Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/43

Rh sacred to Aegeria, one near Aricia (Verg. A. 7.761, &c.; Ovid, Ov. Fast. 3.263, &c.; Strab. v. p.39; Plut. Num. 4; Lactant. 1.22.1), and the other near the city of Rome at the Porta Capena, in the valley now called Caparella, where the sacred shield had fallen from heaven, and where Numa was likewise believed to have had interviews with his beloved Camena. (Plut. Num. 13; Juv. 3.12.) Ovid (Ov. Met. 15.431, &c.; compare Strab. l. c.) relates that, after the death of Numa, Aegeria fled into the shady grove in the vale of Aricia, and there disturbed by her lamentations the worship of Diana which had been brought thither from Tauris by Orestes, or, according to others, by Hippolytus. Virgil (Aen. 7.761) makes Hippolytus and Aegeria the parents of Virbius, who was undoubtedly a native Italian hero. This is one of the most remarkable instances of the manner in which the worship of a Greek divinity or hero was engrafted upon and combined with a purely Italian worship. Aegeria was regarded as a prophetic divinity, and also as the giver of life, whence she was invoked by pregnant women. (Festus, s. v. Egeriae ; compare Wagner, Commentatio de Egeriae fonte et specu eiusque situ, Marburg, 1824; Hartung, Die Relig. der Römer, ii. p. 203, &c. and 213, &c.)

AEGESTUS. [ACESTES.]

AEGEUS (Αἰγεύς). 1. According to some accounts a son of Pandion II. king of Athens, and of Pylia, while others call him a son of Scyrius or Phemius, and state that he was only an adopted son of Pandion. (Paus. 1.5.3, &c.; Schol. ad Lycophr. 494; Apollod. 3.15.5.) Pandion had been expelled from his kingdom by the Metionids, but Aegeus in conjunction with his brothers, Pallas, Nysus, and Lycus restored him, and Aegeus being the eldest of the brothers succeeded Pandion. Aegeus first married Meta, a daughter of Hoples, and then Chalciope, the daughter of Rhexenor, neither of whom bore him any children. (Apollod. 3.15.6,&c.) He ascribed this misfortune to the anger of Aphrodite, and in order to conciliate her introduced her worship at Athens. (Paus. 1.14.6.) Afterwards he begot Theseus by Aethra at Troezen. (Plut. Thes. 3; Apollod. 3.15.7; Hyg. Fab. 37.) When Theseus had grown up to manhood, and was informed of his descent, he went to Athens and defeated the fifty sons of his uncle Pallas, who claiming the kingly dignity of Athens, had made war upon Aegeus and deposed him, and also wished to exclude Theseus from the succession. (Plut. Thes. 13.) Aegeus was restored, but died soon after. His death is related in the following manner : When Theseus went to Crete to deliver Athens from the tribute it had to pay to Minos, he promised his father that on his return he would hoist white sails as a signal of his safety. On his approach to the coast of Attica he forgot his promise, and his father, who was watching on a rock on the seacoast, on perceiving the black sail, thought that his son had perished and threw himself into the sea, which according to some traditions received from this event the name of the Aegaean sea. (Plut. Thes. 22; Diod. 4.61; Paus. 1.22.5; Hyg. Fab. 43; Serv. ad Aen. 3.74.) Medeia, who was believed to have spent some time at Athens on her return from Corinth to Colchis, is said to have becomee mother of a son, Medus, by Aegens. (Apolled. 1.9.28; Hyg. Fab. 26.) Aegeus was one of the eponymic heroes of Attica; and one of the Attic tribes (Aegeis) derived its name from him. (Paus. 1.5.2.) His grave, called the heroum of Aegeus, was believed to be at Athens (Paus. 1.22.5), and Pausanias mentions two statues of him, one at Athens and the other at Delphi, the latter of which had been made of the tithes of the booty taken by the Athenians at Marathon. (Paus. 1.5.2, 10.10.1.)

2. The eponymic hero of the phyle called the Aegeidae at Sparta, was a son of Oeolycus, and grandson of Theras, the founder of the colony in Thera. (Hdt. 4.149.) All the Aegeids were believed to be Cadmeans, who formed a settlement at Sparta previous to the Dorian conquest. There is only this difference in the accounts, that, according to some, Aegeus was the leader of the Cadmean colonists at Sparta, while, according to Herodotus, they received their name of Aegeids from the later Aegeus, the son of Oeolycus. (Pind. P. 5.101; Isth. 7.18, &c., with the Schol.) There was at Sparta a heroum of Aegeus. (Paus. 3.15.6; compare 4.7.3.)

AEGI'ALE or AEGIALEIA (Αἰγιάλη or Αἰγιάλεια), a daughter of Adrastus and Amphithea, or of Aegialeus the son of Adrastus, whence she bears the surname of Adrastine. (Hom. (Il. 5.412; Apollod. 1.8.6, 9.13.) She was married to Diomedes, who, on his return from Troy, found her living in adultery with Cometes. (Eustath, ad Il. v. p. 566.) The hero attributed this misfortune to the anger of Aphrodite, whom he had wounded in the war against Troy, but when Aegiale went so far as to threaten his life he fled to Italy. (Schol. ad Lycophr. 610; Ov. Met. 14.476, &c.) According to Dictys Cretensis (6.2), Aegiale, like Clytemnestra, had been seduced to her criminal conduct by a treacherous report, that Diomedes was returning with a Trojan woman who lived with him as his wife, and on his arrival at Argos Aegiale expelled him. In Ovid (Ibis, 349) she is described as the type of a bad wife.

AEGI'ALEUS (Αἰγιαλεύς). 1. A son of Adrastus and Amphithea or Demoanassa. (Apollod. 1.9.13; Hyg. Fab. 71.) He was the only one among the Epigones that fell in the war against Thebes. (Apollod. 3.7.3; Paus. 9.5.7; compare ADRASTUS. He was worshipped as a hero at Pegae in Megaris, and it was believed that his body had been conveyed thither from Thebes and been buried there. (Paus. 1.44.7.)

2. A son of Inachus and the Oceanid Melia, from whom the part of Peloponnesus afterwards called Achaia derived its name of Aegialeia. (Apollod. 2.1.1.) According to a Sicyonian tradition he was an autochthon, brother of Phoroneus and first king of Sicyon, to whom the foundation of the town of Aegialeia was ascribed. (Paus. 2.5.5, 7.1.1.)

3. A son of Aeetes. [ABSYRTUS.]

AEGI'DIUS, a Roman commander in Gaul under Majorianus. (A. D. 457-461.) After the death of the latter, he maintained an independent sovereignty in Gaul, and was elected by the Franks as their king, after they had banished Childeric. Four years afterwards, Childeric was restored; but Aegidius did not oppose his return, and he retained his influence in Gaul till his death. (Gregor. Turon. 2.12.)