ANT 
to the water all its power and colour. The water, when 
taken oft the fire, is to be poured into the barrel, contain¬ 
ing the other half; where it is to be ftirred for a fhort 
time with a (tick; this ftirring muft be repeated every 
day, until the mixture becomes fetid in the higheft degree. 
When w<* with to make life of this water, we need only 
fprinkle it, or pour it, upon the plants, or plunge their 
branches into it. Ants, caterpillars, beetles, bed-bugs, 
aphides , and many other infeits, are killed by a fingle in- 
jedticn of this water. Infects which live under ground, 
thofe which have a hard fhell, hornets, wafps, See. re¬ 
quire to be gently and continually injected, till the water 
has penetrated to the bottom of their abode. Ant-hills, 
particularly, require two, four, fix, or eight, quarts of wa 
ter, according to the fize and extent of the ant-hill, 
which fhould not be difiurbed till twenty-four hours after 
the operation. If the ants which happen to be abfent 
fhould affemble, and form another hill, it muft be treat¬ 
ed in the way before mentioned. We may advanta- 
geoufly add to the mixture two ounces of nux vomica, 
which fhould be boiled with the fulphur; the water, by 
this means, will acquire more power, particularly if ufed 
for deftroying ants. When all the water has been made 
life of, the fediment fhould be thrown into a hole dug in 
the ground, left the poultry, or other domeftic animals, 
fhould eat it. 
An’t, a contraction for and it, or rather, and if it ; as, 
a'nt pleafe you ; that is, and if it pleafc you. 
AN'TA, in the ancient architecture, a fquare pilafter, 
placed at the corners of buildings. 
Anta, of Ante , a fmall kingdom on the gold-coaft of 
Africa, extending about ten leagues in length. The foil is 
exceedingly rich, and the face of the country beautiful. 
The air is alfo much more falubrious than in moft other 
places of the gold-coaft; it being obferved by all writers, 
that the number of deaths here bears no proportion to 
that on any other part of the coafts of Guinea. This coun¬ 
try contains the following villages, which defervea parti¬ 
cular defeription on account of the commerce they carry 
on; viz. Bourtrey, Tokorari, Sukoada, and Sama. For¬ 
merly Anta was potent and populous, inhabited by a bold 
and rapacious people, who greatly annoyed the Europe¬ 
ans by their frequent incurfions; but, by continual wars 
with their neighbours, they are now greatly enfeebled, and 
the country is in a manner depopulated. 
ANT-fiE'US, in fabulous hiftory, a giant of Libya, foil of 
Neptune and Terra. Deligning to build a temple to his 
father, of men’s fculls, he flew all he met; but Hercules 
fighting him, and perceiving the afliltance he received 
from his mother (for by a touch of the earth he refrefhed 
himfelf when weary), he lifted him up from the ground, 
and fqueezed him to death. 
Antzeus, was king of Mauritinia ; and from fevcral 
circumftances, with which we are fupplied by various au¬ 
thors, it appears extremely probable that he was the fame 
perfon with Atlas: they were both of them the foils of 
Neptune, who reigned over Mauritania, Numidia, and a 
great part of Libya. They both ruled with abfolute power 
over a great part of Africa, particularly Tingitania. Her¬ 
cules defeated and flew Antaeus in the fame war wherein 
he took the Libyan world from Atlas: both Atlas and 
Antaeus invaded Egypt, and contended with Hercules in 
the wars with the gods, and were both vanquilhed by him. 
