Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/196

 172 AGADIR consists in its lying on the most direct road to Sackatoo and contiguous parts of Soodan. AGADIR, the southernmost seaport town of Morocco, on the Atlantic, in the province of Sus, 23 m. 8. E. of Cape Ghir, in lat. 30 26' 85" N., Ion. 9 35' 56" W. ; pop. about 600. It has the best harbor in Morocco, and was for- merly a large and strongly fortified city ; but in a revolt against Sidi Mohammed in 1773 it was captured and nearly destroyed, and the in- habitants were transferred to Mogador. In the 16th century it was held by the Portuguese and called Santa Cruz. AGAMEMNON, king of Mycenae, one of the foremost figures in the Iliad, was the son of Atreus according to Homer, but his grandson according to others. He commanded the com- bined forces of Greece at the siege of Troy. He married Clytemnestra, half sister of Helen, the wife of his brother Menelaus. The Grecian fleet being detained at Aulis, its sailing place, by unfavorable winds, the priest Calchas de- clared that the gods must be propitiated by the sacrifice of the king's daughter Iphigenia, on account of his having offended Diana by killing her favorite stag. Agamemnon yielded to the will of the gods, but his daughter was saved by Diana. His quarrel with Achilles forms one of the most interesting portions of the Iliad, which opens with an account of it. On his return from Troy he was murdered by his wife, who had formed an adulterous rela- tion with ^Egisthus during his absence, and avenged by his son Orestes. AGAMI (ptophia crepitanz), a bird of tropical America, also termed the gold-breasted trum- peter. It has been classed among the cranes, Agami, or Gold-breasted Trumpeter. but subsequently among the pheasants. By Temminck it is classed as the first genus Ja the order alectorides. Its body is about the size of the pheasant, to which it bears some resem- blance in its plumage ; but it is much higher on its legs, which resemble those of the gral- latores or wading birds, being naked far above the knee. It has also a long neck, and in all respects, at first sight, has the appear- ance of a water fowl ; but it never visits fens or water margins, frequenting rather the uplands and dry mountains. Its breast is of a beautiful iridescent green and gold, in which, as in the bare space of scarlet skin which surrounds its eye, it resembles the pheasant. Its tail, how- ever, is short, and partially covered by the loose silky plumes of its light-colored scapula- ries. It is easily domesticated, and becomes attached to its master, whom it will follow about like a dog. Its name of trumpeter (pso- phia) is given on account of its remarkable cry, performed, with the bill closed, by aid of a pe- culiar conformation of the larynx. The agami, like the rest of the alectorides, makes no nest, but deposits its eggs, which are of a light green color, to the number of 10 up to 16, in a hollow place scratched at the foot of a tree. The down remains very long on the young bird, and then changes into long, close, silky plumes. AGANIPPE, in ancient geography, a fountain of Boeotia, near Mount Helicon, flowing into the river Permessus. It was believed to have the power of inspiring those who drank of it, and was sacred to the muses, who hence de- rived their name Aganippides. In mythology, Aganippe was a nymph, the daughter of the river god Permessus. AGAPJS (Gr. ayfari, plur. ay&ircu, Jove; gene- rally used in the plural), feasts of love, originally a simple meal, taken by the primitive Chris- tians, at first in their places of worship and in connection with the eucharist. It usually followed the sacrament, but there is reason to suppose that it sometimes preceded it, espe- cially in the earliest times. Extravagance and disorder seem to have been early introduced at these feasts in some places, and were re- buked by St. Paul in 1 Cor. xi. In the 2d cen- tury the eucharist came to be commonly cele- brated alone. The agapoo were suspected by the Roman government as scenes of secret intrigue. They were regulated by various councils down to the 9th century, and gradu- ally disappeared. In modern times they have been revived, under the name of love feasts, by the Moravians and Methodists. AGAPEMONE, or Abode of Love (Gr. aydirq, love, and //ovi^, abode), an establishment at Charlynch, Somersetshire, England, about 9 ro. from Taunton, where a number of persons as- sociated themselves together in 1846 under the name of "Family of Love," and under the guidance of several clergymen, the principal of whom are Henry James Prince and a Mr. Starkey, the former allowing himself to be ad- dressed as "the Lord." The prevailing idea of the sect is that perpetual enjoyment is the sole aim of spiritual and material existence. The relations between the sexes, however, are said to be governed by mutual affinities and at- tractions, but members of the family of lovr maintain matrimonial unions while the attrac-