desert of Sahara; the Lesser Atlas extends from Ma- | and open towards the sea in the form of an amphithe rocco towards the northeast to the northern coast. atre. Half way from the mountain a great valley exThe great height of Mount Atlas is proved by the tends, which is remarkably fertile, and adorned with perpetual snows which cover its summits in the east richly-laden fruit-trees. The eye plunges into this part of Marocco, under the latitude of 32°. Accord- valley as into a deep well, but the precipice is too ing to Humboldt's principles, these summits must be steep for any person to venture to descend, and the 12,000 feet above the level of the sea. Leo Afri- descent is prohibited by feelings of religious awe. canus, who travelled here in the month of October, The most wonderful thing is to see the waves of the narrowly escaped being buried in an avalanche of ocean at high water overspreading the adjacent plains, snow. In the state of Algiers, the snow disappears on but stopping short before Mount Atlas, and standing the tops of Jurjura and of Felizia in the month of up like a wall, without penetrating into the hollow of May, and covers them again before the end of Sep- the valley, though not restrained by any earthly bartember. The Wanashisze, situated in 30° 55′, and rier. Nothing but the air and the sacred thicket preforming an intermediate chain between the maritime vent the water from reaching the mountain. Such is one and that of the interior, is covered with a mantle the temple and the god of the Libyans; such is the of snow nearly the whole of the year. The fertility object of their worship and the witness of their oaths." of the region of Atlas is celebrated by Strabo and In the physical delineations contained in this account, Pliny. The latter (15, 18) extols its figs, olives, we perceive some features of resemblance to the coast corn, and valuable woods. (Id., 17, 12.-Id., 18, 7. between Cape Tefelnch and Cape Geer, which re-Id., 13, 15.) He observes, that the wines had a sembles an amphitheatre crowned with a series of decertain sharpness, which was corrected by adding to tached rocks. In the moral description we find traces them a little plaster (Id., 14, 9), and says that the of fetichism; rocks remarkable for their shape being vineyards had a northern and western exposure. (Id., still worshipped by some negro tribes. (Malle-Brun, 17, 2.) Strabo informs us (369) that the vine-trunks Geogr., vol. 4, p. 155, seqq.)—Before closing this arwere sometimes so thick that two men could scarce-ticle it may not be amies to remark, that, according ly clasp them round, and that the clusters were a cu- to Pliny, the ancient Mauritanians called Atlas Dyris. bit in length. A horrible government and a total ab- The chain of Atlas, at the present day, bears among sence of civilization have not succeeded in annihila- the Arabs the name of Darah or Daran, the close ap ting these bounties of nature. Barbary and Marocco proximation of which to the ancient appellation is eastill export large quantities of grain. The olive-tree sily perceived. Horn, on the contrary, however, recis superior here to that of Provence; and the Moors, ognises the term Dyris in Aya-Dyrma, the Guanche notwithstanding the hostility to Bacchus, which marks name for the Peak of Teneriffe. (Hornius, de Origintheir religion, cultivate seven varieties of the vine.ibus Americanorum, p. 185.-Humboldt, Tabl. de Nat., The soil of the plains in many places resembles that vol. 1, p. 151.) of the rest of Africa, being light and sandy, and containing numerous rocks; but the valleys of Mount Atlas, and those of the rivulets which descend from it to the Mediterranean, are covered with a compact, fertile, and well-watered soil. Extensive forests cover the sides of the fertile mountains in the northern parts of these countries. All the valleys that have a moderate elevation form in April and May so many little Elysiums. The shade, the coolness, the bright verdure, the diversity of the flowers, and the mixture of agreeable odours, combine to charm the senses of the botanist, who, amid such scenes, might forget his native country, were he not shocked and alarmed by the barbarity of the inhabitants.—A question has arisen in modern times, whether the chain of mountains here described was really the Atlas of the ancients? This is denied by Ideler, who maintains that the Atlas of Homer and Hesiod is the Peak of Teneriffe. The Atlas of the Greek and Roman geographers he allows,-Götting. Anzeig., 1811, nr. 78.) on the other hand, to be the modern Mount Atlas. His arguments are given by Humboldt (Tableaux de la Nature, vol. 1, p. 144, seqq.), but are more ingenious than satisfactory. The Atlas of Herodotus might be a promontory of the southern chain, rising from the plains of the desert, such as Mount Saluban, in Biledulgerid, appears to be. It agrees with the distances assigned by this historian. It is, besides, possible, that all the contradictions mentioned by Ideler may owe their origin to that optical illusion by which a chain of mountains, seen in profile, has the appearance of a narrow peak. "When at sea," says Humboldt, "I have often mistaken long chains for isolated mountains." This explanation might be still farther simplified, if it were admitted that the name of Atlas belonged originally to a promontory remarkable for form and its peculiar isolated situation, such as most of those on the coast of Marocco. A curious passage in Maximus Tyrius seems to countenance this hypothesis: "The Ethiopian Hesperians," says he (Diss., 38.p. 457, seqq., ed. Oxon.), "worship Mount Atlas, who is both their temple and their idol. The Atlas is a mountain of moderate elevation, concave

