C.).

AESCULA`PIUS, a son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis, whom, for
restoring Hippolytus to life, Zeus, at the prayer of Pluto, destroyed
with a thunderbolt, but afterwards admitted among the gods as god of
medicine and the healing art; the cock, the emblem of vigilance, and the
serpent, of prudence, were sacred to him.

AESON, the father of Jason, was restored to youth by Medea.

AE`SOP, a celebrated Greek fabulist of the 6th century B.C., of
whose history little is known except that he was originally a slave,
manumitted by Iadmon of Samos, and put to death by the Delphians,
probably for some witticism at their expense.

AESO`PUS, a celebrated Roman actor, a friend of Pompey and Cicero.

AESTHETICS, the science of the beautiful in nature and the fine arts.

AE`TIUS, a Roman general, who withstood the aggressions of the
Barbarians for twenty years, and defeated Attila at Chalons, 451;
assassinated out of jealousy by the Emperor Valentinian III., 454.

AETO`LIA, a country of ancient Greece N. of the Gulf of Corinth.

AFFRE, archbishop of Paris, suffered death on the barricades, as,
with a green bough in his hand, he bore a message of peace to the
insurgents (1793-1848).

AFGHAN`ISTAN` (5,000), a country in the centre of Asia, between
India on the east and Persia on the west, its length about 600 m. and its
breadth about 500 m., a plateau of immense mountain masses, and high,
almost inaccessible, valleys, occupying 278,000 sq. m., with extremes of
climate, and a mixed turbulent population, majority Afghans. The country,
though long a bone of contention between England and Russia, is now
wholly under the sphere of British influence.

AF`GHANS, THE, a fine and noble but hot-tempered race of the
Mohammedan faith inhabiting Afghanistan. The Afghans proper are called
PATHANS in India, and call themselves Beni Israel (sons of Israel),
tracing their descent from King Saul.

AFRA`NIUS, a Latin comic poet who flourished 100 B.C.; also a Roman
Consul who played a prominent part in the rivalry between Caesar and
Pompey, 60 B.C.

AFRICA, one of the five great divisions of the globe, three times
larger than Europe, seven-tenths of it within the torrid zone, and
containing over 200,000,000 inhabitants of more or less dark-skinned
races. It was long a _terra incognita_, but it is now being explored in
all directions, and attempts are everywhere made to bring it within the
circuit of civilisation. I