named because in it all implements were made of brass. The men, furnished with gigantic limbs and irresistible physical strength, destroyed each other by deeds of violence, and perished at their death.
(4) The iron age succeeded. This was the generation of work and laborious agriculture. Care and toil fill up the day and night; truth and modesty are departed; mischief alone survives, and there is nothing to arrest the progress of decay.
Agĕla. In Crete, an association of youths for joint training; Agelātēs, the captain of an agela. (See Education, 1.)
Agĕlādās. A Greek artist of the first half of the 5th century b.c., famed for his images of gods and Olympian victors, wrought in metal. His reputation was much enhanced by the fact that Phīdias, Myrōn, and Polyclītus were his pupils.
Agēma. The guard in the Macedonian army; in which the cavalry were a troop (īlē) formed of noblemen's sons who had grown up as pages in the royal service, while the infantry consisted of the hypaspistæ (q.v.), to whom the argyraspĭdĕs (q.v.) were added later as heavy infantry.
Agēnōr. (1) Son of Poseidōn and Libya, king of Phœnicia, brother to Belus, and father of Cadmus and Eurōpa (q.v.).
(2) Son of Antēnor by Theāno, a priestess of Athēna, and one of the bravest heroes of Troy. In Homer he leads the Trojans in storming the Greek entrenchments, rescues Hector when thrown down by Ajax, and even enters the lists with Achilles, but is saved from imminent danger by Apollo. In the post-Homeric legend he dies by the hand of Neoptŏlĕmus.
Ager Publĭcus (= common land). The Latin name for the State domains, formed of territory taken from conquered states. The Romans made a practice, upon every new acquisition of land, of adding a part of it, usually a third, to the domain. So far as this land was under culture, portions of it were sometimes assigned to single citizens or newly-founded colonies in fee simple, sometimes sold by the quæstors on the condition that, though the purchaser might bequeath and alienate it, it still remained State property. In token of this it paid a substantial or merely nominal rent (vectīgal), and was called ager privātus vectigālisque or quæstōrius. The greater part was left to the old occupiers, yet not as free property, but as rent-paying land, and was called ager publicus stipendiarius datus assignatus; the rest remained under State management, and was let by the censors. Of uncultivated districts, the State, by public proclamation, gave a provisional right of seisin, occupātio, with a view to cultivation, in consideration of a tithe of the corn raised and a fifth of the fruit, and reserving its right of resumption. Such seisin was called possessio. It could be bequeathed or otherwise alienated, yet never became private property, but remained a rent-paying and resumable property of the State. Though the Plebeians had as good a right to occupy lands won by their aid as the Patricians, yet in the early times of the Republic this right was exercised by the latter alone, partly because they had the greater command of means and men, and partly because by the right of the stronger they excluded the Plebeians from benefiting by the Ager Publicus. Against this usurpation the Plebeians waged a bitter and unbroken warfare, claiming not only a share in newly conquered lands, but a wholesale redistribution of existing possessiōnēs, while the Patricians strained every nerve to maintain their vested interests, and managed to thwart the execution of all the enactments passed from time to time in favour of the Plebeians. Even the law of the tribune Gaius Licinius Stolo (b.c. 377), limiting possessions to 500 iūgĕra (acres) per man, and ordering the distribution of the remainder, were from the first eluded by the possessōrēs, who now included both Patricians and well-to-do Plebeians. All possible means were employed, as pretended deeds of gift and other similar devices. The threatened extinction of the Italian peasantry by the great wars, and the rapid growth of huge estates (latifundia) worked by slaves, occasioned the law of Tiberius Gracchus (b.c. 133), retaining the Licinian limit of 500 acres, but allowing another 250 for each son, and granting compensation for lands resumed by the State. The land thus set free, and all the Ager Publicus that had been leased, except a few domains indispensable to the State, were to be divided among poor citizens, but on the condition that each allotment paid a quit-rent, and was not to be alienated. But again, the resistance of the nobility practically reduced this law to a dead letter; and the upshot of the whole agrarian movement stirred up by Tiberius and his brother Gains Gracchus was, that the wealthy Romans were not only left undisturbed in their possessiones, but were released
