The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 24

AM'PHITRITE, a daughter of Ocea.n.u.s or Nereus, the wife of Neptune, mother of Triton, and G.o.ddess of the sea.

AMPHIT'RYON, the king of Tiryns, and husband of Alcmene, who became by him the mother of Iphicles, and by Zeus the mother of Hercules.

AMPHITRYON THE TRUE, the real host, the man who provides the feast, as Zeus proved himself to the household to be when he visited Alcmene.

AM'RAN RANGE, p.r.o.nounced the "scientific frontier" of India towards Afghanistan.

AMRIT'SAR (136), a sacred city of the Sikhs in the Punjab, and a great centre of trade, 32 m. E. of Lah.o.r.e; is second to Delhi in Northern India; manufactures cashmere shawls.

AM'RU, a Mohammedan general under the Caliph Omar, conquered Egypt among other military achievements; he is said to have executed the order of the Caliph Omar for burning the library of Alexandria; _d_. 663.

AMSTERDAM (456), the capital of Holland, a great trading city and port at the mouth of the Amsel, on the Zuyder Zee, resting on 90 islands connected by 300 bridges, the houses built on piles of wood driven into the marshy ground; is a largely manufacturing place, as well as an emporium of trade, one special industry being the cutting of diamonds and jewels; birthplace of Spinoza.

AMUR', a large eastward-flowing river, partly in Siberia and partly in China, which, after a course of 3060 m., falls into the Sea of Okhotsk.

AMURNATH, a place of pilgrimage in Cashmere, on account of a cave believed to be the dwelling-place of Siva.

AMYOT, JACQUES, grand-almoner of France and bishop of Auxerre; was of humble birth; was tutor of Charles, who appointed him grand-almoner; he was the translator, among other works, of Plutarch into French, which remains to-day one of the finest monuments of the old literature of France, it was much esteemed by Montaigne (1513-1593).

AMYOT, JOSEPH, a French Jesuit missionary to China, and a learned Orientalist (1713-1794).

ANABAPTISTS, a fanatical sect which arose in Saxony at the time of the Reformation, and though it spread in various parts of Germany, came at length to grief by the excesses of its adherents in Munster. See BAPTISTS.

ANAB'ASIS, an account by Xenophon of the ill-fated expedition of Cyrus the Younger against his brother Artaxerxes, and of the retreat of the 10,000 Greeks under Xenophon who accompanied him, after the battle of Cunaxa in 401 B.C.

ANACHARSIS, a Scythian philosopher of the 6th century B.C., who, in his roamings in quest of wisdom, arrived at Athens, and became the friend and disciple of Solon, but was put to death on his return home by his brother; he stands for a Scythian savant living among a civilised people, as well as for a wise man living among fools.

ANACHARSIS CLOOTZ. See CLOOTZ.

ANACON'DA, a gigantic serpent of tropical America.

ANAC'REON, a celebrated Greek lyric poet, a native of Teos, in Asia Minor; lived chiefly at Samos and Athens; his songs are in praise of love and wine, not many fragments of them are preserved (560-418 B.C.).

ANACREON OF PAINTERS, Francesco Albani; A. OF PERSIA, Hafiz; A. OF THE GUILLOTINE, Barere.

ANADYOM'ENE, Aphrodite, a name meaning "emerging," given to her in allusion to her arising out of the sea; the name of a famous painting of Apelles so representing her.

ANADYR, a river in Siberia, which flows into Behring Sea.

ANAG'NI, a small town 40 m. SE. of Rome, the birthplace of several Popes.

ANAHUAC', a plateau in Central Mexico, 7580 ft. of mean elevation; one of the names of Mexico prior to the conquest of it by the Spaniards.

AN'AKIM, a race of giants that lived in the S. of Palestine, called also sons of Anak.

ANAM'ALAH MOUNTAINS, a range of the W. Ghats in Travancore.

ANAMU'DI, the highest point in the Anamalah Mts., 7000 ft.

ANARCHISM, a projected social revolution, the professed aim of which is that of the emanc.i.p.ation of the individual from the present system of government which makes him the slave of others, and of the training of the individual so as to become a law to himself, and in possession, therefore, of the right to the control of all his vital interests, the project definable as an insane attempt to realise a social system on the basis of absolute individual freedom.

ANASTA'SIUS, the name of four popes: A. I., the most eminent, pope from 398 to 401; A. II., pope from 496 to 498; A. III., pope from 911 to 913; A. IV., pope from 1153 to 1154.

ANASTASIUS, ST., a martyr under Nero; festival, April 15.

ANASTASIUS I., emperor of the East, excommunicated for his severities to the Christians, and the first sovereign to be so treated by the Pope (430-515).

ANATO'LIA, the Greek name for Asia Minor.

ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, a "mosaic" work by Burton, described by Professor Saintsbury as "a wandering of the soul from Dan to Beersheba, through all employments, desires, pleasures, and finding them barren except for study, of which in turn the _taedium_ is not obscurely hinted."

ANAXAG'ORAS, a Greek philosopher of Clazomenae, in Ionia, removed to Athens and took philosophy along with him, i. e. transplanted it there, but being banished thence for impiety to the G.o.ds, settled in Lampsacus, was the first to a.s.sign to the _nous_, conceived of "as a purely immaterial principle, a formative power in the origin and organisation of things"; _d_. 425 B.C.

ANAXAR'CHUS, a Greek philosopher of the school of Democritus and friend of Alexander the Great.