India, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, too, as well as the United States of America, Buenos Ayres, China, and even Japan, are not without their annual gatherings for competitors of the Anglo-Saxon race. The contests now classified under the "athletic sports" are, walking, running, leaping, throwing the hammer, and putting the weight. Leaping and running are respectively identical with the dua and Spóuos of the ancient pentathlon; whereas throwing the hammer and putting the weight bear some resemblance to throwing the doκоs. Spear-hurling, åkóvrtov, is never practised but by a few gymnastic societies; and wrestling, rán, between amateurs is rarely witnessed. Running and leaping, however, are nearly always combined on every occasion in two descriptions of contests, viz., steeplechasing and hurdle-racing. Race-walking finds most votaries in London, the northern counties of England, and in Ireland, all distances, from 1 mile to 7, being in vogue amongst amateurs. Running comprises all distances from 100 yards up to 4 miles. Leaping may be divided into three principal heads, viz., running high-leaping, running wide-leaping, and running pole-leaping, which are found to be included in nearly every athletic programme. Adjuncts to these are the running hop-step-and-jump, standing high-leaping, and standing wide-leaping, all of which are favourite pastimes in the northern and midland counties of England. Vaulting, too, is sometimes practised, but belongs rather to the gymnasium than outdoor athletic arena. Steeplechasing proper can only be practised over natural courses across country. Its home is to be found at Rugby School, and amongst members of hare-and-hounds' clubs, who keep themselves in exercise thereby during the winter months. Artificial steeplechase courses are often made on athletic grounds; but the leaps are generally far too sensational, and constructed rather to afford merriment to the spectators than a fair test of the competitors' leaping powers. A prettier sight than a well-contested hurdle race can scarcely be imagined; but few first class hurdle racers are met with outside the universities and public schools. Scotland is undoubtedly the birthplace both of hammer throw

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ing and putting the weight, yet they are now practised at nearly every English and Irish meeting. 16 ) is the usual weight of the missile except in Ireland, where a 42-b, and sometimes a 56.b weight are put, though in a very unsatisfactory fashion. Athletic sports may be practised in a well-rolled grass field, but the best arena is an enclosure, with a regularly laid down running track, the foundation made of clinkers and rubble, and the surface of well-rolled fine cinder ashes. (H. F. W.)

ATHLONE, a market-town and parliamentary borough of Ireland, lying partly in West Meath and partly in Roscommon, 76 miles W. of Dublin. The River Shannon divides the town into two portions, which are connected by a handsome new bridge, opened in 1844. The rapids of the Shannon at this point are obviated by means of a canal about a mile long, which renders the navigation of the river practicable for 71 miles above the town. In the war of 1688 the possession of Athlone was considered of the greatest importance, and it consequently sustained two sieges, the first by William III. in person, which failed, and the second by General Ginkell, who, in the face of the Irish, forded the river and took possession of the town, with the loss of only fifty men. At the time of the last war with France it was strongly fortified on the Roscommon side, the works covering 15 acres and containing two magazines, an ordnance store, an armoury with 15,000 stand of arms, and barracks for 1500 men. There are two parish churches, two Roman Catholic parochial chapels, a Franciscan and Augustinian chapel, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist meeting-houses, a court-house, bridewell, a union work-house, and two branch banks. It has a woollen factory, as well as other industries, and an active trade is carried on with Shannon harbour and Limerick by steamers, and with Dublin by the Grand and Royal Canals and several railway lines, while the importance of its fairs and markets is increasing. There is also a valuable fishery in the river. Market-days, Tuesday and Saturday. The borough returns one member to parliament. Popula tion in 1871, 6566; constituency in 1873, 336.-Thom's Irish Almanac for 1875.

ATHOR, ATHYR, HATHOR, the name of the Egyptian divinity corresponding to Aphrodite or Venus. Her name meant "the abode of Hor" or Horus, and she was the mother of that deity in some of his types, and as such a form of Isis, of whom she was a higher or celestial manifestation. Her name occurs as early as the 4th dynasty, when she is styled the mistress of the tree, or sycamore, neha, or the tree of the south. Besides the local titles of the different cities over which she presided, she was entitled regent of the gods, living mistress of the upper and lower world, mistress of the heaven and regent of the West, and pupil or eye of Ra, or the Sun, with whom she was connected. In her celestial character she is represented as an Egyptian female holding a sceptre, her head surmounted by the sun's disk, horns, and uræus, and her flesh coloured blue, the colour of the heaven, or yellow, that of gold and beauty (according to Egyptian notions), a term also applied to Aphrodite in Greek mythology. In her terrestrial character she was the goddess who presided over sports and dancing, music and pleasure, like the Greek Aphrodite, the goddess of love; but her particularly special type was the white or spotted cow, the supposed mother of the sun. The solar deities Shu and Tefnut were her children. Ir certain legends she is mentioned as the seven cows of Athor, which appear in the Ritual or Book of the Dead. These cows, like the Moire, or fates of Greek mythology, appeared at the births of legendary persons, and predicted the course and events of their lives. It is in this capacity that Athor is connected with Ptah, or the Egyptian Hephæstus, and is allied to Sekhet or Bast, called the wife

in its retreats. No fewer than 935 churches, chapels, and oratories are said to exist, and many of the communities possess considerable wealth. It is believed that, with the exception of the dwellings of Pompeii, some buildings in EGE AN

