AEGINA 



71 



AEOLIAN HARP 



Delos, Rhodes, Patmos, Samos, Lesbos and 

 Lemnos, all of them famous in legend and his- 

 tory. . It was of these islands of the Aegean 

 that Byron wrote 



The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece, 

 Where burning Sappho loved and sung ! 



* 



Eternal summer gilds them yet, 

 But all except their sun is set. 



^ 



AEGINA, eji' na, or EGINA, a Greek island 

 in the Gulf of Egina, for the most part moun- 

 tainous and barren, but producing in its level 

 western portion the best almonds which are 

 grown in Greece. It is about eight miles long 

 and the same in breadth, has a steep, deeply- 

 indented coast, and affords but one harbor. 

 The inhabitants are engaged in trade, seafar- 

 ing and agriculture. The chief crops in addi- 

 tion to almonds are olives and grain. Aegina 

 was celebrated in ancient times for its beauti- 

 ful buildings. Population, about 8,200. 



AEGIS, c' jis, the shield fashioned by Vul- 

 can which Jupiter was thought to shake when 

 it thundered, and which Minerva carried as a 

 sign of her authority whenever intrusted with 

 a mission by her father. It is frequently men- 

 (1 in the Odyssey and the Iliad and is 

 described in legends as having the head of the 

 Gorgon for its center. See MYTHOLOGY, and the 

 I <* on each of the gods named. 



AENEAS, ene' as, one of the most famous 



heroes of ancient legend, a Trojan warrior who 



was second only to Hector in the part he 



played in the Trojan War (which see). He 



was the son of Venus and of Anchises, and was 



chosen to lead a band of followers to a new 



land in Italy, and there to found a new nation. 



story of his wanderings after the fall of 



v is told in Vergil's Aeneid. See AENEID; 



TROY. 



AENEID, ene' id, one of the world's great 

 epics, written by the Roman poet, Vergil. It 



is divided into twelve books, and relates the 

 wanderings and adventures of the Trojan hero 

 Aeneas. Though Vergil used the Greek epics 

 the Odyssey and the Iliad as his models, his 

 purpose in composing this, his masterpiece, 

 was the glorification of Rome and of the line 

 of Julius Caesar. His desire to revive interest 

 in the ancient mythology caused him to intro- 

 duce gods and goddesses, and these he pictured 

 as taking an active interest in the affairs of 

 mortals. All the misfortune that comes to 

 Aeneas is due to the relentless hatred of Juno, 

 while Venus, mother of the hero, labors to 

 thwart the scheme of the queen of heaven. 



The story, briefly told, is as follows: In the 

 sixth year of his wanderings after the fall of 

 Troy (see TROY), Aeneas, accompanied by his 

 friend Achates, is sailing from Sicily to Italy. 

 In the course of a teiyible storm, brought about 

 by Juno, he is shipwrecked upon the African 

 coast. There he receives aid from Dido, queen 

 of Carthage, and to her he relates the story 

 of the fall of Troy, the destruction of the city 

 by fire, his escape to Mount Ida, and his peril- 

 ous wanderings until he reached Sicily, where 

 his father, Anchises, died. Under the influence 

 of Venus, Dido falls in love with Aeneas, and 

 to him offers her hand in marriage. But the 

 gods have other plans for the hero, and Mer- 

 cury is sent by Jupiter to command him to 

 continue his journey. As he sails away from 

 Carthage he looks back at the flames from 

 the funeral pyre of the heart-broken queen, 

 who has committed suicide. When Aeneas 

 finally comes to Italy he visits the Sibyl of 

 Cumae, who leads him to the lower regions. 

 There he sees his father, and learns from him 

 that he is to be the founder of a glorious race 

 the race from which Augustus, ruler of Rome 

 at the time the poem was written, was said to 

 have descended. 



After he arrives in Latium, his destination, 

 Aeneas enters into a treaty with Latinus, a 

 neighboring king, and is promised the hand of 

 the latter's daughter, Lavinia. Though Juno 

 strives to break the treaty, and brings on a 

 war with other rulers, the Trojans are finally 

 victorious. For a discussion of the literary 

 <>i th. poem, see VERGIL. 



AEOLIAN, co' ft an, HARP, a stringed in- 

 strument which . is played upon by the wind 

 (see AEOLUS). It generally consists of a box 

 of thin, fibrous wood, to which are attached 

 from eight to fifteen fine catgut strings or wires, 



Mrrtrhr.l on low bndps :it < :i< h Hid, anI 



tuned in unison. It is placed in a window or 



