is twenty-five and for the senate forty years. In Germany,
majority is reached at twenty-one, the nubile age is twenty
for males and sixteen for females, subject to the consent of
parents. Without the consent of parents, the age is
twenty-five for males and twenty-four for females. The
age qualification for the Reichstag is twenty-five. In
Austria the age of majority is twenty-four, and the nubile
age fourteen for either sex, subject to the consent of the
parents. In Denmark, qualified majority is reached at eighteen
and full majority at twenty-five. The nubile age is twenty
for males and sixteen for females. In Spain, majority is
reached at twenty-three; the nubile age is eighteen for males
and sixteen for females. In Greece the age of majority is
twenty-one, and the nubile age sixteen for males and fourteen
for females. In Holland the age of majority is twenty-one,
and the nubile age eighteen for males and sixteen for
females. In Italy, majority is reached at twenty-one; the
nubile age is eighteen for males and fifteen for females. In
Switzerland the age of majority is twenty, and the nubile age
is eighteen for males and sixteen for females. In the United
States the age qualification for a president is thirty-five,
for a senator thirty and for a representative twenty-five.
AGELADAS, or (as the name is spelt in an inscription)
HAGELAIDAS, a great Argive sculptor, who flourished in the
latter part of the 6th and the early part of the 5th century
B.C. He was specially noted for his statues of Olympic victors
(of 520, 516, 508 B.C.); also for a statue at Messene of
Zeus, copied on the coins of that city. Ageladas was said to
have been the teacher of Myron, Phidias and Polyclitus; this
tradition is a testimony to his wide fame, though historically
doubtful. We have no work of Ageladas surviving; but we have
an inscription which contains the name of his son Argeiadas.
AGEN, a city of south-western France, capital of the
department of Lot-et-Garonne, 84 m. S.E. of Bordeaux by the
Southern railway between Bordeaux and Toulouse. Pop. (1906)
18,640. It is skirted on the west by the Garonne itself, and
on the north by its lateral canal. The river is crossed by
a stone bridge, by a suspension bridge for foot-passengers,
and by a fine canal bridge, carrying the lateral canal.
Pleasant promenades stretch for some distance along the right
bank. The town is a medley of old narrow streets contrasting
with the wide modern boulevards which cross it at intervals.
The chief building in Agen is the cathedral of St Caprais,
the most interesting portion of which is the apse of the
12th century with its three apse-chapels; the transept dates
from the 12th and 13th centuries, the nave from the 14th to
the 16th centuries; the tower flanking the south facade is
modern. The interior is decorated with modern paintings and
frescoes. There are several other churches, among them the
church of the Jacobins, a brick building of the 13th century,
and the church of St Hilaire of the 16th century, which has
a modern tower. In the prefecture, a building of the 18th
century, once the bishop's palace, is a collection of historical
portraits. The hotel de ville occupies the former Hotel du
Presidial, an obsolete tribunal, and contains the municipal
library. Two houses of the 16th century, the Hotel d'Estrades
and the Hotel de Vaurs, are used as the museum, which has
a rich collection of fossils, prehistoric and Roman remains,
and other antiquities and curiosities. The poet Jacques
Jasmin was a native of the town, which has erected a statue to
him. Through its excellent water communication it affords
an outlet for the agricultural produce of the district,
and forms an entrepot of trade between Bordeaux and
Toulouse. Agen is the seat of a bishop. It is the seat of
a court of appeal and a court of assizes, and has tribunals
of first instance and of commerce and a chamber of commerce.
There are also ecclesiastical seminaries, lycees for boys and
girls, training-colleges, a school of commerce and industry,
and a branch of the Bank of France. Agen is the market for
a rich agricultural region. The chief articles of commerce
are fattened poultry, prunes (pruneaux d'Agen) and other
fruit, cork, wine, vegetables and cattle. Manufactures
include flour, dried plums, pate de foie gras and other
delicacies, hardware, manures, brooms, drugs, woven goods tiles.
Agen (Aginnum) was the capital Of the Celtic tribe of the
Nitiobroges, and the discovery of extensive ruins attests
its importance under the Romans. In later times it was the
capital of the Agenais. Its bishopric was founded in the 4th
century. Agen changed hands more than once in the course of the
Albigensian wars, and at their close a tribunal of inquisition
was established in the town and inflicted cruel persecution on the
heretics. During the religious wars of the 16th century Agen took
the part of the Catholics and openly joined the League in 1589.
See Labenazie, Histoire de la ville d'Agen et pays
d'Agenois, ed. by A.-G. de Dampierre (1888); A. Ducom, La
Commune d'Agen: essai sur son histoire et son organisation
depuis son origine jusqu'au traite de Bretigny (1892).