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or mistress of Ptah, the seven cows being the mystical | the number of hermits and monks that have found shelter companions of the Apis, the second life or incarnation of the god of Memphis. She was also represented under the attributes and with the titles of the goddess Nut, or the Egyptian Rhea. The cow of Athor wore on its head the solar disk, and hawk feather plumes, like Amen Ra; and in this character as the great cow she has on some monuments her human head replaced by that of a cow wearing a disk, or the disk and plumes. This emblem also appears in her type at a later period, when her head is represented with long tresses curled into a spiral at the end, and she has the ears of a cow instead of human ears. Her head is then surmounted by a doorway or its cornice, emblem of the abode of the sun, which she represented. This is sometimes surmounted by the disk and horns. The handle of the sistrum, a musical instrument with bars, was generally made in shape of this head and cornice, as were also the capitals of the columns of Abusimbel, Denderah, and other temples, and the ægis and prows of certain arks. As the goddess of beauty and youth, many of the queens of Egypt assumed her type and attributes, and young females after death, at the Ptolemaic and subsequent periods, had their names preceded by that of the goddess, as both sexes had “Osiris" from the period of the 19th dynasty, that of Athor being a later substitute, and for females only. The third month of the Egyptian year was named Athor after her, and the fich aten or latus, a kind of carp, was sacred to her. The names and titles of Athor were very numerous, and she is named in the inscriptions the lady or mistress of Silsilis, Abusimbul, Pselcis, Ombos, Hermonthis, Apollonopolis Magna, and Heliopolis; but the chief site of her worship was Denderah, or Tentyris, where she is mentioned under many names, and all the different festivals held in her honour are recorded in the calendar of the temple. Athor is one of the oldest of the Egyptian deities, and her worship continued till the fall of Pantheism and substitution of Christianity. Her worship passed from Egypt to the neighbouring isles, cow-headed figures of the goddess having been discovered in Cyprus. Her figures and representation are common. Jablonski, Panth.; Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, iv. 387; Birch, Gall. Antiq., p. 25; Duemichen, Bauurkunde der Dendera, Leip. 1865. (s. B.)

ATHOS is, strictly speaking, the terminal peak of the most eastern of the three peninsular promontories which stretch south from the coast of Turkey (Macedonia), like the prongs of a trident, into the Archipelago. The name is, however, frequently extended to the whole peninsula which was formerly known as Acte. The peak rises like a pyramid, with a steep summit of white marble, to a height of 6780 feet, and can be seen at sunset from the plain of Troy on the one hand, and on the other from the slopes of Olympus. The whole peninsula is remarkable for the beauty of its scenery, with rocky heights and richlywooded flanks, ravines "embowered from the light," and glimpses or free outlook over the surrounding sea. The climate is for the most part healthy and pleasant, though the western side is perhaps too much exposed to the heats of summer; and Lucian assures us that in ancient times the inhabitants were famous for longevity. Several towns, such as Sane, Dium, Olophyxus, Cleonæ, are mentioned by Greek and Latin writers as existing in the Peninsula; but none of them seem to have attained any great importance, and the most remarkable event in the ancient history of Athos is the construction by Xerxes of a ship-canal across the isthmus between the outer sea and the Singitic gulf. | Traces of this canal, which was regarded by Juvenal as a Greek myth, have been found almost right across the neck of land, and leave no doubt of the truth of the story. In more modern times the district of Athos has been famous for

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Athos are the oldest specimens of domestic architecture in
Europe; the shrines are in many cases richly decorated
with goldsmith's work of great antiquity; the wealth
of the monastic libraries in illuminated manuscripts has
long been celebrated; and nowhere, according to Mr
Tozer, can the Byzantine school of painting be studied
with equal advantage. The date of the oldest religious
foundation in the peninsula is not clearly ascertained, and
the traditional chronology of the monks themselves can
hardly be trusted. A bull of Romanus Lecapenus speaks
of the restoration of the monastery of Xeropotamu in 924,
and as early as 885 a rescript of Basil the Macedonian
forbids the molestation of the "holy hermits." Lavra, on
Mount Athos proper, was founded by St Athanasius in
960; the village of Caryes or "The Hazels," was appointed
as the seat of government about the same time; and
shortly afterwards there followed the establishments Iveron
(Twv 'Iẞnpwv), Vatopedi (Baronédiov), and Sphigmenu (roÛ
'Eopiyuévov). The family of the Comneni (1056-1204)
bestowed great privileges on the existing monastaries, and
added to their number. In the reign of Alexius the first
purely Slavonic monastery (that of Chilandari) was founded
by the Servian prince Stephen Nemenja. The taking of
Constantinople by the Latins in 1204 brought persecution
and pillage on the monks; this reminded them of earlier
Saracenic invasions, and led them to appeal for protection
to Pope Innocent III., who gave them a favourable reply.
Under the Palæologi they recovered their prosperity, and
were enriched by gifts from various sources. In the 14th
century the peninsula became the chosen retreat of several
of the emperors, and the monasteries were thrown into
commotion by the famous dispute about the mystical
Hesychasts. Their numbers were gradually increased by
the foundation of St Dionysius, Simopetra, Constamonitu,
Russico, St Paul. In the 15th century the monks made
terms with the Turkish conqueror Amurath, and have
since been molested by none of the sultans, except Soliman
the Magnificent, who laid waste some parts of the peninsula.
In 1545 Stavroniceta, the last monastery, was added to the
list. The hospodars of Wallachia, who were recognised
as the protectors of Athos, enriched the communities with
lands; but a process of secularisation was commenced by

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