dies of grief on his way home at Mĕgăra, where, as well as at Sĭcy̆on and Athens, he was worshipped as a hero.
Advŏcātus. At Rome, under the Republic, a competent friend who gave his advice in a law-suit and came into court in person, not to speak (the patrōnus causæ did that), but to support the cause by his presence. In the imperial age the term was applied to the counsel who pleaded in court in the presence of the parties, for doing which he was allowed, after the time of Claudius, to take a moderate fee.
Ady̆tŏn. In many Greek temples, a space set apart, sometimes underground, and only entered by the priest, a holy of holies. (See Temple.)
Æa. The realm of the mythic Æētes; afterwards supposed to be Colchis on the Euxine.
Æacus (Gr. Aiăkŏs). Ancestor of the heroic Æacidæ; son of Zeus by Ægīna, a daughter of the river-god Asōpus in Phlius, whom the king of gods, in the form of an eagle, carried off to the island named after her, where her son was born. As king of Ægīna he ruled the Myrmidons, whom Zeus at his request created out of ants (Gr. myrmēkĕs) to people his island, which, according to one story, was uninhabited, according to another, stricken with pestilence. Beloved by the gods for his piety, when a drought desolated Greece, his intercession obtained rain from Zeus; and the grateful Greeks built him in Ægina a temple enclosed by a marble wall. Pindar says he helped Poseidon and Apollo to rear the walls of Troy, erecting that very portion which was afterwards scaled by his son Tĕlămōn, and his grandson Neoptŏlĕmus. His justice caused him after death to be made a judge in the lower world. At Ægina and Athens he was worshipped as a demigod. His sons by Chiron’s daughter Endeïs were Telamon and Peleus, the fathers of Ajax and Achilles; another son Phocus, by the Nēreïd Psămăthē, was slain by his half-brothers, for which their father banished them.
Ædīlēs. At Rome, two sets of magistrates, the Plebeian (ædiles plēbis or plebeii) and the Curule (ædiles cŭrūles). (1) The two Plebeian Ædiles were appointed b.c. 494 at the same time with the Tribuneship of the Plebs, as servants of the Tribunes, and at first probably nominated by them till 471, when, like them and under their presidency, they began to be elected by the whole body of the Plebs. They took their name from the temple (ædes) of the plebeian goddess Ceres, in which their official archives were kept. Beside the custody of the plebi-scīta, and afterwards of the senatus-consulta, it was their duty to make arrests at the bidding of the tribunes; to carry out the death-sentences which they passed, by hurling the criminal down from the Tarpeian rock; to look after the importation of corn; to watch the traffic in the markets; and to organize and superintend the Plebeian and Roman Games. Like the tribunes, they could only be chosen from the body of the Plebs, and wore no badge of office, not so much as the toga prætexta, even after they became an authority independent of the tribunes. (2) The Curule Ædiles, from b.c. 366, were taken at first from the Patrician body alone, soon after from Patricians and Plebeians by turns, and lastly from either. Elected yearly in the comitia tribúta under the presidency of a consul, they were, from the first, officers of the whole people, though low in rank; they sat in the sella curulis, from which they took their name, and wore as insignia the toga prætexta. As in rank, so in the extent of their powers they stood above the Plebeian Ædiles, being entitled to exercise civil jurisdiction in market business, where the latter could only impose a fine. The functions of the two were very much alike, comprising: (i) the superintendence of trade in the market, where they had to test weights and measures, and the quality of goods; to keep down the price of provisions, both by prohibitive measures, especially against regraters of corn, and by the purchase and liberal distribution of food (cura annōnæ); and, as regards the money-market, to prosecute those who transgressed the laws of usury; (ii) the care of the streets and buildings within the city and the circuit of a mile outside, by cleansing, paving, and improving the streets, or stirring up those who were bound to do it; by seeing that the street traffic was unimpeded; by keeping in repair the temples, public buildings, and works, such as sewers and aqueducts, and seeing that these latter and the fire-apparatus were in working order; (iii) a superintendence of health and morals, including the inspection of baths, taverns, and low houses, the putting down of all that endangered public order and decency, e.g. games of hazard, breaches of sumptuary laws, introduction of foreign religions, etc.; (iv) the exhibition of Games (of which the Roman and Megalensian devolved on the curule, the Plebeian on the plebeian ædiles), the super-
