Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/214

Rh 200 A P P A P P the idea; but there is reason to expect that it will be shown to have been a leading feature of the religions of Assyria and Babylon. For perfectly unequivocal examples of its prevalence among a highly cultivated people, we must resort to Greece and Home. In Greece the worship of deified heroes was universal. A distinction, however, must be observed between the imaginary patriarchs of the golden age, who, after their decease, according to Hesiod (Op. et Dies, 121), became by the counsel of Zeus beneficent daemons, guardians of mortal men, but who seem to have enjoyed only a vague and general veneration, and the mythical heroes, definite objects of worship, who may have been equally apocryphal, but whose legends were none the less regarded as authentic history. The reputed founders of cities were especially honoured with sacrifices by their descendants, and the practice extended to such indubitably historical personages as Lycurgus, Brasidas, Harmodius, Aristogiton, and Ptolemy Lagus. Instances of the origina tion of such worship in the. historical period are nevertheless rare, and the veneration paid to the hero was in all cases merely local The religious honours subsequently bestowed in their lifetime on Lysander, Alexander the Great, and other illustrious persons, were merely the extravagance of flattery, devoid of any influence on the national theology. The same cannot be said of the apotheosis of the Caesars, the germ of which already existed in the veneration paid to the legendary founder of Rome. To the Roman the emperor appeared as the visible manifestation of the genius of the state, long the object of his reverence. (Friedlander, Sittengeschichte Roms, vol. iii. p. 455.) The people, says Suetonius, fully believed in the divinity of Julius Caesar, hinting at the same time that this was by no means the case with the majority of the apotheoses subsequently decreed by the senate. (Jul. C&s. c. 88.) The honour was indeed not only conferred upon almost every emperor who transmitted the sceptre to his descendants, but fre quently upon deceased members of his family, or even his personal favourites, as in the case of Antinous. Sixty persons altogether are recorded as having been thus raised to divine honours from the time of Caesar to that of Con- ptantine. The majority of such apotheoses would be regarded as mere matters of official form; in some instances, however, it was otherwise. We learn from Capitolinus that Marcus Aurelius was still worshipped as a household divinity in the time of Diocletian, and was believed to impart revelations in dreams. ( Vit. M. Ant. c. 18.) Antinous was adored in Egypt a century after his death (Origen, Contra Celsum, iii. 36). The ceremonies attendant on an imperial apotheosis are very fully described by Herodian (lib. iv. c. 2) on occasion of the obsequies of Severus, which he appears to have witnessed. The most significant was the dismission, at the moment of kindling the funeral pyre, of an eagle which was supposed to bear the emperor s soul to heaven. Sharp-sighted persons had actually beheld the ascension of Augustus (Suet., August, c. 100), and of Brasilia, sister of Caligula; the latter eye witness took the public incredulity exceedingly amiss (Seneca, Ajjocolocyntosis.) The ludicrous side of the deifi cation of a bad or indifferent emperor could escape no one, and is pungently illustrated by Seneca in the witty lampoon just quoted : even here, however, it is laid down that principes pietate et justitia del fiunt. Representations of apotheoses occur on several works of art ; the most important are the apotheosis of Homer on a relief in the Townley collection, and that of Augustus on a magnificent cameo in the Louvre. The establishment of Christianity put an end to apotheosis as an avowed belief and a public ceramony, although the principle on which it rested is still conspicuous in the adoration and invocation of saints by the Latin, Greek, and African Churches. The commemo ration of Auguste Comte by his followers may be cited as another instance in point. The worship of Ali and his sons by some Persian sects, and that of the Caliph Hakem by the Druses, are not properly examples of apotheosis, being rendered to them not as deified mortals, but as incar nations of the Deity. (K. G.) APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS, the general name given to a vast system of elevations in North America, partly in Canada, but mostly in the United States, extending for 1300 miles, from Cape Gaspe, on the Gulf of St Lawrence, south-west to Alabama. The whole system may be conveniently divided into three great sections : the Northern, from Cape Gasp6 to New York ; the Central, from New York to the valley of the New River ; and the Southern, from the New River onwards. The first of these includes the Adirondacks, the Green Mountains, and the White Mountains, and the irregular elevations towards ( the north : the central contains a large portion of the Blue Ridge, the Alleghanies proper, and a great Humber of lesser ranges : and the southern consists of the prolongation of the Blue Ridge, the Black Moun tains, the Smoky Mountains, and the Unaka Mountains. The whole range, and especially the central portion, is remarkable for the parallelism of the various ridges, the uniform height of the summits in the same part of the chain, the absence of a central axis of elevation, and the presence, instead, of a central valley or axis of depression. The typical arrangement of the system most distinctly visible in the central division might be represented in diagram thus : first, a stretch of country, gradually sloping, with slight undulations and irregularities, upwards from the Atlantic, and attaining a height of 300, 500, or 1000 feet ; then, a lofty ridge rising like a rampart, and suc ceeded by other ridges separated from each other by longi tudinal valleys ; next, the great central valley or axis of depression ; and lastly, a new succession of ridges breaking off into table-land with transverse valleys and a gradual decrease of elevation. The Atlantic slope varies in breadth from 50 miles, as in New England, to 200 miles, in the south, and in the neighbourhood of New York has almost altogether subsided. The central valley may be traced from Lake Champlain in the north, along the course of the Hud son, down through the Cumberland Valley, in Pennsylvania, and the Great Valley of Virginia and Tennessee ; it varies in breadth from 15 miles in the north to 50 or 60 miles in the south. The elevation of the valley rises towards the south in keeping with the elevation of __the neighbouring ranges. None of the summits of the system reach the region of perpetual snow, but a large number of them attain a considerable altitude. In the Adirondacks the highest point, Mt. Tahawus or Mt. Marcy, reaches 5379 feet. In the White Mountains, Mt. Washington, in the main chain, has a height of 6288 feet ; Mt. Adams, 5794 ; Mt. Madison, 5365 ; Mt. Jefferson, 5714; Mt. Clay, 5553; Mt. Monroe, 5334; Lafayette, 5290; and a great number of summits attain a height of more than 4000 feet. In the Green Mountains the highest point, Mt. Mansfield, is 4430 feet ; Lincoln Mount, 4078 ; Killington Peak, 4221 ; Camel Hump, 4088 ; and a number of other heights upwards of 3000 feet. In the central division the hypsometric surveys are imperfect ; but the general elevation of the higher chains is from 1000 to 2500 feet. As we approach the south, the complexity of the system and the altitude of the individual mountains increase together, and the chains which have run parallel and distinct begin, as it were, to gather and fold themselves into an irregular coil. The peaks of Otter in Virginia are about 4000 feet high ; and in the Black Mountains, the Black Dome (Clingmann), which is the culminating point of the whole system, attains the height of 6707 feet; Balsim Cone (also known as