Antaeus, as well as Atlas, was famed for his knowledge in 
the celeftial fciences : from whence we may fairly conclude 
them to have been the fame king of Mauritania. Antaeus, 
in his wars with Hercules, who commanded an army 
of Egyptians and Ethiopians, behaved with great bravery 
and refolution. Receiving large reinforcements of Libyan 
troops, he cut off vaft numbers of Hercules’s men: but 
that celebrated commander, having at laft intercepted a 
ftrong body of Mauritanian or Libyan forces fent to the 
relief of Antteus, gave him a .total overthrow, wherein 
both he and the beft part of his forces were put to the 
fword. This deciiive action put Hercules in poiTeflion of 
3 
ANT 747 
Libya and Mauritania, and confeqtiently of all the riches in 
thofe kingdoms ; lienee arofe the fable, that Hercules find¬ 
ing Antaeus, a giant of an enormous fize, with whom he 
was engaged in fingle combat, to receive frefh ftrength as 
often as he touched his mother earth when thrown upon 
her, at laft lifted him up in the air and fqueezed him to 
death. Hence likewife may be deduced the fable, intima¬ 
ting, that Hercules took Atlas’s globe upon his own fhotil- 
ders, overcame the dragon that guarded the orchards of 
the Hefperides, and made himfelf mafter of all the golden 
fruit. The golden apples, fo frequently mentioned by the 
old mythologifts, were the treafures that fell into Hercu¬ 
les’s hands upon Antaeus’s defeat, the Greeks giving the 
Oriental word bso riches, the (ignification affixed to their 
own term, apples. After the moft diligent and im¬ 
partial examination of all the different hypothefes of hifto- 
riansand chronologers, relating to Atlas and Antaeus, we 
find none fo little clogged with difficulties as that of Sir 
Ifaac Newton. According to that illuftrious author, Am¬ 
mon, the father of Sefac, was the firft king of Libya, or 
that vaft trafif extending front the borders of Egypt to the 
Atlantic Ocean; the conqueft of which country was effect¬ 
ed by Sefac in his father’s life-time. Neptune afterwards 
excited the Libyans to a rebellion againft Sefac; flew him ; 
and then invaded Egypt under the command of Atlas or 
AntEeus, the fon of Neptune, Sefac’s brother and admiral. 
Not long after, Hercules, the general of Thebais and Ethi¬ 
opia for the gods or great men of Egypt, reduced a fecond 
time the whole continent of Libya, having overthrown and 
flain Antaeus near a town in Thebais, from that event 
called Arrtaea or Antreopolis: this is the notion advanced 
by Sir Ifaac Newton, who endeavours to prove, that the 
firft reduction of Libya by Sefac happened a little above a 
tboufand years before the birth of Chrift, as the laft by 
Hercules did fome few' years after. 
AN'T AGOGE, in rhetoric, a figure by which, when the 
accufation of the adverfary is unanlwerable, we load hint 
with the fame or other crimes. 
ANTA'GONlST,yi \_antagonife, Fr. antagonijla, Lat. of 
avTCiyctivifriq, of ti, againft, and to ftrive, Gr. ) 
One who contends with another; an opponent. It implies 
generally a perfonal and particular oppotition.-—It is not 
fit tiiat the hiftory ofa perfon fhould appear till the preju¬ 
dice both of his antagomjls and adherents be foftened and 
fubdued. Addifun —Contrary.—The fhort club contifts of 
thofe who are under five feet; ours is to be compofed of 
fuch as are above fix. Thefe w'e look upon as the two ex¬ 
tremes and antagonifs of the fpecies ; conlidering all thefe 
as neuters, who fill up the middle fpace. Addifon. 
Antagonist muscles, in anatomy, thofe which 
have oppofite functions ; as flexors and extenfors, abduc¬ 
tors and addutors, Sec. 
To ANTA'GONIZE, v.n. [from «m and xyun^co.J 
To contend againft another. 
ANTAL'GIC, adj. [from asm,. againft, and oO-.y'&y 
pain.) That which alfuages pain ; anodyne. 
ANT AN ACLA'SlS,yi [Lat. from ai/lanaiAairic, from 
ctflocvomXav, Gr. to drive back.) A figure in rhetoric, 
when the fame word is repeated in a different, if not in a 
contrary, fignification; as, In thy youth learn fomec raft, that 
in old age thou may eft gel thy living without, craft. Craft, in the 
firft place, fignifies lcience or occupation; in the lecoud, 
deceit or fubtilty. It is alfo a returning to the matter at 
the end of a long parenthefis; as, Shall that heart (which 
does not only feel them, but bath all motion of ins life placed in 
them), ftiall that heart, 1 fay. Si c. 
ANTANISOPHYL'LUM, f . in botany. See Boer- 
h a a via. 
ANTAN'DROS, a city and port of Troas, where 
EEncas built his fleet after the definition of Troy. There 
is a hill in its neighbourhood called Alexandria, where 
Paris fat, as fome fuppofe, when the three rival godueftes 
appeared before him contending for the prize of beauty, 
it takes its name from Antandros, a general of the Eoli- 
ans. It is now called S. Dimitri. 
ANTAPHRODI'TIC. 
