The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 29

ANTHE'MIUS, the architect of the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople; _d_. 534.

ANTHON, CHARLES, a well-known American cla.s.sical scholar and editor of the Cla.s.sics (1797-1867).

ANTHRAX, a disease, especially in cattle, due to the invasion of a living organism which, under certain conditions, breeds rapidly; called also splenic fever.

ANTHROPOID APES, a cla.s.s of apes, including the gorilla, chimpanzee, orang-outang, and gibbon, without tails, with semi-erect figures and long arms.

ANTHROPOLOGY, the science of man as he exists or has existed under different physical and social conditions.

ANTHROPOMORPHISM, the ascription of human attributes to the unseen author of things.

ANTI'BES (5) a seaport and place of ancient date on a peninsula in the S. of France, near Cannes and opposite Nice.

ANTICHRIST, a name given in the New Testament to various incarnations of opposition to Christ in usurpation of His authority, but is by St. John defined to involve that form of opposition which denies the doctrine of the Incarnation, or that Christ has come in the flesh.

ANTICOSTI, a barren rocky island in the estuary of St Lawrence, frequented by fishermen, and with hardly a permanent inhabitant.

ANTIG'ONE', the daughter of Oedipus, king of Thebes, led about her father when he was blind and in exile, returned to Thebes on his death; was condemned to be buried alive for covering her brother's exposed body with earth in defiance of the prohibition of Creon, who had usurped the throne; Creon's son, out of love for her, killed himself on the spot where she was buried. She has been immortalised in one of the grandest tragedies of Sophocles.

ANTIGONE, THE MODERN, the d.u.c.h.ess of Angouleme, daughter of Louis XV. See THE PARTING SCENE IN CARLYLE'S "FRENCH REVOLUTION."

ANTIG'ONUS, surnamed the Cyclops or One-eyed, one of the generals of Alexander the Great, made himself master of all Asia Minor, excited the jealousy of his rivals; was defeated and slain at Ipsus, in Phrygia, 301 B.C.

ANTIGONUS, the last king of the Jews of the Asmonean dynasty; put to death in 77 B.C.

ANTIGONUS GONATAS, king of Macedonia, grandson of the preceding; twice deprived of his kingdom, but recovered it; attempted to prevent the formation of the Achaean League (275-240 B.C.).

ANTIGUA, one of the Leeward Islands, the seat of the government; the most productive of them belongs to Britain.

ANTILLES, an archipelago curving round from N. America to S.

America, and embracing the Caribbean Sea; the GREATER A., on the N.

of the sea, being Cuba, Hayti, Jamaica, and Porto Rico; and the LESSER A., on the E., forming the Leeward Islands, the Windward Islands, and the Venezuelan Islands--the Leeward as far as Dominica, the Windward as far as Trinidad, and the Venezuelan along the coast of S. America.

ANTIMONY, a brittle white metal, of value both in the arts and medicine.

ANTINOMIANISM, the doctrine that the law is superseded in some sense or other by the all-sufficing, all-emanc.i.p.ating free spirit of Christ.

ANTINOMY, in the transcendental philosophy the contradiction which arises when we carry the categories of the understanding above experience and apply them to the sphere of that which transcends it.

ANTIN'OUS, a Bithynian youth of extraordinary beauty, a slave of the Emperor Hadrian; became a great favourite of his and accompanied him on all his journeys. He was drowned in the Nile, and the grief of the emperor knew no bounds; he enrolled him among the G.o.ds, erected a temple and founded a city in his honour, while artists vied with each other in immortalising his beauty.

AN'TIOCH (23), an ancient capital of Syria, on the Orontes, called the Queen of the East, lying on the high-road between the E. and the W., and accordingly a busy centre of trade; once a city of great splendour and extent, and famous in the early history of the Church as the seat of several ecclesiastical councils and the birthplace of Chrysostom. There was an Antioch in Pisidia, afterwards called Caesarea.

ANTI'OCHUS, name of three Syrian kings of the dynasty of the Seleucidae: A. I., SOTER, i. e. Saviour, son of one of Alexander's generals, fell heir of all Syria; king from 281 to 261 B.C. A. II., THEOS, i. e. G.o.d, being such to the Milesians in slaying the tyrant Timarchus; king from 261 to 246. A. III., the Great, extended and consolidated the empire, gave harbour to Hannibal, declared war against Rome, was defeated at Thermopylae and by Scipio at Magnesia, killed in attempting to pillage the temple at Elymas; king from 223 to 187. A.

IV., EPIPHANES, i. e. Ill.u.s.trious, failed against Egypt, tyrannised over the Jews, provoked the Maccabaean revolt, and died delirious; king from 175 to 104. A. V., EUPATOR, king from 164 to 162.

ANTI'OPE, queen of the Amazons and mother of Hippolytus. _The Sleep of Antiope_, _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Correggio in the Louvre.

ANTIP'AROS (2), one of the Cyclades, W. of Paros, with a stalact.i.te cavern.

ANTIP'ATER, a Macedonian general, governed Macedonia with great ability during the absence of Alexander, defeated the confederate Greek states at Cranon, reigned supreme on the death of Perdiccas (397-317 B.C.).

ANTIPH'ILUS, a Greek painter, contemporary and rival of Apelles.

AN'TIPHON, an Athenian orator and politician, preceptor of Thucydides, who speaks of him in terms of honour, was the first to formulate rules of oratory (479-411 B.C.).

ANTIPOPE, a pope elected by a civil power in opposition to one elected by the cardinals, or one self-elected and usurped; there were some 26 of such, first and last.

ANTIPYRETICS, medicines to reduce the temperature in fever, of which the chief are quinine and salicylate of soda.

ANTIPYRIN, a febrifuge prepared from coal-tar, and used as a subst.i.tute for quinine.

ANTISA'NA, a volcano of the N. Andes, in Ecuador, 19,200 ft. high; also a village on its flanks, 13,000 ft. high, the highest village in the world.

ANTISE'MITES, a party in Russia and the E. of Germany opposed to the Jews on account of the undue influence they exercise in national affairs to the alleged detriment of the natives.

ANTISEPTICS, substances used, particularly in surgery, to prevent or arrest putrefaction.