acquainted with the classical writers. He used the Apology of Justin, but hardly the works of Aristides or Tatian. His theology is strongly tinged with Platonism, and this may account for his falling into desuetude. His discussion of the Trinity has some points of speculative interest, but it is not sufficiently worked out; he regards the Son as the Reason or Wisdom of the Father, and the Spirit as a divine effluence. On some other points, as the nature of matter, the immortality of the soul and the principle of sin, his views are interesting.
Editions.—J. C. Th. Eg. de Otto, Corpus Apol. Christ. Saec. II. vol. vii. (Jena, 1857); E. Schwartz in Texte und Untersuchungen, iv. 2 (Leipzig, 1891).
Translations.—Humphreys (London, 1714); B. P. Pratten (Ante-Nic. Fathers, Edinburgh, 1867).
Literature.—A. Harnack, Gesch. der altchr. Litt. pp. 526-558, and similar works by O. Bardenhewer and A. Ehrhard; Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk.; G. Krüger, Early Chr. Lit. p. 130 (where additional literature is cited). In 1559 and 1612 appeared in French a work on True and Perfect Love, purporting to be a translation from the Greek of Athenagoras; it is a palpable forgery.
ATHENODORUS, the name of two Stoic philosophers of the 1st century B.C., who have frequently been confounded.
1. Athenodorus Cananites (c. 74 B.C.–A.D. 7), so called from his birthplace Canana near Tarsus (not Cana in Cilicia nor Canna in Lycaonia), was the son of one Sandon, whose name indicates Tarsian descent, not Jewish as many have held. He was a personal friend of Strabo, from whom we derive our knowledge of his life. He taught the young Octavian (afterwards Augustus) at Apollonia, and was a pupil of Posidonius at Rhodes. Subsequently he appears to have travelled in the East (Petra and Egypt) and to have made himself famous by lecturing in the great cities of the Mediterranean. Writing in 50 B.C., Cicero speaks of him with the highest respect (cf. Ep. ad. Att., xvi. 11. 4, 14. 4), a fact which enables us to fix the date of his birth as not later than about 74. His influence over Augustus was strong and lasting. He followed him to Rome in 44, and is said to have criticized him with the utmost candour, bidding him repeat the letters of the alphabet before acting on an angry impulse. In later years he was allowed by Augustus to return to Tarsus in order to remodel the constitution of the city after the degenerate democracy which had misgoverned it under Boethus. He succeeded (c. 15–10 B.C.) in setting up a timocratic oligarchy in the imperial interest (see Tarsus). Sir W. M. Ramsay is inclined to attribute to the influence of Athenodorus the striking resemblances which can be established between Seneca and Paul, the latter of whom must certainly have been acquainted with his teachings. According to Eusebius and Strabo he was a learned scientist for his day, and some attribute to him a history of Tarsus. He helped Cicero in the composition of the De Officiis. His works are not certainly known, and none are extant. (See Sir W. M. Ramsay in the Expositor, September 1906, pp. 268 ff.)
2. Athenodorus Cordylion, also of Tarsus, was keeper of the library at Pergamum, and was an old man in 47 B.C. In his enthusiasm for Stoicism he used to cut out from Stoic writings passages which seemed to him unsatisfactory. He also settled in Rome, where he died in the house of the younger Cato.
Among others of the name may be mentioned (3) Athenodorus of Teos, who played the cithara at the wedding of Alexander the Great and Statira at Susa (324 B.C.); (4) a Greek physician of the 1st century A.D., who wrote on epidemic diseases; and two sculptors, of whom (5) one executed the statues of Apollo and Zeus which the Spartans dedicated at Delphi after Aegospotami; and (6) the other was a son of Alexander of Rhodes, whom he helped in the Laocoon group.
