401 



APELLEANS. 



APHRODITE. 



402 



the origin and derivation, of the term itself, are matters on which the 

 historical antiquaries of France seem not to be agreed. (See Pasquier's 

 ' Recherches,' lib. ii. cap. 18, lib. viii. cap. 20 ; Calvini, ' Lex Jurid., 

 Appanagium ; ' Ducange, 'Gloss., Apanamentum ; ' Pothier's 'Traite 

 des Fiefs;' and Renault's ' Hist, de France,' Anno 1283.) 

 I By a law of 22nd November, 1790, it was enacted, that in future no 

 appanage real should be granted by the crown, but that the younger 

 branches of the royal family of France should be educated and pro- 

 vided for out of the civil list until they married or attained the age of 

 twenty-five year?; and that then a certain income called rentes apana- 

 yerei was to be granted to them, the amount of which was to be ascer- 

 tained by the legislature for the time being. 



" It is evident," says Mr. Hallam, " that this usage, as it produced a 

 new class of powerful feudatories, was hostile to the interests and 

 policy of the sovereign, and retarded the subjugation of the ancient 

 aristocracy. But an usage coeval with the monarchy was not to be 

 abrogated, and the scarcity of money rendered it impossible to provide 

 for the younger branches of the royal family by any other means. . . . 

 By means of their apanages and through the operation of the Salic 

 law, which made their inheritance of the crown a less remote contin- 

 gency, the princes of the blood-royal in France were at all times (for 

 the remark is applicable long after Louis XI.) a distinct and formidable 

 class of men, whose influence was always disadvantageous to the reign- 

 ing monarch, and, in general, to the people." (' Middle Ages,' vol. i. p. 121, 

 2nd edit.) 



APELLEANS, or APELLITES, a sect of heretics so called from 

 their founder Apelles, who lived about the middle of the second 

 century, and had been originally a disciple of Marcion. The belief of 

 the Apelleaus appears to have been a variation of that of the Mar- 

 cionites ; and both took their rise from the Gnostics. They are said to 

 have, as well as the Marcionites, held the Manichxan dogma of the 

 good and evil principles ; but what principally marked them was then- 

 doctrine upon the subject of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. They 

 said that his body was neither real, as cfommonly supposed, nor only 

 apparent or shadowy, as Marcion taught; that it was formed not of 

 flesh and blood, but of air, and that, as it had been received in his 

 descent to the earth, so it was cast off and dissolved again into air in 

 his ascent to heaven. Besides thus denying that Christ took his 

 body with him to heaven, they also denied the general doctrine of the 

 resurrection of the body. They are accused moreover of denying the 

 authority of the Old Testament. Apelles and his heresies are 

 mentioned by Augustine, Epiphanius, Tertullian, and Eusebius. 

 [HERr.sY.l 



APHE LION, from the Greek Airi, from, and JjAiot, the tun, means 

 that point of a planet's orbit which is farthest from the sun. Its 

 opposite point is the PERIHELION, from ircpl, near to, and 5)\ioi, Me tun, 

 which is the nearest point to the sun. 



Let 8 represent tlir .;im, SAB the earth's orbit, or plane of the 

 ecliptic, and s A a parallel to the line in which the earth's equator cuts 

 the ecliptic, from which line all heliocentric longitudes (that is, 

 measured round the sun) are measured in the direction of the earth's 

 motion, represented by the arrow. Let c D E be a part of the orbit of 

 a planet, 8 E the longest line which can be drawn through s, then E is 

 the aphelion of the planet. If a plane s E o be drawn perpendicular to 

 the ecliptic, the angle A s o is the heliocentric longitude of the aphe- 

 lion E. 



The supposition of the planets moving in elliptic orbits round the 

 sun is not true, unless the ellipses themselves be supposed slowly to 

 change their positions and figures. In all the planets, except Venus, 

 a very little more than a complete revolution must be made between 

 two aphelia ; in Venus, on the contrary, a little less. This inequality 

 in represented by saying, that the aphelia of all the planets, except 

 Venus, slowly increase in longitude, while the aphelion of Venus 

 decreases. The apparent motions of the aphelia are greater than the 

 real, since the line s A moves slowly backwards. [PRECESSION.] The 

 apparent annual motion of the aphelia is the annual precession of the 

 equinoxes, together with the real annual motion, except in the ease of 

 Venus, in which the apparent motion is the precession of the equinoxes 

 i tlied by the real motion. The apparent motion of the aphelion 

 of Venus is like that of all the others, in the direction of the earth's 

 motion, for though the aphelion of Venus moves backwards, the line 

 8 A does the same at a greater rate. 



A'PHORISM ( A^opw^ii), literally" a limitation," or "a fixing of 

 limits," and hence used by the Greek writers to express a short 

 sentence, containing a moral precept, or a rule of practice, briefly and 

 forcibly exprMMd. The term has been adopted in medicine ; for 

 instance, both Hippocrates and Boerhaave have written books entitled 

 ' Aphorisms,' containing medical maxims, not treated argumentatively, 



ARTS AND SCI. BIV. VOL. I. 



but laid down as certain truths. For example, " Neither repletion 

 nor hunger, nor anything which exceeds natural limits, is good." The 

 word is similarly used in the civil law. We give the following as 

 specimens of moral aphorisms. 