AGENAIS, or AGENOIS, a former province of France. In
ancient Gaul it was the country of the Nitiobroges with Aginnum
for its capital, and in the 4th century it was the Civitas
Agennensium which was a part of Aquitania Secunda and
which formed the diocese of Agen. Having in general shared the
fortunes of Aquitaine during the Merovingian and Carolingian
periods, Agenais next became an hereditary countship in the part
of the country now called Gascony (Vasconia.) In 1038 this
countship was purchased by the dukes of Aquitaine and counts of
Poitiers. The marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine with Henry
Plantagenet in 1152 brought it under the sway of England; but
when Richard Coeur-de-Lion married his sister Joan to Raymund
VI., count of Toulouse, in 1196, Agenais formed part of the
princess's dowry; and with the other estates of the last
independent count of Toulouse it lapsed to the crown of France in
1271. This, however, was not for long; the king of France
had to recognize the prior rights of the king of England to
the possession of the countship, and restored it to him in
1279. During the wars between the English and the French
in the 14th and 15th centuries, Agenais was frequently taken
and retaken, the final retreat of the English in 1453 at
last leaving the king of France in peaceable possession.
Thenceforth Agenais was no more than an administrative
term. At the end of the ancien regime it formed part
of the ``Gouvernement'' of Guienne, and at the Revolution
it was incorporated in the department of Lot-et-Garonne, of
which it constitutes nearly the whole. The title of count
of Agenais, which the kings of England had allowed to fall
into desuetude, was revived by the kings of France, and
in 1789 was held by the family of the dukes of Richelieu.
There is no good history of Agenais; that published by Jules
Andrieu in 1893 (Histoire de l'Agenais, 2 vols.) being quite
inadequate. The Bibliographie generale de l'Agenais, by the
same author (1886-1891, 3 vols.), may be found useful. (C. B.n)
AGENT (from Lat. agere, to act), a name applied generally
to, any person who acts for another. It has probably been
adopted from France, as its function in modern civil law was
otherwise expressed in Roman jurisprudence. Ducange (s.v.
Agentes) tells us that in the later Roman empire the officers
who collected the grain in the provinces for the troops and
the household, and afterwards extended their functions so
as to include those of government postmasters or spies, came
to be called agentes in rebus, their earlier name having
been frumentarii. In law an agent is a person authorized,
expressedly or impliedly, to act for another, who is thence
called the principal, and who is, in consequence of, and to
the extent of, the authority delegated by him, bound by the
acts of his agent. (See PRINCIPAL AND AGENT; FACTOR, &c.)
In Scotland the procurators or solicitors who act in the preparation of
cases in the various law-courts are called agents. (See SOLICITOR.)
In France the agents de change were formerly the class
generally licensed for conducting all negotiations, as
they were termed, whether in commerce or the money market.
The term has, however, become practically limited to those
who conduct transactions in public stock. The laws and
regulations as to courtiers, or those whose functions were
more distinctly confined to transactions in merchandise, have
been mixed up with those applicable to agents de change.
Down to the year 1572 both functions were free; but at that
period, partly for financial reasons, a system of licensing
was adopted at the suggestion of the chancellor, l'Hopital.
Among the other revolutionary measures of the year 1791, the
professions of agent and courtier were again opened to the
public. Many of the financial convulsions of the ensuing years,
which were due to more serious causes, were attributed to this
indiscriminate removal of restrictions, and they were reimposed in
1801. From that period regulations have been made from time
to time as to the qualifications of agents, the security to be
found by them and the like. They are now regarded as public
officers, appointed, with certain privileges and duties,
by the government to act as intermediaries in negotiating
transfers of public funds and commercial stocks and for dealing
in metallic currency. (See STOCK EXCHANGE: France.)
In diplomacy the term ``agent'' was originally applied to all
``diplomatic agents,'' including ambassadors. With the evolution
of the diplomatic hierarchy, however, the term gradually sank
until it was technically applied only to the lowest class of
``diplomatic agents,'' without a representative character and
of a status and character so dubious that, by the regulation
of the congress of Vienna, they were wholly excluded from
the immunities of the diplomatic service. (See DIPLOMACY.)
AGENT-GENERAL, the term given to a representative in England
of one of the self-governing British colonies. Agents-general
may be said to hold a position mid-way between agents of
provinces and ambassadors of foreign countries. They are
appointed, and their expenses and salaries provided, by the
governments of the colonies they represent, viz. Cape of
Good Hope, Natal, the Transvaal, New South Wales, Queensland,
South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, New
Zealand and Canada (whose representatives are termed high
commissioners). Their duties are to look after the political
and economic interests of their colonies in London, to
assist in all financial and commercial matters in which their
colonies may be concerned, such as shipping arrangements and
rates of freight, cable communications and rates, tenders for
public works, &c., and to make known the products of their
colonies. Those colonies which are not under responsible
government are represented in London by crown agents.
AGESANDER, a Rhodian sculptor, whose title to fame is
that he is mentioned by Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 37) as
author (with Polydorus and Athenodorus) of the group of the
Laocoon. Inscriptions recently found at Lindus in Rhodes
date Agesander and Athenodorus to the period 42-21 B.C. The
date of the Laocoon seems thus finally settled, after long
controversy. It represents the culmination of a sentimental
or pathetic tendency in art, which is prominent in the
