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Rh priests of Ares, marching in front of the armies, hurled the torch at the foe as the signal of battle.

In works of art he was represented as a young and handsome man of strong sinewy frame, his hair in short curls, and a somewhat sombre look in his countenance; in the early style he is bearded and in armour, in the later beardless and with only the helmet on. He is often represented in company with Aphrodite and their boy Eros, who plays with his father's arms. One of the most famous statues extant is that in the Villa Ludovisi, which displays him in an easy resting attitude, with his arms laid aside, and Eros at his feet. (See cut.) On his identification with the Italian Mars, see.

 Arĕtæus. A Greek physician, born in Cappadocia, towards the end of the 2nd century He was the author of two valuable works (each in four books), written in the Ionic dialect, on the causes and symptoms of acute and chronic pains, and on their cure.

 Arētē. Wife of Alcĭnŏüs king of the Phæacians (see both), and protectress of Odysseus (q.v.).

 Arĕthūsa. (1) In Greece a frequent name of springs, especially of one in Elis, and one on the Island of Ortygia in the port of Syracuse, which was supposed to have a subterranean communication with the river Alphēus in Elis. The two fountains were associated by the following legend. As the nymph of Elis, tired with the chase, was bathing in the Alpheus, the river-god fell passionately in love with her; she fled from him to Ortygia, where Artĕmis hid her in the ground, and let her gush out of it in the form of a fountain; but Alpheus flowed on under the sea to Ortygia, and so united himself with his beloved one. The story is explained by the likeness of name in the fountains, by the circumstance that Artemis was worshipped both in Elis and Ortygia as Alpheæa, and by the fact that in some places the Alpheus actually does run underground.

(2) One of the Hespĕrĭdĕs (q.v.).

 Argēï'. The name of certain chapels at Rome, probably twenty-four in number, each of the four tribes of the city having six. To these chapels a procession was made on March 16 and 17, at which the wife of the Flamen Diālis walked with unkempt hair as a sign of mourning. On May 15 the Pontiffs, Vestal Virgins, Prætors, and all citizens who had a right to assist at sacrifices, marched to the wooden bridge over the Tiber (Pons Sublĭcĭus), and after sacrificing, threw into the river twenty-four men of straw, likewise named Argeï, which had probably been hung up in the chapels at the first procession, and were fetched away at the second. The sacrifice was regarded as expiatory, and the puppets as substitutes for former human victims. The meaning of the name was unknown to the ancients, and so was the deity to whom the sacrifice was offered.

 Argentārĭi. See.

 Argentĕus. A Roman silver coin current from the end of the 3rd century and onwards. See.

 Argō. The ship of the Argonauts (q.v.), named after her builder Argos.

<section end="Argo" /> <section begin="Argonauts" />Argonauts. Those who sailed in the Argo with Jason, son of Æsōn and grandson of Crētheus (see, 1), a generation before the Trojan war, to Æa, which in later times was understood to be Colchis, lying at the farthest end of the Black Sea. The object of the expedition was to fetch back the golden fleece of the ram on which Phrixus the son of Athămās (q.v.) had fled, from his father and his stepmother Inō, to the magician Æētēs, king of Æa.<section end="Argonauts" />