ASPASIA. 



ASSAROTTI, BATTISTA. 



pretext for disturbing hi* preparation*. Arutobulus wu carried to 

 Rome, and mad* to appear in the triumphal procession which cele- 

 brated, among other victories, the Jewish conquest ; but finding mean* 

 to escape from Rome, he returned to Judau, and excited fresh commo- 

 tion. Qabinius, the Roman general, took him prisoner, and sent him 

 ercood time to Rome, where he died some time after from the effects 

 of poison. 



The government of Hyrcanns was disturbed by continual commo- 

 tions, which he had not the ability to prevent His minister An ti pater, 

 the Idumean, wrested from him all but the name of ruler. Antigonus, 

 the son of Aristobulus, to revenge the death of his father, procured 

 the assistance of the Parthian* and took Hyrcanus prisoner. Hyr- 

 canus was allowed to return to Jerusalem ; but was put to death 

 B.C. 80, at the age of eighty. On the death of Hyrcanus, Antigonus 

 became king ; but three years from the commencement of his reign, 

 he was put to death by the Romans, B.C. 37, to make way for Herod. 

 Herod had ingratiated himself so much with Julius Ctesar, M. Antony, 

 and the Romans in general, that with their assistance be was enabled 

 to supplant the Aamoneans, and to commence a new dynasty, AD. 37. 

 To confirm his authority, he married Mariamne, grand-daughter of 

 Hjrcanus 1 1., and made her brother Aristobulus III. high-priest, reserv- 

 ing to himself the regal power; but finding that Aristobulus retained 

 many partisans, he caused him to be drowned, B.C. 35. 



Mariamne, who was distinguished by her beauty and talents, was 

 murdered by order of Herod on an unfounded suspicion of conspiracy 

 and adultery. Her sons were also put to death on a charge of rebel- 

 lious designs. But the Asmoncean family did not end entirely with 

 their power, for we read in the commencement of the auto-biography 

 of FT. Josepbns, ' By my mother I am of the royal blood ; for the 

 children of Asamonanu, from whom that family was derived, had both 

 the office of the high-priesthood and the dignity of a king for a long time 

 together. I will accordingly set down my progenitors in order." After 

 giving his genealogy, in order to silence some who had, he admits, 

 denied his high descent, at length he says, " I have three sons Hyr- 

 canus, the eldest, was born in the fourth year of the reign of Vespa- 

 sian ; Justin in the seventh, and Agrippa in the ninth." These are the 

 last traces of the Asmontean family. 



In the British Museum there is a number of Asmoncean coins, from 

 which the following drawings are taken : 



Bran. Brltlih Museum. 



(71* Fire Boola of the Maccabttt, witk Koltt and /lltutratiota, by 

 Henry Cotton, D.C.I.., Archdeacon of Cashel, Oxfonl, 1S32. Two of 

 these books belong to the Apocrypha, which are frequently annexed 

 to the Old Testament See Josephus, Anli</., xii. 6 xvL end ; Franc. 

 Peres, Bayer, Dt AKMU ffOneo-Samarilana, Valentiie, 1781, p. 181. 

 folio; Franc. Perez. Bayer, Vindieia ffumontm llebrao-Samarita- 

 norum, 1700, folio; SpmMnii Diitcrtationa de Prcutcmti* et Utu 

 tfumitmatvm, London, 1706, voL L p. 61, Ac.) 



A8PAHI A, a native of Miletus, and the daughter of Axiochns, cele- 

 brated for her connection with Pericles. Of her early life nothing is 

 known. She came to reside in Athens, and there gained the affections 

 of Pericles. Having separated from his first wife with her own 

 consent, he attached himself to Aspasia during the rest of his life ; 

 but marriage with a foreign woman was expressly forbidden by the 

 law of Athens. There can be little doubt that she acquired great 

 ascendancy over Pericles, though the extent and character of it have 

 been much exaggerated. We are told little of her beauty; much of 

 her mental powers and cultivation. Plutarch says that Pericles 

 teemed her " because she was a wise woman, and had great under- 

 standing in matters of government." Her house became a sort of 

 of intellectual society, and it is said, that notwithstanding the 

 in which Athenian matrons generally lived, many of them 

 led their husbands to enjoy her conversation. Socrates 

 i visited her in company with bis friend*. (Xen. 'Mem.' II. 

 vL 36 ; and the ' Menexenus' of Pluto.) The ' Menexenus' is written 

 to introduce a funeral oration ascribed to Aspasia, though the conclu- 



sion of the dialogue seems to intimate that the author >lid not mean 

 that ascription to be implicitly believed. Socrates however, as one of 

 the speakers of the dialogue, gives Aspaaia the high)praise of " having 

 made many good orators, and one eminent over all the Greeks, Pericles, 

 the son of Xauthippus." 