ATOSSA, a daughter of Cyrus the Great. She married her own brother Cambyses, the first instance of the kind that occurred among the Persians, according to Herodotus (3, 31). After the death of Cambyses she became the wife of the false Smerdis, and subsequently of Darius Hystaspis. (Herod., 3, 88.) She possessed great influence over the last of these, in consequence of her royal birth, and her son Xerxes succeeded him on the throne. She was cured of a cancer in the breast by the Greek physician Democedes; and this individual, through a desire of returning to his native land, induced Atossa, it is said, to urge Darius to a war with Greece. (Herod., 3, 133, seqq.)According to Creuzer, the name Atossa is in Persian Atesh. There was also a city called Atusia in Assyria, on the river Caprus, whose coins displayed a female head, crowned with turrets, and also the inscription ATOYZIEMN. (Creuzer, ad Herod., 3, 68.

ATRICES, the people of Atrax, an ancient colony of the Perrhæbi in Thessaly, ten miles from Larissa, higher up the Peneus, and on the right bank of that river. It was successfully defended by the Macedonians against T. Flaminius. (Liv., 32, 15. - Strabo, 438 and 441.) Dr. Clarke was led to imagine, that this city stood at Ampelakia, from the circumstance of the green marble, known to the ancients by the name of Atracium Marmor, being found there; but this supposition is erroneous, since it is evident from Livy that Atrax was to the west of Larissa, and only ten miles from that city; whereas Ampelakia is close to Tempe, and distant more than fifteen miles from Larissa. (Cramer's Ancient Greece, vol. 1, p. 386, seqq.)

ATRAMYTTIUM. Vid. Adramyttium.

ATRAX, I. a son of Etolus, or, according to others, of the river Peneus. He was king of Thessaly, and built a town which he called Atrax. Hence the epithet Atracius is sometimes employed with the same meaning as Thessalus or "Thessalian." (Propert., 1, 8, 25.) Atrax was father to Hippodamia, who married Pirithous, and whom we must not confound

Atropates, a satrap of this province, who, after the death of Alexander, rendered himself independent, and took the title of king, which his successors enjoyed for many ages. It was a cold, barren, and inhospitable country, and on that account allotted by Shalmanezar for the residence of many captive Israelites, after the conquest of their kingdom. It is now called Aderbigian, from the Persian term Ader, signifying fire; according to the tradition that Zerdust or Zoroaster lighted a pyre, or temple of fire, in a city named Urmiah, of this his native country. Its metropolis was Gaza, now Tebriz, or, as it is more commonly pronounced, Tauris. (Strab., 360.-Plin., 6, 13.)

