particularly used to designate one of these temples in Athens where poets and men of letters were accustomed to meet and read their productions. At Rome, the Athenæum was a celebrated institution of learning, founded by Hadrian about A.D. 135. The building was in the form of a theatre, in which poets and rhetoricians read their productions, delivered lectures, and held recitations. Salaried pro- fessonial chairs were attached to the Athenæum. which thus became a species of university. In this form it survived until the Fifth Century. Similar institutions, bearing the same name, were established in Lyons, Marseilles, and other provincial centres. In modern times, the term has become a very general designation for liter- arv or scientific clubs and societies, or for the building in which they meet, and has been the title of a number of important literary jour- nals, notably of one in Paris and of one in London. The term is also applied in Belgium and Holland to schools of a grade below the universities. The best-known club is that founded in London in 1824. Its members are exclusively artists, their patrons, and men of title. They occupy rooms at 107 Pall Mall.
ATH'ENÆ'US (Gk, ' Ad-ftvaio^, Athenaios) .
A Greek writer who nourished in the latter half
of the Second and the early Third Century A.D.,
born at Naucratis, in Egypt. He lived first at
Alexandria and afterwards in Rome; but we
possess no further details of his life. His great
work was the Deipnosophistæ (The Dinner of
the Learned), in fifteen books, of which the
first two and parts of the third, eleventh, and
fifteenth, have come down to us only in abridged
form. After the model of Plato's Symposium,
Athenæus relates to his friend Timocrates the
table talk at a dinner given by one Larensius, to
which twenty-nine guests were invited. Among
them were jurists, poets, grammarians, phi-
losophers, orators, physicians, and musicians.
The work, as a matter of fact, consisted of
extracts from an enormous number of books
which are introduced into the imaginary con-
versation. Almost every possible subject is dis-
cussed, but the author is especially fond of
scandal and of cookery. The work has not a
single gleam of genius, the dialogue is prolix
and lumbering; but as a storehouse of miscel-
laneous information the book is invaluable.
The date of composition is after A.D. 192, for
the Emperor Commodus, who was murdered in
that year, is ridiculed in it; according to Kaibel,
after 228. The best edition is by Kaibel (1887-
90); also edited by Schweighäuser (1801-07);
Dindorf (1827); Meineke (1858-67); translated
in Bohn's Classical Library (1854).
ATH'ENAG'ORAS (Gk. 'Ae-nmy6pa$). An
early Christian philosopher, who taught first at
Athens and afterwards at Alexandria. He is
one of the oldest of the apologetical writers, and
is favorably known by his Legatio pro Chris-
tianis, which he addressed to the Emperor Mar-
cus Aurelius, in the year A.D. 177. He therein
defended the Christians against the monstrous
accusations of the heathens — viz., that they were
guilty of atheism, incest, and cannibalism. His
work is written in a philosophical spirit, and
is marked by great clearness and cogency of
style. We likewise possess a valuable treatise
of his on the resurrection of the dead. See the
English translation in Ante-Nicene Christian Library, II., 129-162 (New York, 1867).
ATH'ENA'IS. See Eudocia.
ATHENE, a-the'ne. See Minerva.
ATHENE, Temple of. (1) A famous Doric temple at Ægina, of which 22 columns remain. The sculptures of the pediment, representing a contest of Trojans and Greeks, are among the Æginetan Marbles at Munich. (2) An old temple at Athens, situated between the Parthenon and the Erechtheum, the foundations of which were identified in 1885 by Dörpfeld, who has based on them a reconstruction of the temple. (3) An archaic Doric temple dating from the Sixth Century B.C., at Syracuse, now a cathedral. (4) See Parthenon.
ATHENE NI'KE, Temple of. See Nike Apteros.
ATHENE PAR'THENOS (Gk. ' M-I,vqvap.
Oivos, Athene, the Virgin). A small, inferior
copy of the great chryselephantine statue of
Athene. It is in the possession of the National
Museum at, Athens. The original was the work
of Phidias for the Parthenon.
ATHEN'ODO'RUS (Gk. ' kBr,Mwpos, Atheno-
doros). (1) A Rhodian sculptor of the First
Century B.C., who, with two others, produced the famous "Laocoön." (See Laocoön; Greek Art.) (2) Surnamed Cananites, from Cana, in Cilicia. A Stoic philosopher, the instructor of Augustus when a boy at Apollonia; he came afterwards to Rome, where the Emperor favored him highly, and made him tutor of the young Tiberius. His influence was great at court, and he was very free-spoken. He is said to have advised Augustus to repeat the alphabet whenever he felt himself giving way to anger. In his old age Athenodorus returned to his native town. Tarsus, where he died.
ATH'ENS {Gk.'Aeijmi, Athenai,
usually derived from the name of the goddess Athene). The capital of the kingdom of Greece and of the nome of Attica; situated in latitude 37° 59' N., and longitude 23° 41' E., on the southwest coast of Attica, less than 3 miles from the Saronic Gulf at the nearest point, and about 4½ miles from the harbor of Piræus, in the plain bounded on the northwest and north by Mount Parnes, on the northwest by Mount Pentelicon, on the east by Mount Hymettus, on the south by the sea, and on the west by Mount Ægaleos (Map: Greece, E 4). It is 350 feet above sea-level and has a moderate climate, the mean temperature ranging from 46° F. in January to 81° in July. The cluster of houses at the foot of the Acropolis on the site of ancient Athens forms the inner city, with narrow, crooked streets; and outside of this the Neapolis, or new city, extends in a semicircular arc, which is regularly laid out and divided into six districts. It is connected with the older portion by Hermes and Æolus streets, the main business thoroughfares, which intersect at Constitution Square, the site of the royal palace and gardens. In the modern section the Square of Harmony (Place de la Concorde) forms a centre from which wide boulevards radiate in various directions, the most important of which are Piræus Street, Athens Street, Stadion Street, and University Street, the last two ending in Constitution Square. On the two avenues last mentioned stand the Government offices and the buildings of the archæological colleges, of the
