Читать книгу A Smaller Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities - William Smith - Страница 9

Coin representing the lituus and capis on the reverse.

AŪGŬRĀCŬLUM. [Arx; Augur, p. 50, b.]

AUGŬRĀLE. [Augur, p. 50, b.]

AUGŬRIUM. [Augur.]

AUGUSTĀLES—(1) (sc. ludi, also called Augustalia, sc. certamina, ludicra), games celebrated in honour of Augustus, at Rome and in other parts of the Roman empire. After the battle of Actium, a quinquennial festival was instituted; and the birthday of Augustus, as well as that on which the victory was announced at Rome, were regarded as festival days. It was not, however, till B.C. 11 that the festival on the birthday of Augustus was formally established by a decree of the senate, and it is this festival which is usually meant when the Augustales or Augustalia are mentioned. It was celebrated iv. Id. Octobr. At the death of Augustus, this festival assumed a more solemn character, was added to the Fasti, and celebrated to his honour as a god. It was henceforth exhibited annually in the circus, at first by the tribunes of the plebs, at the commencement of the reign of Tiberius, but afterwards by the praetor peregrinus.—(2) The name of two classes of priests, one at Rome and the other in the municipia. The Augustales at Rome, properly called sodales Augustales, were an order of priests instituted by Tiberius to attend to the worship of Augustus and the Julia gens. They were chosen by lot from among the principal persons of Rome, and were twenty-one in number, to which were added Tiberius, Drusus, Claudius, and Germanicus, as members of the imperial family. They were also called sacerdotes Augustales, and sometimes simply Augustales. The Augustales in the municipia are supposed by most modern writers to have been a class of priests selected by Augustus from the libertini to attend to the religions rites connected with the worship of the Lares, which that emperor was said to have put up in places where two or more ways met; but there are good reasons for thinking that they were instituted in imitation of the Augustales at Rome, and for the same object, namely, to attend to the worship of Augustus. They formed a collegium and were appointed by the decuriones, or senate of the municipia. The six principal members of the college were called Seviri, a title which seems to have been imitated from the Seviri in the equestrian order at Rome.

AUGUSTUS, a name bestowed upon Octavianus in B.C. 27, by the senate and the Roman people. It was a word used in connection with religion, and designated a person as sacred and worthy of worship; hence the Greek writers translate it by Σεβαστός. It was adopted by all succeeding emperors, as if descended, either by birth or adoption, from the first emperor of the Roman world. The name of Augusta was frequently bestowed upon females of the imperial family; but Augustus belonged exclusively to the reigning emperor till towards the end of the second century of the Christian aera, when M. Aurelius and L. Verus both received this surname. From this time we frequently find two or even a greater number of Augusti. From the time of Probus the title became perpetuus Augustus, and from Philippus or Claudius Gothicus semper Augustus, the latter of which titles was borne by the so-called Roman emperors in Germany. [Caesar.]

AULAEUM. [Siparium.]

AURĔUS. [Aurum.]

AURĪGA. [Circus.]

Aureus Nummus. (British Museum.)

AURUM (χρυσός), gold. Gold was scarce in Greece. The chief places from which the Greeks procured their gold were India, Arabia, Armenia, Colchis, and Troas. It was found mixed with the sands of the Pactolus and other rivers. Almost the only method of purifying gold, known to the ancients, seems to have been that of grinding and then roasting it, and by this process they succeeded in getting it very pure. This is what we are to understand by the phrase χρυσίον ἄπεφθον in Thucydides, and by the word obrussa in Pliny. The art of gilding was known to the Greeks from the earliest times of which we have any information. The time when gold was first coined at Athens is very uncertain, but on the whole it appears most probable that gold money was not coined there, or in Greece Proper generally, till the time of Alexander the Great, if we except a solitary issue of debased gold at Athens in B.C. 407. But from a very early period the Asiatic nations, and the Greek cities of Asia Minor and the adjacent islands, as well as Sicily and Cyrene, possessed a gold coinage, which was more or less current in Greece. Herodotus says that the Lydians were the first who coined gold, and the stater of Croesus appears to have been the earliest gold coin known to the Greeks. The Daric was a Persian coin. Staters of Cyzicus and Phocaea had a considerable currency in Greece. There was a gold coinage in Samos as early as the time of Polycrates. The islands of Siphnos and Thasos, which possessed gold mines, appear to have had a gold coinage at an early period. The Macedonian gold coinage came into circulation in Greece in the time of Philip, and continued in use till the subjection of Greece to the Romans. [Daricus; Stater.] The standard gold coin of Rome was the aureus nummus, or denarius aureus, which, according to Pliny, was first coined 62 years after the first silver coinage [Argentum], that is, in the year 207 B.C. The lowest denomination was the scrupulum, which was made equal to 20 sestertii. The weight of the scrupulum was 18·06 grains. The annexed cut represents a gold coin of 60 sestertii. Pliny adds that afterwards aurei were coined of 40 to the pound, which weight was diminished, till under Nero they were 45 to the pound. The average weight of the aurei of Augustus, in the British Museum, is 121·26 grains: and as the weight was afterwards diminished, we may take the average at 120 grains. The value of the aureus in terms of the sovereign = 1l. 1s. 1d. and a little more than a halfpenny. This is its value according to the present worth of gold; but its current value in Rome was different from this, on account of the difference in the worth of the metal. The aureus passed for 25 denarii; therefore, the denarius being 8½d., it was worth 17s. 8½d. The ratio of the value of gold to that of silver is given in the article Argentum. Alexander Severus coined pieces of one-half and one-third of the aureus, called Semissis and tremissis, after which time the aureus was called solidus. Constantine the Great coined aurei of 72 to the pound; at which standard the coin remained to the end of the empire.

Aureus of Augustus. (British Museum.)

AURUM CŎRŌNĀRĬUM. When a general in a Roman province had obtained a victory, it was the custom for the cities in his own provinces, and for those from the neighbouring states, to send golden crowns to him, which were carried before him in his triumph at Rome. In the time of Cicero it appears to have been usual for the cities of the provinces, instead of sending crowns on occasion of a victory, to pay money, which was called aurum coronarium. This offering, which was at first voluntary, came to be regarded as a regular tribute, and was sometimes exacted by the governors of the provinces, even when no victory had been gained.

AURUM VĪCĒSĬMĀRĬUM. [Aerarium.]

AUSPEX. [Augur.]

AUSPĬCĬUM. [Augur.]

AUTHEPSA (αὐθέψης), which literally means “self-boiling,” or “self-cooking,” was the name of a vessel which is supposed to have been used for heating water, or for keeping it hot.

AUTŎNŎMI (αὐτονόμοι), the name given by the Greeks to those states which were governed by their own laws, and were not subject to any foreign power. This name was also given to those cities subject to the Romans, which were permitted to enjoy their own laws and elect their own magistrates.

AUXĬLĬA. [Socii.]

AXĀMENTA. [Salii.]

AXĪNĒ. [Securis.]

AXIS. [Currus.]

AXŎNES (ἄξονες), also called kurbeis (κύρβεις), wooden tablets of a square or pyramidal form, made to turn on an axis, on which were written the laws of Solon. According to some writers the Axones contained the civil, and the Kurbeis the religious laws; according to others the Kurbeis had four sides and the Axones three. But at Athens, at all events, they seem to have been identical. They were at first preserved in the Acropolis, but were afterwards placed in the agora, in order that all persons might be able to read them.