36 A R A 
ground. What determined the king to build a new town, 
and to embellifii the environs, was an accident that hap¬ 
pened at the nuncio’s; a coacli broke through the deling 
of his dining-room, and fell in upon the table. The court 
then began to apply very confiderable Aims to the purpol'e 
of erecting proper dwellings for the great number of per- 
fons that flock to the place where the fovereign refides; 
near 10,000 are Aippoled to live here two or three months 
in the fpring; the king keeps 115 fets of mules, which 
require a legion of men to take care of them. Above a 
million fterling has been laid out at Aranjuez fince the year 
1763; and it mu ft be acknowledged, that wonders have 
been performed : feveral fine ftreets drawn in ftraight lines 
with broad pavements, a double row of trees before the 
lioul'es, and a very noble road in the middle ; commodious 
hotels for the minifters and ambafladors; great fquares, 
markets, churches, a theatre, and an amphitheatre for bull- 
feafts, have been railed from the ground ; belides the ac- 
ceffion of two new wings to the palace. Neatnefs and 
convenience have been more ftudied and fought for than 
fiiow in tlie archite&ure, but all together the place has 
•foniething magnificent in the coup d’ceil. 
AH AFABA'CA, J. in botany. See Spicelia. 
A'RAR, or A'raris, a river of Celtic Gaul, now the 
Saonc- which rifes out of mount Vogefus on the confines 
of Lorraine, runs through the Tranche Compteand Bur¬ 
gundy, and below Lyons falls into the Rhone. It is fo 
incredibly flow, that the eye cannot diftinguifii which way 
it moves; and therefore Pliny calls it the Slug^ijhi River. 
Itscourfe is from north to fouth. It is famous fora bridge 
of Ctefar, which was built by the foldiers in one day. It 
is navigable equally with the Rhone. 
A'RAR AT, the name of the mountain on which Noah’s , 
ark refted, after the abatement of the waters of the uni- 
verfal deluge. Concerning this mountain there are various 
conjectures; though it is almoft univerfally allowed to be 
in Armenia Major. Some are of opinion that it is one of 
tiie mountains which divide Armenia on the fouth from 
Mesopotamia and that part of Affyria inhabited by the 
Curds-, from whom thele mountains took the name of 
Curdu or Cardu, by the Greeks turned into Gordycci, tvc. 
Others, that is lies towards the middle of Armenia, near 
the river Araxes, above 280 miles diftant from the above- 
mentioned mountains, making it belong to mount Taurus ; 
but the Armenians are pofitive that Noah’s Ararat is no 
other than a mountain to which they now give the name 
of Majis, which lies about twelve leagues to the e'aft of 
Envan, and four leagues from the Aras. It is encom- 
palfed by feveral petty hills ; on the tops of them are found 
many ruins, thought to have been the buildings of the 
firft men, who were, for fome time, afraid to defeend into 
the plains. It (lands by itfelf, in form of a fugar-loaf, in 
the midft of a very large plain, detached, as it were, from 
the other mountains of Armenia, which make a long chain. 
It confifts of two hills; the fmaller of which is the more 
Iliarp and pointed; the higher, on which it is faid the ark 
refted, lies to the north-weft of it, and rifes far above the 
neighbouring mountains. It is fo confpicuous, that, when 
the air is clear, it may be feen four or five days journey 
off; yet travellers think the height is not extraordinary. 
