in November 1575. Besides taking a share in the first collected or Jena edition of Luther’s works (1556), Aurifaber sought out and published at Eisleben in 1564–1565 several writings not included in that edition. He also published Luther’s Letters (1556, 1565), and Table Talk (1566). This popular work, which has given him most of his fame, is unfortunately but a second or third hand compilation.
See G. Kawerau’s art. in Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyk. für prot. Theologie, and the literature there cited.
AURIGA (the “charioteer” or “waggoner”), in astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, found in the catalogues of Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.). It was symbolized by the Greeks as an old man in a more or less sitting posture, with a goat and her kids in his left hand, and a bridle in his right. The ancient Greeks associated this constellation with many myths. Some assume it to be Erichthonius, son of Athena and Hephaestus, who was translated to the skies by Zeus on account of his invention of chariots or coaches. Others assume it to be Myrtilus, a son of Hermes and Clytic, and charioteer to Oenomaus, who was placed in the heavens by Hermes. Another myth has it to be Olenus, a son of Hephaestus, and father of Aega and Helice, two nymphs who nursed Zeus. Ptolemy catalogued fourteen stars, Tycho Brahe twenty-seven, and Hevelius forty in this constellation. Interesting stars are: α Aurigae or Capella (the goat), one of the brightest stars in the heavens, determined by Newall and Campbell to be a spectroscopic binary; β Aurigae, a star of the second magnitude also a spectroscopic binary; ε Aurigae, an irregularly variable star; and Nova Aurigae, a “new” star discovered by Anderson in 1892, and afterwards found on a photographic plate exposed at Harvard in December 1891. Several fine star clusters also appear in this constellation.
AURILLAC, a town of central France, capital of the department of Cantal, 140 m. N.N.E. of Toulouse, on the Orléans railway between Figeac and Murat. Pop. (1906) 14,097. Aurillac stands on the right bank of the Jordanne, and is dominated from the north-west by the Roc Castanet, crowned by the castle of St Etienne, the keep of which dates from the 11th century. Its streets are narrow and uninteresting, with the exception of one which contains, among other old houses, that known as the Maison des Consuls, a Gothic building of the 16th century, decorated with sculptured stone-work. Aurillac owes its origin to an abbey founded in the 9th century by St Géraud, and the abbey-church, rebuilt in the 17th century in the Gothic style, is the chief building in the town. The former college, which dates from the 17th century, is now occupied by a museum and a library. There is a statue of Pope Silvester II., born near Aurillac in 930 and educated in the abbey, which soon afterwards became one of the most famous schools of France. Aurillac is the seat of a prefect, and its public institutions include tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a lycée, training-colleges and a branch of the Bank of France. The chief manufactures are wooden shoes and umbrellas, and there is trade in cheese and in the cattle and horses reared in the neighbourhood.
AURISPA, GIOVANNI (c. 1370–1459), one of the learned Italians of the 15th century, who did so much to promote the revival of the study of Greek in Italy, was born at Noto in Sicily. In 1418 he visited Constantinople, where he remained for some years, perfecting his knowledge of Greek and searching for ancient MSS. His efforts were rewarded by the acquisition of some 250 MSS., with which he returned to Venice. Here he is said to have been obliged to pawn his treasures for 50 gold florins to provide for his immediate wants. Cosimo de’ Medici, hearing of his embarrassment, redeemed the MSS. and summoned the owner to Florence. In 1438, at the council of Basel, Aurispa attracted the attention of Pope Eugenius IV., who made him his secretary; he held a similar position under Nicholas V., who presented him to two lucrative abbacies. He died at Ferrara. Considering his long life and reputation Aurispa produced little: Latin translations of the commentary of Hierocles on the golden verses of Pythagoras (1474) and of Philisci Consolatoria ad Ciceronem from Dio Cassius (not published till 1510); and, according to Gesner, a translation of the works of Archimedes. Aurispa’s reputation rests upon the extensive collection of MSS. copied and distributed by him, and his persistent efforts to revive and promote the study of ancient literature.
AUROCHS (from Lat. urus, the wild ox, and “ox”) or Urus, the name of the extinct wild ox of Europe (Bos taurus primigenius), which after the disappearance of that animal became transferred to the bison. According to the German Freiherr von Herberstein (1486–1566), in his Moscovia, of which an Italian translation was published at Venice in 1550, the aurochs survived in Poland (and probably also in Hungary) during the latter middle ages. In this work appear woodcuts—rude but characteristic and unmistakable—of two distinct types of European wild cattle; one the aurochs, or ur, and the other the bison. As Herberstein had travelled in Poland, it is probable that he had seen both species alive, and the drawings were most likely executed under his own direction. It has indeed been suggested that the figure of the aurochs was taken from a domesticated ox, but this is a mistaken idea. Not the least important feature of the work of Herberstein is the application of the name aurochs to the wild ox, as distinct from the bison. The locality where aurochs survived in Herberstein’s time was the forest of Jaktozowka, situated about 55 kilometres west-south-west of Warsaw, in the provinces of Bolemow and Sochaczew. From other evidence it appears that the last aurochs was killed in this forest in the year 1627. Herberstein describes the colour of the aurochs as black, and this is confirmed by another old picture of the animal. Gesner’s figure of the aurochs, or as he calls it “thur,” given in the Icones to his History of Animals, was probably adapted from Herberstein’s. It may be added that an ancient gold goblet depicts the hunting and taming of the wild aurochs.
As a wild animal, then, the aurochs appears to have ceased to exist in the early part of the 17th century; but as a species it survives, for the majority of the domesticated breeds of European cattle are its descendants, all diminished in point of size, and some departing more widely from the original type than others. Aurochs’ calves were in all probability captured by the early inhabitants of Britain and the continent and tamed; and from these, with perhaps an occasional blending of wild blood, are descended most European breeds of cattle.
Much misconception, however, has prevailed as to which breeds are the nearest to the ancestral wild stock. At one time this position was supposed to be occupied by the white half-wild cattle of Chillingham and other British parks. These white breeds are, however, partial albinos; and such semi-albinos are always the result of domestication and could not have arisen in the wild state. Moreover, park-cattle display evidence of their descent from dark-coloured breeds by the retention of red or black ears and brown or black muzzles. In the Chillingham cattle the ears are generally red, although sometimes black, and the muzzle is brown; while in the breed at Cadzow Chase Lanarkshire, both ears and muzzle are black, and there are usually flecks of black on the head and forequarters. It is further significant that, in the Chillingham herd, dark-coloured calves, which are weeded out, make their appearance from time to time.
A very ancient British breed is the black Pembroke; and when this breed tends to albinism, the ears and muzzle, and more rarely the fetlocks, remain completely black, or very dark grey, although the colour elsewhere is whitish, more or less flecked and blotched with pale grey. In the shape and curvature of the horns, which at first incline outwards and forwards, and then bend somewhat upwards and inwards, this breed of cattle resembles the aurochs and the (by comparison) dwarfed park-breeds. Moreover, in both the Pembroke and the park-breeds the horns are light-coloured with black tips.
Evidence as to the affinity between these breeds is afforded by the fact that a breed of cattle very similar to that at Chillingham was found in Wales in the 10th century; these cattle being white with red ears. Individuals of this race survived till at least 1850 in Pembroke, where they were at one time kept