ATROPOS, one of the Parce, daughter of Nox and Erebus. According to the derivation of her name (a priv., and rpen, "to turn" or "change"), she is inexorable and inflexible, and her duty among the three sisters is to cut the thread of life without any regard to sex, age, or condition. (Vid. Parcæ.)

kingdom; and the Romans appeared little disposed to aid him. Prusias in fact gained some advantages over him, but Attalus eventually, by his valour and skill, freed himself from his foes. The friendship of the Romans, subsequently conciliated by him, placed him in security for the time to come, and he devoted the period of repose thus afforded him to the building of cities, and the munificent patronage of learning. He died at the age of 82, after a reign of 21 years, having been poisoned by his nephew, the son of Eumenes II. Attalus was surnamed Philadelphus, from the fraternal love he displayed towards his brother Eumenes during the lifetime of the latter. (Liv., 35, 23.—Id., 37, 43.~ Id., 38, 12.-Justin, 25, 1.)-III. The third of the name was son of Eumenes II., and succeeded to the throne after poisoning his uncle Attalus II. He made himself extremely odious by the destruction of many of his relations and friends. Repenting soon after of his cruelties, he assumed all the habiliments of sorrow; and subsequently, giving up the cares of government to others, he turned his attention to gardening. In full accordance, however, with his natural disposition, he bestowed particular attention upon the cultivation of noxious and poisonous plants, which he intermingled with the fruits and flowers that he sent as presents to his friends. He afterward turned his attention to the melting and working of metals. Attalus died after a reign of five years, from a stroke of the sun, while superintending the erection of a tomb for his mother, his affection for whom had procured him the surname of Philometor. He died without issue, and his will is said to have contained the following words: "Populus Romanus bonorum meorum hæres esto." The Romans regarded this as conveying to them the entire kingdom, and accordingly made it a province of their empire. Considering all the circumstances of the case, and especially the character ATTALEA, I. a city of Pamphylia, southwest of of the testator, the construction which the Romans Perga, built by King Attalus II. The site of this put upon the words in question was fair enough. city is called Palaia Attalia, while the modern city Mithradates, however, in his letter to Arsaces (Sall., of Attalia, or, as it is commonly called, Satalia, an- Hist. Fragm., p. 409, ed. Burnouf), regards it as a swers to the ancient Olbia. (Cramer's Asia Minor, forced and fraudulent interpretation. (Justin, 36, 4. vol. 2, p. 275.)-II. A city of Lydia, on the river-Vell. Paterc., 2, 4.-Liv., Ep. et Suppl., 58.) Hermus, and northeast of Sardis. Its earlier name ATTHIS, a daughter of Cranaus the successor of was Agroira or Alloira. (Steph. Byz., s. v.) The Cecrops. She was fabled to have given name to the ccclesiastical notices have recorded some of its bish-country of Attica. (Apollod., 3, 14, 5.) ops. The site is occupied by a village called Adala. (Keppel's Travels, vol. 2, p. 335. Cramer's Asia Minor, vol. 1, p. 435.)

ATTA, Titus Quintius, a Roman comic writer, who died A.U.C. 633, B.C. 121. His productions appear to have been extremely popular in the time of Horace, though, as would seem from the language of the latter, not very deserving of it. (Hor., Ep., 2, 1, 79.) He received the surname of Atta from a lameness in his feet, which gave him the appearance of a person walking on tiptoe. Thus Festus remarks: "Attæ appellantur, qui, propter vitium crurum aut pedum. plantis insistunt et attingunt magis terram quam ambulant." It is to this personal deformity that Horace (. c.) pleasantly alludes, when he supposes the plays of Atta to limp over the stage like their lame author. Bothe's assertion that Atta also composed tragedies, is contradicted by Schmid. (Ad Hor., l. c. -Compare Crinit., Poet. Lat., c. 23.—Bahr, Gesch. Röm. Lat., vol. 1, p. 111, seqq.)