" It is always safe to learn from our enemies ; seldom safe to 

 instruct, even our friends." Lacan. " He will easily discern how 

 little of truth there is in the multitude ; and though they are some- 

 times flattered with that aphorism, will hardly believe the voice 

 of the people to be the voice of God." Brown's ' Vulgar Errors,' 

 book i. 3. 



Sayings of this description are well adapted to make an impression 

 on the memory; but they tend to substitute authority instead of 

 judgment as the motive of action, and may therefore be as well 

 applied to maintain prejudices as to assert truths ; to impose con- 

 ventional and needless restraints, as to furnish safe rules of conduct to 

 the inexperienced. It is with reference to this that Milton uses the 

 word. " There is no art that hath been more cankered in her prin- 

 ciples, more soiled and slubbered with aphorisminy pedantry, than the 

 art of policy." 



APHRODI'TE, the goddess of love and beauty. According to 

 Homer, she was the daughter of Zeus and Dione, one of the Nereides, 

 or ocean nymphs : a Liter legend, told by Hesiod (Theog. 188), relates 

 that. she sprung from the foam of the sea, produced when Kronos 

 threw into it the amputated members of his father Uranos. There 

 was a celebrated picture of her rising from the sea (ovaSixyieVi;), 

 esteemed the master-piece of Apelles. She first came to land at the 

 island of Cythera, and thence proceeded to Cyprus. These islands 

 were her favourite places of resort, and many of her epithets are 

 derived from them (Cytherea, Cypris, Paphia, &c.). She was regarded 

 as the most beautiful of the female deities. To her, according to a 

 legend which has been at all times a favourite with artists, for the 

 opportunities it affords of representing varied types of female loveli- 

 ness, the prize of beauty was awarded by Paris. Aphrodite was 

 assigned in marriage to Hephaestus (Vulcan) the god of metallurgy, 

 and there is a well-known tale of her detection in an amour with Ares 

 (Mars) (' Odyss.' viii. 266). Hermes and Poseidon (Mercury and 

 Neptune) were also among her favoured suitors, Her amours, how- 

 ever, were not confined to the gods. For her adventures with Adonis, 

 see that article in the BIOGRAPHICAL DIVISION, vol. i. col. 42 : she also 

 bore yEnea to Anchises, a youth of- the blood royal of Troy, as is 

 largely related in the Hymn to Aphrodite, ascribed to Homer. In the 

 Trojan war she was ranged with Apollo and Ares on the side of the 

 Trojans, and in attempting to protect her son ^Eneas, was wounded by 

 Diomed. According to the fictions of the ' ^Eneid,' she continued to 

 extend her maternal care over JEneas, and brought about his establish- 

 ment in Italy, and through him the Julian family derived their descent 

 from her. To the Italians she is known by the name of Venus ; a 

 goddess, probably, of indigenous origin, but so confounded in the 

 fictions of poets and mythologers with the Greek Aphrodite, that her 

 original attributes have nearly disappeared. 



It is supposed that the worship of Aphrodite was introduced into 

 Greece from Syria, and that she is identical with the Phoenician goddess 

 Astarte. It is certain that she was from the earliest times regarded 

 as the goddess of natural fertility the great goddess of nature, the 

 mother of all living beings. In the ancient temples of Cyprus she 

 was adored under the form of a conical stone. When a human 

 form was adopted, the Grecian artists represented her as a consum- 

 mately beautiful woman ; but she was not represented undraped in 

 the earlier and more devotional periods of Hellenic art. Usually 

 she was represented enthroned and surrounded with the emblems of 

 fertility ; either fully clothed or with one breast uncovered. This 

 last was the characteristic manner throughout the Phidian era. Up 

 to this time Aphrodite was regarded as the protectress of virtuous 

 love. The age of Praxiteles, a period in Greek art corresponding to 

 the sensuous epoch of the Medici in Italian art, initiated a more 

 voluptuous conception. Aphrodite was associated with sexual passion 

 the goddess of love and beauty. The religious feeling having died 

 out among the cultivated classes, artists saw in Aphrodite only a 

 vehicle for the representation of the most perfect beauty in the 

 female form. The goddess was now usually represented wholly un- 

 draped, or with a robe drawn round the lower part of the body. A 

 very common mode was to represent her either about to enter or 

 leave the bath, the position being such as to represent feminine 

 modesty or shame. It was upon these representations of the uu- 

 draped Aphrodite that the greatest of the Greek sculptors and j>aintern 

 exerted their very highest skill. Such was the famous Cnidian Venus 

 of Praxiteles. It is related that the great sculptor having been 

 commissioned by the inhabitants of Cos to make them a statue of 

 Aphrodite, executed two ; one draped according to the prescribed 

 form, the other nude. The latter was infinitely the more beautiful ; 

 but they chose the former, as more consistent with their notion of 

 their deity. The naked statue was, however, eagerly purchased by 

 the inhabitants of Cnidus, who built for its reception a temple open 

 on all sides; and so great became its renown, that strangers flocked 

 to the island from all parts of Greece to see it. Nicomedes, King of 

 Bithynia, is said to have offered to release the Cnidiaus from thi; 

 entire public debt of their city in exchange for their statue, but they 

 refused his offer. What was the ultimate fate of this famous statue 



i) o 



