of the sacred games. At first the person who instituted the
games and defrayed the expenses was the Agonothetes; but in
the great public games, such as the Olympic and Pythian, these
presidents were the representatives of different states, or
were chosen from the people in whose country the games were
celebrated; thus at the Panathenaic festival at Athens ten
athlothetae were elected for four years to superintend the
various contests. They were variously called aisumnetai,
brabeutai, agonarchai, agonodikai, athlothetai (at Athens),
eabdouchoi or eabdonomoi (from the rod or sceptre emblematic
of their authority), but their functions were generally the same.
AGORA, originally, in primitive times, the assembly of the
Greek people, convoked by the king or one of his nobles. The
right of speech and vote was restricted to the nobles, the
people being permitted to express their opinion only by signs
of applause or disapproval. The word then came to be used
for the place where assemblies were held, and thus from its
convenience as a meeting-place the agora became in most of the
cities of Greece the general resort for public and especially
commercial intercourse, corresponding in general with the Roman
forum. At Athens, with the increase of commerce and political
interest, it was found advisable to call public meetings
at the Pnyx or the temple of Dionysus; but the important
assemblies, such as meetings for ostracism, were held in the
agora. In the best days of Greece the agora was the place
where nearly all public traffic was conducted. It was most
frequented in the forenoon, and then only by men. Slaves
did the greater part of the purchasing, though even the
noblest citizens of Athens did not scruple to buy and sell
there. Citizens were allowed a free market; foreigners
and metics had to pay a toll. Public festivals also were
celebrated in the open area of the agora. At Athens the
agora of classical times was adorned with trees planted by
Cimon; around it numerous public buildings were erected,
such as the council chamber and the law courts (for its
topography, see ATHENS.) Pausanias (especially vi. 24) is
the great architectural authority on the agorae of various
Greek cities, and details are also given by Vitruvius (v. 1).
AGORACRITUS, a Parian and Athenian sculptor of the age of
Phidias, and said to have been his favourite pupil. His
most noted work was the statue at Rhamnus of Nemesis, by some
attributed to Phidias himself. Of this statue part of the
head is in the British Museum; some fragments of the reliefs
which adorned the pedestal are in the museum at Athens.
AGORANOMI, magistrates in the republics of Greece, whose
position and duties were in many respects similar to those
of the aediles of Rome. In Athens there were ten, chosen
annually by lot, five of whom took charge of the city and
five of the Peiraeus. They maintained order in the markets,
settled disputes, examined the quality of the articles
exposed for sale, tested weights and measures, collected
the harbour dues and enforced the shipping regulations.
AGORDAT, a town of Eritrea, N.E. Africa, on the route between
Massawa and Kassala. At Agordat on the 21st of December 1893
the Italian troops under Colonel Arimondi inflicted a severe
defeat on the followers of the khalifa. Agordat is protected
by a strong fort. (See ERITREA and SUDAN, History.)
AGOSTINI, LEONARDO, Italian antiquary of the 17th century, was
born at Siena. After being employed for some time to collect
works of art for the Barberini palace, he was appointed by
Pope Alexander VII. superintendent of antiquities in the Roman
states. He issued a new edition of Paruta's Sicilian
Medals, with engravings of 400 additional specimens; and
in conjunction with Giovanni Bellori (1615-1696) he also
published a work on antique sculptured gems, which was
translated into Latin by Jakob Gronovius (Amsterdam, 1685).
AGOSTINO, or AGOSTINI [AUGUSTINUS], PAOLO (1593-1629),
Italian musician, was born at Valerano, and studied under G. B.
Nanini, as we learn from the dedication in the third and fourth
books of his masses, subsequently becoming the son-in-law of his
master. He succeeded Ugolini as conductor of the pope's orchestra
in St. Peter's. His musical compositions are numerous and of great
merit, an Agnus Dei for eight voices being specially admired.
AGOSTINO and AGNOLO (or ANGELO) DA SIENA, Italian
architects and sculptors in the first half of the 14th
century. Della Valle and other commentators deny that they were
brothers. They certainly studied together under Giovanni
Pisano, and in 1317 were jointly appointed architects
of their native town, for which they designed the Porto
Romana, the church and convent of St Francis, and other
buildings. On the recommendation of the celebrated Giotto,
who styled them the best sculptors of the time, they executed
in 1330 the tomb of Bishop Guido Tarlati in the cathedral of
Arezzo, which Giotto had designed. It was esteemed one of the
finest artistic works of the 14th century, but unfortunately
was destroyed by the French under the duke of Anjou.
