near the modern Châlons, in which Tetricus was defeated. The restoration of the unity of the empire was thus complete. In 274 a brilliant triumph, adorned by the persons of Zenobia and Tetricus, was celebrated at Rome.
Aurelian now turned his attention to the internal affairs of the empire. He introduced sumptuary laws; relieved the poor by distributions of bread and meat, proceeded with great severity against informers and embezzlers; began the construction of various public works and buildings; and proclaimed a general amnesty for political crimes. The restoration and enlargement of the walls of Rome, commenced by him, was not completed till the reign of Probus. An attempt to restore the standard of the coinage is said to have caused a revolt of the workmen and officials connected with the mint, which was only put down with the loss of 7000 soldiers. It has been suggested that this was really an attempt at revolution incited by the senate and praetorian guards, the opportunity being found in disturbances resulting from opposition to the attempted reform, which by themselves could hardly have assumed such serious proportions. Aurelian’s restless spirit was not long able to endure a life of inaction in the city. Towards the end of 274, he started on an expedition against the Persians, halting in Thrace by the way. While on the march between Heracleia and Byzantium, at the beginning of the following year, he was assassinated through the treachery of his secretary Eros, who, in order to escape the discovery of his own irregularities, incited certain officers against the emperor by showing them a forged list, on which their names appeared as marked out for death.
Aurelian well deserved the title of restorer of the empire, and it must be remembered that he lived in an age when severity was absolutely necessary. He was a great soldier and a rigid but just disciplinarian. In more favourable circumstances he would have been a great administrator. He displayed a fondness for pomp and show on public occasions; he was the first Roman emperor to wear the diadem, and assumed the title of Lord and God on medals.
The chief authority for the events of Aurelian’s reign is his life by Vopiscus, one of the writers of the “Augustan History”; it is founded on Greek memoirs and certain journals deposited in the Ulpian library at Rome. See L. Homo, Le Règne de l’empereur Aurélien (1904), and Groag’s art. in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, v. 1347 foll.
AURELIANUS, CAELIUS, a physician of Sicca in Numidia, who probably flourished in the 5th century A.D., although some place him two or even three centuries earlier. In favour of the later date is the nature of his Latin, which shows a strong tendency to the Romance, and the similarity of his language to that of Cassius Felix, also an African medical writer, who about 450 wrote a short treatise, chiefly based on Galen. We possess a translation by Aurelianus of two works of Soranus of Ephesus (2nd century), the chief of the “methodist” school of medicine, on chronic and acute maladies—Tardae or Chronicae Passiones, in five, and Celeres or Acutae Passiones in three books. The translation, which is especially valuable since the original has been lost, shows that Soranus possessed considerable practical skill in the diagnosis of ordinary and even of exceptional diseases. It is also important as containing numerous references to the methods of earlier medical authorities. We also possess considerable fragments of his Medicinales Responsiones, also adapted from Soranus, a general treatise on medicine in the form of question and answer; it deals with rules of health (salutaria praecepta) and the pathology of internal diseases (ed. Rose, Anecdota Graeca et Latina, ii., 1870). Where it is possible to compare Aurelianus’s translation with the original—as in a fragment of his Gynaecia with Soranus’s Περὶ γυναικείων—it is found that it is literal, but abridged. There is apparently no MS. of the treatises in existence. (Editions: Amman, 1709; Haller, 1774.)
AURELLE DE PALADINES, LOUIS JEAN BAPTISTE D’ (1804–1877), French general, was born at Malzieu, Lozère, on the 9th of January 1804. He was educated at St Cyr, and entered the army as sub-lieutenant of foot in 1824. He served with distinction in Algeria between 1841 and 1848, becoming lieut.-colonel and an officer of the Legion of Honour; took part in the Roman campaigns of 1848 and 1849, and was made colonel. He served as general of brigade throughout the Crimean War of 1854–56, being promoted general of division and commander of the Legion of Honour. During the campaign in Lombardy in 1859 he commanded at Marseilles, and superintended the despatch of men and stores to the seat of war, and for his services he was made a grand officer of the Legion of Honour. Placed on the reserve list in 1869, he was recalled to the Marseilles command on the outbreak of the Franco-German War of 1870–71. After the first capture of Orleans by the Germans, he was appointed by the Government of National Defence, in November 1870, to the command of the Army of the Loire. He was at first very successful against von der Tann-Rathsamhausen, winning the battle of Coulmiers and compelling the Germans to evacuate Orleans, but the capitulation of Metz had set free additional German troops to oppose him, and, after his defeat at Beaune la Rolande and subsequent unsuccessful fighting near Orleans, resulting in its recapture by the Germans in December, Aurelle retreated into the Sologne and was superseded. After the armistice he was elected to the National Assembly by the departments both of Allier and Gironde. He sat for Allier and was one of the fifteen officers chosen to assist in the peace negotiations. He was decorated with the grand cross of the Legion of Honour, and was given the command at Bordeaux, but retired in 1872. Elected a life senator in 1875, he supported the monarchical majority of 1876. He died at Versailles on the 17th of December 1877. He was the author of La Première Armée de la Loire, published in 1872.
AUREOLA, Aureole (diminutive of Lat. aura, air), the radiance of luminous cloud which, in paintings of sacred personages, is represented as surrounding the whole figure. In the earliest periods of Christian art this splendour was confined to the figures of the persons of the Godhead, but it was afterwards extended to the Virgin Mary and to several of the saints. The aureola, when enveloping the whole body, is generally oval or elliptical in form, but is occasionally circular or quatrefoil. When it is merely a luminous disk round the head, it is called specifically a nimbus, while the combination of nimbus and aureole is called a glory. The strict distinction between nimbus and aureole is not commonly maintained, and the latter term is most frequently used to denote the radiance round the heads of saints, angels or persons of the Godhead. The nimbus in Christian art appeared first in the 5th century, but practically the same device was known still earlier, though its history is obscure, in non-Christian art. Thus (though earlier Indian and Bactrian coins do not show it) it is found with the gods on some of the coins of the Indian kings Kanishka, Huvishka and Vasudeva, 58 B.C. to A.D. 41 (Gardner’s Cat. of Coins of Greek and Scythic Kings of Bactria and India, Brit. Mus. 1886, plates 26-29). And its use has been traced through the Egyptians to the Greeks and Romans, representations of Trajan (arch of Constantine) and Antoninus Pius (reverse of a medal) being found with it. In the circular form it constitutes a natural and even primitive use of the idea of a crown, modified by an equally simple idea of the emanation of light from the head of a superior being, or by the meteorological phenomenon of a halo. The probability is that all later associations with the symbol refer back to an early astrological origin (cf. Mithras), the person so glorified being identified with the sun and represented in the sun’s image; so the aureole is the Hvarenō of Mazdaism. From this early astrological use the form of “glory” or “nimbus” has been adapted or inherited under new beliefs.
AURICH, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hanover, chief town of the district of East Friesland, on the Ems-Jade canal, 18 m. N.W. from Emden by rail. Pop. (1900) 6013. It is built in the Dutch style, and lies in a sandy but fertile plain, surrounded by pleasant promenades which have taken the place of the old fortifications. It has a palace, formerly the residence of the counts of East Friesland and now used as government offices, a Roman Catholic and two Protestant churches, a gymnasium, and four libraries. There are breweries
