al
heads, which make the foundation of a coral wall, and seem by their
massive character and regular form especially adapted to give a strong,
solid base to the whole structure, are known in our classification as
the _Astraeans_, so named on account of the little [star-shaped] pits
crowded upon their surface, each one of which marks the place of a
single more or less isolated individual in such a community.

Selections used by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company,
Publishers.

AGATHIAS

(536-581)

Agathas tells us, in his 'Prooemium,' that he was born at Myrina, Asia
Minor, that his father's name was Memnonius, and his own profession the
law of the Romans and practice in courts of justice. He was born about
A.D. 536, and was educated at Alexandria. In Constantinople he studied
and practiced his profession, and won his surname of "Scholasticus," a
title then given to a lawyer. He died, it is believed, at the age of
forty-four or forty-five. He was a Christian, as he testifies in his
epigrams. In the sketch of his life prefixed to his works, Niebuhr
collates the friendships he himself mentions, with his fellow-poet
Paulus Silentiarius, with Theodorus the decemvir, and Macedonius the
ex-consul. To these men he dedicated some of his writings.

Of his works, he says in his 'Prooemium' that he wrote in his youth the
'Daphniaca,' a volume of short poems in hexameters, set off with
love-tales. His 'Anthology,' or 'Cyclus,' was a collection of poems of
early writers, and also compositions of his friend Paulus Silentiarius
and others of his time. A number of his epigrams, preserved because they
were written before or after his publication of the 'Cyclus,' have come
down to us and are contained in the 'Anthologia Graeca.' His principal
work is his 'Historia,' which is an account of the conquest of Italy by
Narses, of the first war between the Greeks and Franks, of the great
earthquakes and plagues, of the war between the Greeks and Persians, and
the deeds of Belisarius in his contest with the Huns,--of all that was
happening in the world Agathias knew between 553 and 558 A.D., while he
was a young man. He tells, for instance, of the rebuilding of the great
Church of St. Sophia by Justinian, and he adds:--"If any one who happens
to live in some place remote from the city wishes to get a clear notion
of every part, as though he were there, let him read what Paulus
[Silentiarius] has composed in hexameter verse."