vision of festivities at the feriæ Latinæ and at games given by private men. The cost of the games given by themselves they defrayed partly out of a sum set apart by the State, but utterly inadequate to the large demands of later times; partly out of the proceeds of fines which were also spent on public buildings, and partly out of their own resources. Thus the ædileship became an expensive luxury, and its enjoyment less and less accessible to men of moderate means. Ambitious men often spent incredible sums in getting up games, to win the people’s favour with a view to higher honours, though the ædileship was not necessary as a stepping-stone to these. In Cicero’s time the legal age for the curule ædileship was thirty-seven. From b.c. 366 their number was unchanged, till Cæsar in b.c. 44 added two more, the Plebeian Ædiles Ceriāles, to whom alone the cura annonæ and the management of the ludi Ceriales were entrusted. Under the Empire the office of ædile lost much in importance by some of its functions being handed over to separate officers, especially by the transference of its jurisdiction and its control of games to the prætors; and it fell into such contempt, that even Augustus had to make a tenure of it, or the tribuneship, a condition of eligibility to the prætorship; and succeeding emperors often had to fill it by compulsion. In the 3rd century a.d. it seems to have died out altogether.
Ædĭtŭus or Ædĭtŭmus. The overseer of a temple that had no priest of its own (see Priests); also a major-domo. (See Slaves.)
Aēdōn. Daughter of Pandărĕos, wife of the Theban king Zēthus, and mother of Ity̆lus. Envious at her sister-in-law, Niŏbē, having six sons, she tries to kill the eldest, but by mistake kills her own. She is changed by Zeus into a nightingale, and for ever bewails her son. Later legend makes her the wife of an artificer Polytechnus at Cŏlŏphōn in Lydia; she stirs the anger of Hera by boasting that she lives more happily with her husband than the goddess with Zeus. Hera sends Eris (= strife) to set on foot a wager between husband and wife, that whichever finishes first the piece of work they have in hand (he a chair, she a garment) shall make the other a present of a slave-girl. By Hera’s help Aēdon wins, and Polytechnus in vexation fetches her sister, Chĕlĭdŏnis, on a false pretext, from her father's house, and having reduced her to submission on the way, and bound her to secrecy on pain of death, presents her to his wife unrecognised as a slave. One day Aēdon overhears her sister lamenting her lot at a fountain, and concerts with her to slay Itylus, cook him, and set him before his father to eat. On learning the truth, Polytechnus pursues the sister to her home; but there the gods, to prevent more horrors, turn them all into birds, making Pandareos an osprey, his wife a kingfisher, Polytechnus a pelican, Chelidonis a swallow, and Aëdon a nightingale. (Comp. Procne.)
AEētēs Son of Hēlios and the Ocean nymph Perseïs, brother of Circē and Pasĭphăë, king of Æa, father of Medēa and Absyrtus by the ocean nymph Idyia. (See Argonauts and Medea.)
Ægeus. Son of Pandīōn (q.v. 2) and Pelia. Having with the help of his brothers Lycus, Pallas, and Nisus wrested Attica from the sons of his uncle Metiōn, who had driven out his father, he seized the sole
sovereignty. Dethroned by his brother Pallas and his sons, he was rescued and restored by his son Thēseus (q.v.). Having slain Andrŏgĕŏs, son of Minos (q.v.), he was conquered by that king, and compelled to send seven youths and seven maidens to Crete every nine years as victims to the Minotaur. When Theseus set out to free his country from this tribute, he agreed in case of success to exchange the black sail of his ship for a white; but he forgot to do so, and Ægeus seeing the old sail on the returning vessel, gave up his son for lost, and threw himself into the sea, which is supposed to have been named after him the Ægēan. He had a herōön or shrine at Athens. Childless by his first two marriages, and ascribing the fact to the anger of Aphrŏdītē, he is said to have introduced her worship into Athens. (For his son Mēdus by Medēa, see both.)
Ægĭălē (Gr. Ægĭaleia). Daughter of Adrastus of Argos, wife of Diomēdes (q.v.).
Ægĭăleus. Son of Adrastus of Argos, and one of the Epĭgŏni (q.v.), who fell before Thebes.
Ægīna, a nymph, daughter of the river-god Asōpus, and, by Zeus, mother of Æăcus (q.v.).
Æginetan Sculptures. The marble pediments of Athena’s temple at Ægīna, discovered in 1811, restored by Thorwaldsen, and preserved in the Glyptothek at Munich. Their great value consists in the full light they throw on the condition of Greek art, especially of the Æginetan school, in b.c. 480. (Comp. Sculpture.) Both groups
