Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/689

Rh A M A A M A 651 and as material for surgical pads. After being boiled in a solution of nitre it is employed as tinder. AMAGER, or AMAK, a small island belonging to Den mark, lying in the Sound, close to the east coast of See- land. The channel which separates its northern extremity from Seeland forms the harbour of Copenhagen ; and nearly the third part of that city, the suburb of Christians- hafen, is situated in Amager. The island is about 9 miles long and 4 broad, with a fertile soil, which produces large quantities of vegetables for the Copenhagen market. It is peopled chiefly by the descendants of a Dutch colony which Christian II. brought there in 1516, who still retain many of the old peculiarities of dress, language, and manners. Population about 9000, exclusive of the inhabit ants of Christianshafen. The other towns are Dragoe and Castrup. AMALASONTHA, or AMALASTJENTHA, daughter of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, was born about 498 A.D. In 515 she married Eutharic, the last representative of the Ainali family, who died (524-5), leaving an only son, Athalaric. The latter was designated by his grand father Theodoric as the heir to the throne, and Amala- sontha was appointed his guardian. On the death of Theodoric in 526, Amalasontha became regent, and en deavoured by a wise and vigoroiis administration to carry on the work of civilisation and enlightenment which her father had commenced. She devoted herself with special solicitude to the education of Athalaric, but her efforts were frustrated by the opposition of the Gothic nobles. Encouraged by them, the young heir to the throne threw off the restraints imposed by his mother, plunged into debauchery, and died at the age of sixteen (534). In the same year Amalasontha married her cousin Theodahaclus, and made him co-regent with herself. A few months later (April 535) she was assassinated by order of her husband in an island on Lake Bolsena. AMALEKITES, an ancient people, widely spread throughout the country lying on the south and east of Palestine, often mentioned in the Jewish Scriptures, and celebrated also in Arabian tradition. In Scripture they occur first in Gen. xiv. 7, occupying the territory around Kadesh, and suffering from the invasion of Chedorlaomer and his confederates. They appear next assaulting the Israelites, shortly after the exodus from Egypt, at Rephidim, in the neighbourhood of Mount Sinai (Ex. xvii. 8 ; cf. Deut. xxv. 17). They again occur falling upon a party of the Israelites on the southern verge of the promised land (Num. xiv. 45 ; cf. xiii. 29). In the time of the judges they are found associated with the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Midianites, and &quot; the children of the east,&quot; in repeated attacks upon the Israelites, invading their territory from the eastern side of Jordan (Judges iii. 13; vi. 3). Saul, by divine command, led an expedition into the country of Amalek, waging against them an exterminating war, &quot; smiting them from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt&quot; (1 Sam. xv. 1). David also &quot;invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites ; for these nations were of old the inhabitants of the land as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt&quot; (1 Sam. xxvii. 8). The last notice occurs in 1 Chron. iv. 43, from which we learn that in the days of Hezekiah a body of Simeonites &quot; went to mount Seir &quot; and &quot; smote the rest of the Ama lekites that were escaped ; &quot; a notice showing the accom plishment of the doom of extermination which had been denounced against them (Ex. xvii. 14-16 ; Num. xxv. 20), and finding an echo in the words of an Arabian poet, &quot;The race of Amlak has disappeared, and there is left of it neither mean man nor mighty&quot; (Magoudi, Les Prairies d Or, par Meynard et Courteille, vol. iii. 104). We twice hear of Agag as the name of the king of the nation (Num. xxiv. 7; 1 Sam. xv. 8); and it is reasonably supposed that this, like Pharaoh in Egypt, was a name common to all their kings. It has been generally supposed that the Haman of the book of Esther, called &quot; the Agagite,&quot; be longed to the royal line of the Amalekites; but it is now found, from Assyrian records, that Agagi was the name of a country east of Assyria, from which it may be assumed that the title was derived. See Lenormant, Lettres Ass. i. 45. Josephus agrees with Scripture in assigning to the Ama lekites the territory immediately to the south of Palestine. Thus he speaks of them as inhabiting &quot; Gobolitis and Petra &quot; (Gobolitis = Gebal, in Ps. Ixxxiii. 