ATHENRY, a market town of county Galway, Ireland, 14 m. inland (E.) from Galway on the Midland Great Western main line. Pop. (1901) 853. Its name is derived from Ath-na-riogh, the ford of kings; and it grew to importance after the Anglo-Norman invasion as the first town of the Burgs and Berminghams. The walls were erected in 1211 and the castle in 1238, and the remains of both are noteworthy. A Dominican monastery was founded with great magnificence by Myler de Bermingham in 1241, and was repaired by the Board of Works in 1893. Of the Franciscan monastery of 1464 little is left. The town returned two members to the Irish parliament from the time of Richard II. to the Union; but it never recovered from the wars of the Tudor period, culminating in a successful siege by Red Hugh O’Donnell in 1596.
ATHENS [Ἀθῆναι, Athenae, modern colloquial Greek Ἁθήνα], the capital of the kingdom of Greece, situated in 23° 44′ E. and 37° 58′ N., towards the southern end of the central and principal plain of Attica. The various theories with regard to the origin of the name are all somewhat unconvincing; it is conceivable that, with the other homonymous Greek towns, such as Athenae Diades in Euboea, Ἀθῆναι may be connected etymologically with ἄνθος, a flower (cf. Firenze, Florence); the patron goddess, Athena, was probably called after the place of her cult.
I. Topography and Antiquities
The Attic plain, τὸ πεδίον, slopes gently towards the coast of the Saronic Gulf on the south-west; on the east it is overlooked by Mount Hymettus (3369 ft.); on the north-east by Pentelicus or Brilessus (3635 ft.) from which, in ancient and modern times, an immense quantity of the finest marble has been quarried; on the north-west by Parnes (4636 ft.), a continuation of the Boeotian Cithaeron, and on the west by Aegaleus (1532 ft.), which descends abruptly to the bay of Salamis. In the centre of the plain extends from north-east to south-west a series of low heights, now known as Turcovuni, culminating towards the south in the sharply pointed Lycabettus (1112 ft.), now called Hagios Georgios from the monastery which crowns its summit. Lycabettus, the most prominent feature in the Athenian landscape, directly overhung the ancient city, but was not included in its walls; its peculiar shape rendered it unsuitable for fortification. The Turcovuni ridge, probably the ancient Anchesmus, separates the valley of the Cephisus on the north-west from that of its confluent, the Ilissus, which skirted the ancient city on the south-west. The Cephisus, rising in Pentelicus, enters the sea at New Phalerum; in summer it dwindles to an insignificant stream, while the Ilissus, descending from Hymettus, is totally dry, probably owing to the destruction of the ancient forests on both mountains, and the consequent denudation of the soil. Separated from Lycabettus by a depression to the south-west, through which flows a brook, now a covered drain (probably to be identified with the Eridanus), stands the remarkable oblong rocky mass of the Acropolis (512 ft.), rising precipitously on all sides except the western; its summit was partially levelled in prehistoric times, and the flat area was subsequently enlarged by further cutting and by means of retaining walls. Close to the Acropolis on the west is the lower rocky eminence of the Areopagus, Ἄρειος πάγος (377 ft.), the seat of the famous council; the name (see also Areopagus) has been connected with Ares, whose temple stood on the northern side of the hill, but is more probably derived from the Ἁραί or Eumenides, whose sanctuary was formed by a cleft in its north-eastern declivity. Farther west of the Acropolis are three elevations; to the north-west the so-called “Hill of the Nymphs” (341 ft.), on which the modern Observatory stands; to the west the Pnyx, the meeting-place of the Athenian democracy (351 ft.), and to the south-west the loftier Museum Hill (482 ft.), still crowned with the remains of the monument of Philópappus. A cavity, a little to the west of the Observatory Hill, is generally supposed to be the ancient Barathron or place of execution. To the south-east of the Acropolis, beyond the narrow valley of the Ilissus, is the hill Ardettus (436 ft.). The distance from the Acropolis to the nearest point of the sea coast at Phalerum is a little over 3 m.
The natural situation of Athens was such as to favour the growth of a powerful community. For the first requisites of a primitive settlement—food supply and defence—it afforded every advantage. The Attic plain, notwithstanding Influence
of the geo-
graphical
position. the lightness of the soil, furnished an adequate supply of cereals; olive and fig groves and vineyards were cultivated from the earliest times in the valley of the Cephisus, and pasturage for sheep and goats was abundant. The surrounding rampart of mountains was broken towards the
