under the charge of the quæstors. A special reserve fund was the Ærarium sanctius, in which the proceeds of receipts from the manumission-tax (one twentieth of the freed slave’s value) were deposited in gold ingots. When Augustus divided the provinces into senatorial and imperatorial, there were two chief treasuries. The senatorial treasury, which was still kept in the temple of Saturn, was left under the control of the senate, but only as a matter of formal right. Practically it passed into the hands of the emperors, who also brought the management of the treasuries under their own eye by appointing, instead of the quæstors, two præfecti ærarii taken from those who had served as prætors. Besides, they diverted into their own Fiscus all the larger revenues, even those that legally belonged to the Ærarium. When in course of time the returns from all the provinces flowed into the imperial treasury, the senatorial Ærarium continued to exist as the city treasury. The Ærārium militare was a pension-fund founded by Augustus in a.d. 6, for disabled soldiers. Its management was entrusted to three præfecti ærarii militaris. It was maintained out of the interest on a considerable fund, and the proceeds of the heritage and sale duties.
Aërŏpē. Daughter to Catreus of Crete (q.v.), who was given up by her father to Nauplius to be sold abroad. Married to Atreus (q.v.), she bore Agamemnon and Menelāus, but was thrown into the sea by her husband for her adultery with his brother Thyestes.
Æsăcus. Son of Priam by Arisbē, who had learnt the art of interpreting dreams from his maternal grandfather Merops, and being consulted by his father as to Hĕcŭba's bad dreams before the birth of Paris, advised him to expose a child so clearly doomed to be the destruction of Troy. In despair at having caused the death of his wife Astĕrŏpē (or Hespĕria) he threw himself into the sea and was changed into a bird, the diver.
Æschĭnēs. (1) The Socratic, son of a sausage-maker at Athens, lived in the most pinching poverty, but would not let it discourage him in his zeal for learning. Some time after the death of Socrates, to whom he had clung with faithful affection, in b.c. 399, Æschines, probably to mend his fortunes, removed to Syracuse, and there found a patron in the younger Dionysius. On the fall of that tyrant, he returned to Athens, and supported himself by writing speeches for public men. He composed Dialogues, which were prized for their faithful de-
ÆSCHINES THE ORATOR.
(Naples, National Museum.)