7 ; cf. Reland, Palcestina, p. 71) ; and as reaching &quot;from Pelusium to the Red Sea&quot; (Ant. Jud. iii. 2, 1 ; vi. 7, 3; cf. ii. 1, 2). The country which they are thus represented as occupying is suited only to a nomadic population ; and accordingly the indications of the Scripture narrative point to this as the general character of the Amalekite people. They appear as the Bedouins of ancient times, rapid and de vastating in their movements (1 Sam. xxx. 1); and in. their expeditions &quot; coming up with their cattle and their tents &quot; (Jud. vi. 5). At the same time, in the more fertile portions of their territory they doubtless had settled abodes. &quot;We read in 1 Sam. xv. 5 of &quot;a city of Amalek;&quot; and Josephus speaks, apparently in an exaggerated way, of their cities being captured by means of elaborate siege operations (Ant. Jud. vi. 7, 2). The ethnical character and relation of this people, and their com plete national history, it is impossible satisfactorily to make out from the fragmentary materials in our hands. They are not men tioned in the table of nations in Gen. x., while in Gen. xxxvi. 12, 16, their ancestry seems to be referred to Esau. At the same time, the existence of the nation is noticed in Gen xiv., long before Esau ;. and it seems unnatural to understand this, with Hengstenberg and others, in a proleptic sense, especially as there are other independent grounds for referring the beginning of their history to an earlier date. It is certain that the genealogical tables of Scripture, like those of Arabia, include cases of adoption or affiliation as well as of direct descent, and probably it is in this sense that the notice referring Amalek to Esau should be understood. In Balaam s pro phecy Amalek is called &quot;the first of nations&quot; ( av3 r T x ?, prosstan- tissima gentium, Gesenius), Num. xxiv. 20, an expression scarcely reconcilable in the circumstances with descent from Jacob s brother. Again, though found in Jewish scripture located in the immediate south and east of the Israelitish territory, yet there are indications in Scripture itself that at one time they had had a wider extension. &quot;The mount of the Amalekites&quot; is mentioned as situated in &quot; the land of Ephraim &quot; (Jud. xii. 15), apparently warranting the infer ence that they once held possessions on the west of the Jordan (see- Stanley, Sin. and Pal., p. 237, n.) &quot; Amalek &quot; also is found in some copies of the LXX., as the translation of Maacah, in 2 Sam. x. 6, 8, giving some ground for the belief that a section of the samo race had once been settled on the north-east of Palestine (see Ewald, Gcsch. Israel s, Bd. I. 335). There is little in the Bible to illustrate their linguistic affinity ; but so far as appears their language was Shemitic, identical with or very closely allied to the- Hebrew. Samuel and the captive Agag (1 Sam. xv. 32), and David and the Amalekite youth (2 Sam. i. 13) converse together; and it has been attempted also to explain the names Amalek and Agag by Shemitic analogies (Meier, Zcitschrift d. morg. Ocs., Bd. xvii. p. 577). By Philo (Vita Mosis, 39) the Amalekites of the Sinaitic peninsula are called Phoenicians. The traditions of the Arabians regarding this race are confused and conflicting, yet certainly are not to be summarily rejected as destitute of any claim to historic credibility ; and with all their entanglement they speak strongly for the ancient and far-extended power of the people in question, and also more doubtfully for their Shemitic affinities. In these traditions, Amlak or Amlik, the father of the Amalekites, is represented sometimes as the son of Laud (i.e., Lud), the son of Shem ; sometimes as the son of Aram, the son of Laud ; while sometimes also he is spoken of as a son of Ham. They belong, with the Adites, Thamudites, and others, to the primitive races of Arabia. They are said to have been expelled from Babylonia by the Assyrian conquerors, and driven westward into Arabia and Syria, to have built and reigned in Aleppo, to have conquered and for some centuries retained possession of Egypt, and to be the ancestors of the Berbers in North Africa (see Abulfeda, Hist. Ante-M., pp. 16, 178 ; Macoudi, op. tit., vol. iii., p. 106 ; C. de-