ACIIAC.IA. 



The connection of Pericles with Aspasia was a favourite subject of 

 invective with his enemies. The comic writers especially treated her 

 with great severity. Indeed one of them, Hermippus, prosecuted her 

 on the charge of not believing in the gods, and also of being instru- 

 mental in debauching free women to gratify the lust of Pericles. And 

 Plutarch, who relates the story, adds " that nothing but the personal 

 exertions, the tears, and entreaties of Pericles procured her acquittal" 

 (' Pericles,' c, 24). These stories, however unfavourable alike to 

 Pericles and Aspasia, depend on the authority of late writers, as Plu- 

 tarch and Atheuceus : contemporary writers contain no hint of them, 

 with the exception of the comic writers, whose trade was scandal 

 After the death of Pericles, Aspnsia is said to have transferred her 

 affections to Lysicles, a man of low origin, who however by her 

 instructions, according to Plutarch, became for a time the popular 

 leader in Athens. By Pericles Aspasia had a son, also named Pericles, 

 who was legitimatised by a vote of the people. 



ASSAROTTI, OTTA'VIO GIOVANNI BATTISTA, to whom 

 Italy owes the institution of schools for the deaf and dumb, was born 

 at Genoa on the 25th of October 1753. In 1771 he entered the fra- 

 ternity of the ' Scuole Pie,' a society of regular ecclesiastics devoted 

 to the instruction of the young, to whose care he owed his own instruc- 

 tion. His life was thenceforth spent in duties to which his profession 

 invited him. His talents and learning were appreciated by hii supe- 

 riors. Ho taught successively, in the schools of bis order, at Voghera, 

 Savona, Albenga, and Genoa ; he was appointed by the archbishop of 

 Genoa to be examiner of the clergy in the diocese ; and about the 

 beginning of the present century he lectured on moral and dogmatic 

 theology to the students in the seminary of the ' Scuole Pie,' 



About the year 1801, Father Assarotti's attention was drawn to the 

 labours of the Abbd Sicard in the education of deaf-mutes. For years 

 he laboured almost unaided and alone at the self-imposed task of 

 instructing such poor children of this class as his means allowed him 

 to maintain, and at the same time of instructing himself in the means 

 of imparting information to them. It was not till the 2nd December 

 1812 that Assarotti, with thirty pupils, was enabled to take possession 

 of the college-buildings assigned to them, with an endowment by 

 Napoleon I., in the ex-monastery Delia Misericordia. Ou the fall of 

 the French government, in 1814, the Deaf and Dumb College lost its 

 endowment ; but it retained possession of the buildings which had 

 been allotted to it; and, after a suspension of four mouths, the 

 endowment was restored. Three or four years afterwards the king 

 of Sardinia bestowed on Father Assarottl himself a pension of 800 

 lire, and provided funds for maintaining eighteen deaf mutes gratui- 

 tously in the house. Araarotti's benevolent designs were now placed 

 beyond the risk of failure ; and, although already fallen into premature 

 decrepitude, he continued to devote himself to his philanthropic 

 labours during the remainder of his life. He died at Genoa on the 

 24th of January 1829, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, having 

 bequeathed to his pupils the remnant of his small fortune. 



Atsarotti's Italian biographer enumerates a series of departments 

 of knowledge as having been taught by Assarotti in his later years, 

 which, as he truly observes, it could hardly be believed possible to 

 communicate to the unfortunate pupils. The list embraces the I. -.tin 

 and modern languages, ancient and modern history, geography, algebra, 

 and geometry, the elements of astronomy, metaphysics and logic, ami 

 the principles of religion, with the arts of drawing and engraving. 

 Several of Assarotti's pupils are named as having displayed a consider- 

 able degree of intelligence and knowledge. His scholar Taddci wrote 

 a religious book for his fellow-sufferers; Migliorini became the teacher 

 of a deaf and dumb school in Tuscany ; and Castelli obtained a com- 