AGOULT, MARIE CATHERINE SOPHIE DE FLAVIGNY, COMTESSE D'
(1805-1876), French author, whose nom de plume was ``Daniel
Stern,'' was born at Frankfort-on-Main on the 31st of December
1805. Her father was a French officer who had served in
the army of the emigrant princes, and her mother was the
daughter of a Frankfort banker. She was married in 1827
to the comte Charles d'Agoult. In Paris she gathered
round her a brilliant society which included Alfred de
Vigny, Sainte-Beuve, Ingres, Chopin, Meyerbeer, Heine and
others. She was separated from her husband, and became the
mistress of Franz Liszt. During her frequent travels in
Switzerland, France and Italy she made the acquaintance of
George Sand, and figures in the Lettres d'un voyageur
as'`Arabella.'' By Liszt she had three children--a son who
died young; Blandine, who married M. Emile Ollivier; and
Cosima, who married first Hans von Bulow and later Richard
Wagner. The story of her breach with Liszt is told under a
very slight disguise in her novel Nelida (1845). On her
return to Paris in 1841 she began to write art criticisms for
the Presse, and in 1844 she contributed to the Revue des
deux Mondes articles on Bettina von Arnim and on Heinrich
Heine, but her views were not acceptable to the editor, and
Daniel Stern withdrew to become a contributor to the Revue
independante. Mme. d'Agoult was an ardent apostle of the
ideas of' 48, and from this date her salon, which had
been literary and artistic, took on a more political tone;
revolutionists of various nationalities were welcomed by her,
and she had an especial friendship and sympathy for Daniele
Manin. In 1857 she produced a national drama, Jeanne
Darc, which was translated into Italian and presented with
brilliant success at Turin. The most important section of
Daniel Stern's work is her political and historical essays:
Lettres republicaines (1848), Esquisses morales et
politiques (1849), Histoire de la Revolution de 1848
(3 vols., 1850-1853), Histoire des commencements de la
Republique aux Pays-Bas (1872). Mme. d'Agoult died in Paris
on the 5th of March 1876. Her daughter Claire Christine (b.
1830), who married Guy de Charnace, is known as a writer.
See Mme. d'Agoult, Mes Souvenirs (1806-1833), 1877; A.
Cuvillier Fleury, Portraits revolutionnaires, vol. i.
(1889); J. Mazzini, Lettres de Joseph Mazzini a Daniel
Stern (1872): A. Pommier, Madame la comtesse d'Agoult
(Daniel Stern), 1876; A. Ungherini, ``Daniel Stern'' in the
Revista repubblicana (1880, No. 9); S. Rocheblave, Une
Amitie romanesque, George Sand et Madame d'Agoult (1895).
AGOUTI, or AGUTI, the West Indian name of Dasyprocta
aguti, a terrestrial rodent of the size of a rabbit, common
to Trinidad and Guiana, and classed in the family Caviidae.
Under the same term may be included the other species of
Dasyprocta, of which there are about half a score in tropical
America. Agoutis are slender-limbed rodents, with five front
and three hind toes (the first front toe very minute), and very
short tails. The hair, especially on the hind-quarters, is
coarse and somewhat rough; the colour being generally rufous
brown. The molar teeth have cylindrical crowns, with several
islands and a single lateral fold of enamel when worn. In
habits agoutis are nocturnal, dwelling in forests, where
they conceal themselves during the day in hollow tree-trunks,
or in burrows among roots. Active and graceful in their
movements, their pace is either a kind of trot or a series
of springs following one another so rapidly as to look like a
gallop. They take readily to water, in which they swim well.
Their food comprises leaves, roots, nuts and other fruits.
They do much harm to plantations of sugar-cane and bananas. In
captivity the females produce only one or two young at a birth.
AGRA, an ancient city of India, which gives its name to
a district and division in the United Provinces. It is
famous for containing the most perfect specimens of Mogul
architecture. Agra, like Delhi, owes much of its importance
in both historical and modern times to the Commercial and
strategical advantages of its position. The river Jumna,
which washes the walls of its fort, was the natural highway
for the traffic of the rich delta of Bengal to the heart of
India, and it formed, moreover, from very ancient times, the
frontier defence of the Aryan stock settled in the plain between
the Ganges and the Jumna against their western neighbours,
hereditary freebooters who occupied the highlands of Central
India. No place was better fitted for both an emporium and
a frontier fortress. The river formed an unfordable barrier
and also a useful means of communication. Jehangir tells us
in his autobiography that before his father Akbar built the
present fort, the town was defended by a citadel of great
antiquity. For three hundred years the Afghans and other
tribes came down from the north and founded kingdoms; and
their power radiated from Delhi and Agra. It was Sikandar,
of the house of Lodi (A.D. 1500), the last of the Afghan
dynasties, who realized the strategic importance of Agra as
a point for keeping in check his rebellious vassals to the
south. He removed his court there, and Agra from being ``a mere
village of old standing,'' says a Persian chronicler, became
the capital of a kingdom. In 1526 the city was captured by the
emperor Baber, the famous Koh-i-noor diamond being part of the
loot; and it was here that Baber announced that his invasion
was to be a permanent conquest, and not a mere temporary
inroad. It was Baber's grandson Akbar that built the present
fort, whose strong and lofty walls of red sandstone are a mile
and a,half in circumference. The building was completed in
1665, when Charles II. was on the throne of England and the
plague was devastating London. Another building of much the
same date is the red stone palace generally attributed to Akbar,
but probably of an earlier time, which is the finest example
of pure Hindu architecture; while the Moti Masjid, or Pearl
Mosque, is an equally perfect example of the Mahommedan style.
But the glory of Agra, the most splendidly poetic building in the
world, is the Taj Mahal, the mausoleum built (A.D. 1632) by
Taj Mahal.
the emperor Shah Jahan for the remains of his favourite wife,
Mumtaz Manal, in which he himself also also lies buried. The
building is of white marble throughout, crowned with a great
white dome in the centre, and with a smaller dome at each of
