Page:Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (Seyffert, 1901).pdf/21

Rh present, with lifelike accuracy and in strictly symmetrical distribution, combats of the Greeks before Troy, while Athēna in the centre, as protectress of the Greeks, retains the rigid attitude of the ancient religious statues. Of the figures, originally twenty-two in number, ten in the west pediment representing the contest for the body of Patroclus, are complete, while the eleventh is preserved in fragments; of those in the east pediment representing Hērăclēs and Tĕlămōn shielding the fallen Oïcles from Laŏmĕdōn, five remain and many fragments.

WEST PEDIMENT OF THE TEMPLE AT ÆGINA.  Ægis. The storm-cloud and thundercloud of Zeus, imagined in Homer as a shield forged by Hephæstus, blazing brightly and fringed with tassels of gold, in its centre the awe-inspiring Gorgon’s head. When Zeus shakes the ægis, it thunders and lightens, and horror and perdition fall upon those against whom it is lifted. It is borne not only by Zeus "the Ægis-bearer," but by his daughter Athēna, and occasionally by Apollo. As the same word means a goat-skin, it was explained in later times as the skin of the goat which had suckled Zeus in his infancy. At the bidding of the oracle, he drew it over his thunder-shield in the contest with the Giants, and fastened on it the Gorgon’s head. When the ægis became a standing attribute of Athena, it was represented as a skin either shaggy or scaly, with a fringe of snakes and the Gorgon’s head in the middle, and either serving the goddess as a breastplate, or hanging behind to screen the back and shoulders, or fastened like a shield on the left arm.

 Ægisthus. Son of Thyestes and his daughter Pelŏpia. At his birth he was exposed by his mother, and brought up by shepherds. His uncle Atreus, husband to Pelopia, finds him and brings him to Mycēnæ, thinking him to be his own son; but Ægisthus and his real father contrive to kill him and seize the sovereignty of Mycenæ. (See .) This position he loses again by his cousin Agamemnon’s return from exile; but during that hero’s absence at Troy he seduces his wife Clytæmnēstra, and with her help slays him treacherously on his return. In the eighth year after this deed comes young Orestes, and avenges his father’s death by slaying Ægisthus.

 Ægle. One of the Hesperides (q.v.).

 Ægyptus. Son of Belus and twin-brother of Dănăüs (q.v.), who subdued the land of the Melampŏdĕs (Blackfeet), and named it after himself. Ignorant of the fate of his fifty sons, he comes to Argos and there dies of grief at their death; another account represents his only surviving son as reconciling him to his brother.

 Æliānus. (1) The Tactician, a Greek writer on war, about 100, composed a work dedicated to Trajan on the Greek order of battle, with special reference to Macedonian tactics (Taktĭkē Theōrĭa), which is extant both in its original and in an enlarged form. The original used falsely to be attributed to Arrian.

(2) Claudius Ælianus, called the Sophist, a Roman of Præneste, who wrote in Greek, lived at Rome in the 2nd century as teacher of rhetoric. His surviving works are: (1) 20 insignificant Peasants’ Letters, so called because attributed to Attic peasants; (2) Variæ Historiæ or miscellanies, in 14 books, some preserved only in extracts, and (3) De Natūrā Animālium. The two last-mentioned are copious and valuable collections of all kinds of curiosities in human and animal life, mostly taken from earlier writings now lost.

 Æliānum Jus. See.

 Ælius. (1) Ælius Catus. See.

(2) Lucius Ælius Stīlo Præconīnus, a Roman grammarian born at Lanuvium, about 150, an ĕquĕs, and friend of the poet Lucilius, to whom he dedicated his first book of Satires: surnamed Stilo<section end="Aelius" />