ATTICA, a country of Greece, without the Peloponnesus, forming a kind of triangular peninsula, and bounded on the north by Boeotia and the Euripus; on ATTALICUS. Vid. Attalus II. the west by Megaris; on the south by the Sinus SaATTĀLUS, I. king of Pergamus, succeeded Eume-ronicus; and on the east by part of the Ægean Sea; nes I. This prince was first proclaimed king of extending from northwest to southeast about eighty Pergamus after a signal victory obtained by him over miles, with decreasing breadth, but at an average of the Gallo-Græci, or Galatæ, and, for his talents and about forty miles. According to the popular account, the soundness of his policy, deserves a distinguished it received its name from Atthis, the daughter of Craplace among the sovereigns of antiquity. He formed, naus. The more correct etymology, however, is from at an early period, an alliance with the Romans, whom úkтý (actē), the Greek term for "shore," the country he vigorously assisted in their two wars against Philip being of a peninsular shape, or, in other words, two of Macedon. In conjunction with the Athenians, he sides of it being shore. The original name, thereinvaded Macedonia, and recalled Philip from his en- fore, would seem to have been Acta, which was afterprise undertaken against Athens; on which account terward changed to the more euphonious Attica. the Athenians gave his name to one of their tribes. (Plin., 4, 11.- Harpocrat., s. v. Úкτý. — Aul. Gell., His wealth was so great as to become proverbial. 3, 6. Eustath. ad Dionys. Perieg., 413.) The (Hor., Od., 1, 12.) He had married Apollonias, a situation of Attica marked it out in an eminent delady of Cyzicus, of obscure birth, but great merit and gree for a commercial country. The base, or northvirtue by her he had four sons, Eumenes, Attalus, ern side of the irregular triangle which it forms, is Philetæus, and Athenæus. He died at an advanced applied to the continent of Greece; with its eastern age, after a prosperous reign of 43 or 44 years, and face it looks towards Asia; from its apex on the was succeeded by Eumenes. (Polyb., 18, 24.-Liv., south, it contemplates Egypt; and on the west it di33, 21.—Strab., 624.)-II. The 2d of the name suc- rects its view to the Peloponnesus, and to the counceeded his brother Eumenes II., B.C. 159. Before tries of Italy and Sicily lying beyond it. By thic ascending the throne he had been twice sent to combination of the advantages of inland communicaRome, to solicit aid against Antiochus the Great and tion with those of an extensive and various interagainst the Greeks. When he commenced his reign, course with all the civilized countries of the world, it he found two adversaries in Prusias of Bithynia and was distinguished from all the other states both of the Demetrius Soter, who meditated the conquest of his peninsula and continent of Greece. As Greece was

generations, till at last it hid itself, like one of her own brooks, in the recesses of her own soil. This belief that her people was indigenous, she expressed in different ways. She intimated it in the figure which she assigned to Cecrops, the heroic prince and progenitor of her primeval inhabitants. She represented him as combining in his person a double character; while the higher parts of his body were those of a man and a king, the serpentine folds in which it was termicicade of gold, which she braided in the twinings of her hair, were intended to denote the same thing; they signified that the natives of Attica sprang from the soil upon which these cicada sang, and which was believed to feed them with its dew. (Wordsworth's Greece, p. 69, seqq.)-The total population of Attica, in B.C. 317, may be taken at 527,660. Of these the free inhabitants amounted to 90,000; the resident aliens to 45,000; while the slaves made up the residue. Of the free inhabitants of Attica, the citizens, or those who had votes in the public assembly, amounted to 21,000. About 127 years before they had been 19,000, until Pericles reduced their number. Twenty thousand were computed as the number in the earliest times, under Cecrops. (Schol. ad Pind., Ol., 9, 68.) The slaves of Attica, at the census made B.C. 309, when Demetrius was archon eponymus, were 400,000. Hume, in his Essay on the Populousness of Ancient Nations (Essays, vol. 1, p. 443), thinks that there is error or corruption in this high number, and that for 400,000 we ought to read 40,000 (namely, Teтpakioμvpiove instead of recoapúKоνта μvρiúðaç). But he forgets that in this enumeration of 400,000 we are not to take the slaves as ail males of full age. Slaves were property, and therefore, in enumerating them, it would be necessary to compute all the individuals who composed that property. The 400,000 therefore express all the slaves, of either sex and of every age, and in this number the men of full age would be less than 100,000. (Clinton, Fast. Hell., vol. 1, p. 387, seqq.)-Some remarks on the ancient kings of Attica will be found under the article Cecrops, and on the coinage and commerce of the Athenians, under Mina and Piræus.

