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Arfrrhoa, Here, at midnight, the trembling votaries of the Si- 

 Averrots. j>yl vvere SU pp 0SCt l to cc lebrate her dismal orgies : 

 ' costly sacrifices were offered to propitiate the favour 

 of the infernal deities, and the secrets of futurity were 

 drawn from the maddening tongue of the prophetess. 

 This place continued to be the favourite haunt of su- 

 perstition till the time of Augustus, who violated its 

 sanctity, dissipated its poisonous exhalations, and dis- 

 pelled the impenetrable darkness which enshrouded it. 

 He cut down the surrounding wood, and connecting 

 it with the Lucrine lake and the sea, he formed the 

 Julian harbour, in which he exercised his fleet, during 

 the winter, before he led it against Scxtus Pompey. 

 ( Suet. Aug. 16. ) From the present appearance of the 

 lake, some have been inclined to suspect the ancients 

 of exaggeration in their account of its malignant qua- 

 lities. Spallanzani affirms, that neither the lake nor 

 its environs afford any indication of noxious exhala- 

 tions ; while Mr Swinburne, on the contrary, thinks 

 them entitled to more credit ; and observes, that even 

 now the air is feverish and dangerous, as the jaundiced 

 faces of the vine-dressers who live in the neighbour- 

 hood most ruefully testify ; and Boccacio relates, 

 that, during his residence at the Neapolitan court, 

 the surface of this lake was suddenly covered with 

 dead fish, black and singed, as if killed by some sub- 

 aqueous eruption of fire. The once poisonous Aver- 

 nus, however, now presents a beautiful sheet of wa- 

 ter, clear and serene, and abounds with fish and 

 water-fowl. 



Averni are very common in Hungary, on account 

 of its numerous mines. In Italy, the Grotto del Cani 

 >s remarkable for its poisonous steams ; and the val- 

 ley of Soltafara, between the lakes Agnano and Puz- 

 zeli, derives its name from the vast quantities of sul- 

 phur which are continually forced out of its clefts 

 by subterraneous fires. See Spallanzani's Travels, 

 vol. i. p. 128, &c. Swinburne's Travels, vol. iii. 

 p. 51. &c. ( p) 



AVERR.HOA, a genus of plants of the class 

 Decandria, and order Pentagynia. See Botany. (w>) 



AVERROES, (named by his countrymen Abual- 

 Walid Mohammed, Ebn Achmed, Ebn Mohammed, 

 Ebn Roshd,) the most admired of the Arabian phi- 

 losophers, was born about the middle of the 12th 

 century, at Cordova, a city of Andalusia, then the 

 capital of the Moorish dominions in Spain. His fa- 

 ther was the chief magistrate and supreme judge of 

 the province, and also possessed the highest ecclesias- 

 tical authority. At an early period of life, A verroes 

 devoted, himself, with the greatest eagerness, to the 

 study of mathematics, physic, law, and theology, and 

 above all, to the philosophy of Aristotle, on whose 

 writings, though unacquainted with the Greek lan- 

 guage, he commented so successfully, that he not on- 

 ly was surnamed Commentator, xar ttfix^i but, in the 

 estimation of many of his contemporaries, deserved a 

 pre-eminence of praise superior to that of the Stagirite 

 himself. For several ages, the scholastic disputants, 

 of every possible variety of opinion, regarded his au- 

 thority as oracular ; but though he was in all cases ap- 

 pealed to with confidence by the contending parties, 

 it does not appear that his Sibylline pages ever had 

 the effect of terminating their contests, or ever contri- 

 buted to soften the asperity with which their literary 



hostilities were conducted. He had acquired the Averroej. 

 talent of expressing himself with such ambidextrous 

 felicity, that whenever his words had the appearance 

 of being intelligible, it required little ingenuity to de- 

 rive from them a profusion of argument* in support 

 of cither side of the question. To this artifice, the 

 most judicious writers have ascribed his unparalleled 

 reputation. 



By the suffrages of his fellow-citizens, he was rais- 

 ed to the dignified offices which had been held by his 

 father and grandfather, in the provinces of Andalusia 

 and Valencia. So great at this time was his reputa- 

 tion, that he was chosen, by the caliph Jacob Al- 

 Mansor, to fill a similar station in Morocco, and, in 

 the mean while, he was permitted to nominate a de- 

 puty at Cordova ; to which place he returned, afttr 

 having appointed subordinate judges and magistrates, 

 throughout the kingdom of Mauritania. 



After being thus loaded with honours and distinc- 

 tion, he was destined to experience a most humiliat- 

 ing reverse of fortune. Having been persuaded to 

 give lectures in philosophy to a number of young 

 men, he incautiously advajiced a variety of opinions, 

 which could not easily be reconciled with the doc- 

 trines of the prophet. He was publicly accused of 

 heresy, and condemned by the caliph to the severe 

 punishment of degradation from his offices, confisca- 

 tion of his whole property, and the infamy of residing, 

 in the suburbs of the city, among Jews and outcasts 

 from the faith. After having for some time submit- 

 ted with exemplary meekness to the multiplied indig- 

 nities which were heaped on him by vulgar fanatics, 

 whose bigotry was inflamed by the malice of his pri- 

 vate enemies, he succeeded in effecting his escape to 

 Fez ; but there he was soon detected and committed 

 to prison. For his temerity and presumption in at- 

 tempting to escape from his ignominious doom, the 

 judges and divines, commissioned by the king to deli- 

 berate on his case, sentenced him to a most mortifying 

 penance, which was inflicted on him with unmitigated 

 rigour. At the time of public prayers,.the prisoner 

 was conducted to the gate of the mosque, where, in 

 the most submissive posture, with his head uncovered, 

 he was exposed to the grossest insults from the mean- 

 est of the people, every one of whom had the privi- 

 lege of testifying his abhorrence by spitting on the 

 heretic's face. He then professed his contrition for 

 his offences, and publicly recanted his errors. For 

 some time afterwards he resided at Fez, and gave lec- 

 tures on jurisprudence. He was then permitted to 

 return to his native city, where he lived in a state of 

 the lowest indigence, till a singular and unexpected 

 occurrence restored him to his former honours. The 

 person who had been promoted to the office which 

 he had held in Morocco, became obnoxious to the 

 people. They could not fail to compare the oppres- 

 sion under which they groaned, with the liberal con- 

 duct of Averrbes. Reflecting on the equity and cle- 

 mency of his administration, they were convinced that 

 a more discerning and a more upright magistrate 

 could never be expected j and under the influence of 

 this conviction, they concurred in soliciting the ca- 

 liph to reinstate the man who had long been the vic- 

 tim of persecution, and who at that moment was living 

 in the most abject state of disgrace and wretchedness. 



