refuge in Macedonia, which was also seized by Seleucus. After a few months, Ptolemy Ceraunus, the half-brother of Arsinoë II., assassinated Seleucus; and in order to gain possession of Arsinoë's sons, whom he feared as rivals to his ambition, he offered marriage to his half-sister. She consented to the union and opened the gates of the town in which she had taken refuge, whereupon her suitor caused her sons to be killed before her eyes. Arsinoë fled to Egypt (B.C. 279). Her own brother, Ptolemy Philadelphus, banished his wife, Arsinoë I., to Coptos, and married Arsinoë II., beginning thus the series of sister-marriages which were in accordance with the Egyptian custom and exactly opposed to the Greek tradition. Arsinoë II. had no children by her brother, and adopted the three children of Arsinoë I. Her husband showed great affection for her. He named the capital of the Fayum (the Arsinoite nome) after her, and had a splendid tomb and memorial temple erected to her by the architect Dinochares, who is said to have roofed it with loadstones, so that her iron statue seemed to float in the air. She seems to have assisted Ptolemy in the government. (2) Arsinoë III. was sister and wife of Ptolemy IV., Philopalor, who caused her to be murdered soon after the birth to her of an heir. (3) Arsinoë IV. was daughter of Ptolemy XI., Auletes (B.C. 80-51). She fled from Alexandria when Julius Cæsar was besieged in it (B.C. 48), and was received as queen by the Egyptian troops so long as her brother, Ptolemy XII., Dionysus, remained in the hands of Cæsar. Captured by the Romans, she was led in triumph through Rome; afterwards she was liberated, and returned to Egypt. Her famous sister, Cleopatra VII., persuaded the Triumvir Antony to have her murdered at Ephesus (B.C. 41), although she had taken refuge in the temple of Diana.
AR'SISand THE'SIS. See Beat.
AR'SON (OF. from Lat. ardere, to burn, particip. arsus). In the laws of all civilized countries, a crime of the deepest atrocity. At common law, it consisted in the burning of the house of another, willfully and of malice aforethought, and was a felony, punishable by death. In the long and painful history of the criminal law, it is said to have been the first offense in which the question of the mens rea, or criminal intent, of the act was taken into account. In essence the common law of arson remains substantially unchanged in the United States as well as in England, notwithstanding some statutory modifications and the general mitigation of the penalty incurred by the commission of the crime. Unless it results, directly or indirectly, in the death of some person — in which case it comes under modern definitions of the crime of murder — it is no longer punishable by death, but by imprisonment for periods varying with the degree or atrocity of the offense, sometimes for life. There must be an actual lighting and burning, in order to constitute the crime, and it must be deliberate, and not accidental, or the mere result of carelessness. The premises need not, however, be consumed, an actual blaze, ignition, or charring being enough. Generally speaking, it is not arson to burn one's own house, oven with the intent to defraud an insurer, or to destroy the personal property of another on the premises; though this act, when done with such an illegal intent, was also a crime — usually a misdemeanor — at common law, and is now, in some of the United States, defined as a lower degree of the crime of arson. In New York it is arson, under the penal code, to set fire to any building, even though it be that of the accused, in which there is at the time a human being. For the particular treatment of this crime in this country, the reader is referred to the codes and statutes of the several States. Its early and later history has been fully told in Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law (Boston, 1899), and in Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England (London, 1883); also Stephen, Digest of the Criminal Law (5th ed., London, 1894); Russell, Treatise on Crimes and Misdemeanors (6th ed., London, 1896); and the authorities referred to under Criminal Law.
ARS POET'ICA (The Poetic Art). A discussion of dramatic poetry by Horace, called also Epistle to the Pisos. In it Horace develops the laws of dramatic composition, and adds suggestions and comments from his own experience.
ART (Lat. ars). Broadly speaking, the word art stands for any object produced by the mind and hand of man; that which is not immediately a product of nature; that which is artificial, which is opposed to the natural, in the creation of which human skill has intervened. The shaft of a tree is natural; shaped as a ship's mast, and perhaps further ornamented, it has entered a low grade of art, the material grade, and has become useful. In the present discussion the word art is used in the sense of fine art, as opposed to the useful and industrial arts, and its end, unlike, those, is to give pleasure. The kind of pleasure must, however, be somewhat closely defined, for its range and quality are not without certain limitations. For perhaps greater clearness it may be well to contrast the province of 'fine art' with examples of other pleasure-giving activities of the human mind, and of the lesser industrial arts. The appliances of science, light-producing, heat-producing, sound-transporting agencies, the results of mechanical or industrial arts, contribute to the pleasure, comfort, and sociability of life; but they are the result of applied and scientific principles and of the exact sciences, and for their appreciation do not call for that particular quality of pleasurable mental effort which the contemplation, and knowledge, and enjoyment of pure beauty exacts and affords. There are many pleasures of which our human economy is susceptible, but which may not be ranked among the pleasures of art (see Æsthetics); for the word art under this head is confined more strictly to its expression in painting and sculpture.
Art is perhaps entitled to be deemed the highest factor in civilized life, because it is the most unselfish. Sight is the sense it appeals to chiefly, but it is only that through this sense it may reach the mind; so it is a mistake to think that sculpture and painting end with visual enjoyment merely. There are higher and less high emotions to which art appeals, and it is the perceptible exercise of rare judgment and of taste that stamps a so-called work of art 'fine.' There are pictures existing, and examples even of musical composition, betraying a mind of such puerile character that the fact that they have been produced in obedience to the technical exac-