the centre of the civilized world of antiquity, so was Attica the centre of Greece; and as the climate and temperature of Hellas was considered to be more favourable than that of any other country of Europe or Asia, for the healthy and vigorous development of the physical and intellectual faculties of man, so did every Hellenic province yield in these respects to the superior claims of the Athenian territory. Again: it was not merely aided by these natural advantages, which arose from its form, its position, and its cli-nated declared his extraction from the earth. The mate, the very defects also under which this country laboured, the very difficulties with which it was compelled to struggle, supplied to Attica the inducements, and afforded it the means, for availing itself in the most effectual manner of those benefits and privileges with which nature had so liberally endowed it. One of these apparent deficiencies was the barrenness of its soil. The geological formation of Attica is primitive limestone: on its northern frontier a long ridge of mountains, consisting of such a stratification, stretches from east to west: a range of similar character bounds it on the west, and in the interior of the country it is intersected with hills from north to south, which belong to the same class. Thus it will appear that the geographical dimensions of Attica, limited as they are, must be reduced by us within a still narrower range, when we consider it as far as it is available for the purposes of cultivation. In this respect, its superficial extent cannot be rated at more than one half the value which has been assigned to the whole country. The mountains of which we have spoken are either bare or rugged, or thinly clad with scanty vegetation and low shrubs. The mountain pine is found on the slopes of Laurium; the steeps of Parnes and Pentelicus are sprinkled over with the dwarf oak, the lentisk, the arbutus, and the bay. But the hills of this country can boast few timber trees; they serve to afford pasture to numerous flocks of sheep and goats, which browse upon their meagre herbage and climb among their steep rocks, and to furnish fuel to the inhabitants of the plain. While such is the character of the mountainous districts of the province, its plains and lowlands cannot lay a much better claim to the merit of fertility. In many parts of them, as in the city of Athens itself, the calcareous rock projects above the surface, or is scarcely concealed beneath a light covering of soil in no instance do they possess any considerable deposite of alluvial earth. The plains of this country are irrigated by few streams, which are rather to be called torrents than rivers, and on none of them can it depend for a perennial supply of water. There is no lake within its limits. It is unnecessary to suggest the reason where such was the nature of the soil, that the olive was the most common, and also the most valuable, production of Attica. Such, then, were some of the physical defects of the land. But these disadvantages were abundantly compensated by the beneficial effects which they produced. The sterility of Attica drove its inhabitants from their own country. It carried them abroad. It filled them with a spirit of activity, which loved to grapple with danger and difficulty: it told them, that, if they would maintain themselves in the dignity which became them, they must regard the resources of their own land as nothing, and those of other countries as their own. It arose also from the barrenness of her soil, that Attica had been always exempt from the revolutions which in early times agitated the other countries of Greece; and hence Attica, secure in her sterility, boasted that her land had never been inundated by tides of immigration. The race of her inhabitants had been always the same; nor could she tell whence they had sprung; no foreign land had sent them; they had not forced their way within her confines by a violent irruption. She traced the stream of her population in a backward course, through many

ATTICUS, I. Titus Pomponius, a Roman knight, who, in the most agitated times, preserved the esteem of all parties. The Pomponian family, from whom he originated, was one of the most distinguished of those of equestrian rank, and pretended to derive its origin from Numa Pompilius. Atticus lived in the latter period of the republic, and acquired great celebrity from the splendour of his private character. He inherited from his father, and from his uncle Q. Cæcilius, great wealth. When he attained maturity, the republic was disturbed by the factions of Cinna and Sylla. His brother Sulpicius, the tribune of the commons, being killed, he thought himself not safe in Rome; for which reason he removed with his fortune to Athens, where he devoted himself to science. His benefits to the city were so great, that he gained the affections of the people in the highest degree. He acquired so thorough a knowledge of Greek, that he could not be distinguished from a native Athenian, and hence the surname of Atticus bestowed upon him. When Rome had acquired some degree of quiet, he returned, and inherited from his uncle ten millions of sesterces. His sister married the brother of Cicero. With this orator, as well as with Hortensius, he lived on terms of intimate friendship. It was his principle never to mix in politics, and he lived undisturbed amid all the successive factions which reigned in Rome. Cæsar treated him with the greatest regard though he was known as a friend of Pompey's. After the death of Cæsar he lived in friendship with Brutus, without, however, offending Antony. When Brutus was obliged to flee from Italy, he sent him a million