Chardin is of opinion that he palled a part of mount Cau- 
cafus which is higher; and Poullet thinks the height of 
mount Mafis, or Ararat, not above twice as great as that 
of mount Valerian near Paris. They therefore think that 
its being vifible at Rich a great diftance is owing to its 
lonely (filiation in a vaft plain, and upon the mod: elevated 
part of the country, without any high ground before it to 
obftruct the view. Nor is the (now with which it is always 
covered from the middle upwards any argument for its 
height; for, in this country, ice hath often been obferved 
in the mornings of the middle of July. On the fide of 
the mountain that looks towards Erivan, is a prodigious 
precipice, from whence rocks of an immenfe (ize are con¬ 
tinually tumbling down with a hideous noife. This pre¬ 
cipice feems quite perpendicular; and the extremities are 
A R A 
rough and black, as if fnuitted with fmoke. The foil of 
the mountain is loofe, and on the fandy parts it is impofli- 
ble to take a firm ftep. Tournefort fays, lie encountered 
great difficulties in his afeent and dejeent of this moun¬ 
tain ; being often obliged, in order to avoid the fand, to 
betake himfelf to places where great rocks were heaped 
on one another, under v\ hich he palled as through caverns, 
or to places full of ftones, where he w as forced to leap 
from one (tone to another. But, if we may believe Struys, 
a Dutch traveller, all tliefe difficulties may be Airmount- 
ed. He aflhres us, lie went five days journey up mount 
Ararat, to lee a Romifli hermit : that he palled through 
three regions of clouds ; the firft dark and thick, the next- 
cold and full of fnow, and the third colder (bill: that lie 
advanced five miles every day ; and, when he came to the 
place where the hermit had his cell, he breathed a very 
ferene and temperate air ; that the hermit told him, lie had 
perceived neither wind nor rain all the twenty-five years he 
had dwelt there ; and that on the top of the mountain 
there (fill reigned a greater tranquillity, whereby the ark 
was preferved uncomipted. He farther pretends, that 
the hermit gave him a crofs made out of the wood of the 
ark, together with a certificate ; a formal copy of which 
the author lias given in his narrative. 
ARAS'SI, a maritime, populous, and trading, town, of 
Italy, in the territory of Genoa. Lat.44.3.N. Ion. 7. 20.E. 
A'RASTH, a maritime town of Fez, on the river Lu- 
car, where it falls into the Atlantic. 
A'RAT, a lake in Afia. See Aral. 
ARATl'CU PON'H E, f in botany. See Annona. 
ARATE'IA,y. in antiquity, a yearly feftival celebra¬ 
ted at Sicyon, on the birth-day of Aratus, wherein divers 
honours were paid by a prieft conlecnitcd to this fervice, 
who for diftiinSlion’s fake wore a ribband befpangled with 
white and purple fpots. 
ARA'TION, J. [ aralio , Lat.] The aft or praftice of 
ploughing. 
A'RATORY, aif;. [fromaro, Lat. to plough.] That 
which contributes to tillage. 
A'RATUS, general of the Ach.-eans, conquered Nio- 
cles tyrant of Sicyon. Two years after, he Airprifed the 
caftle called Acrocorinthus, and drove out the king of Ma¬ 
cedonia: lie delivered Argos from its tyrants, and was 
poifoned by Philip II. king of Macedon, whom he had 
newly reftored : he was about fixty-two when he died, the 
fecond year of the 141ft Olympiad. He was interred at 
Sicyon, and received the greateft honours from his coun¬ 
trymen. 
Aratus, celebrated for his Greek poem intitled <t>aivo- 
jusva, the Phenomena , flouriflied about the 127th Olympiad, 
or near 300 years before Chrift, while Ptolemy Philadel- 
phus reigned in Egypt. Being educated under Dionyfius 
Heracleotes, a ftoic phiiofopher, he efpoufed the princi¬ 
ples of that left, and became phyfician to Antigonus Go- 
liatus, the (bn of Demetrius Poliorcetes, kingof Macedon. 
The Phenomena of Aratus gives him a title to the cha¬ 
racter of an aftronomer, as well as a poet. In this work 
he deferibes the nature and motion of the (tars, and (hews 
their various difpofitions and relations; he deferibes the 
figures of the conftellations, their (filiations in the fphere, 
the origin of the names which they bear in Greece and in 
Egypt, the fables which have given rife to them, the ri¬ 
ling and letting of the ftars, and he indicates the manner 
of knowing the conftellations by their refpeftive (filiations. 
The poem of Aratus was commented upon and tranflated 
by many authors: of whom among the ancients were Ci¬ 
cero, Germanicus, Ctefar, and Feftus Avienus, who made 
Latin tranflations of it; a part of the former of which is 
ft ill extant. Aratus muft have been much efteemed by 
the ancients, fince we find fo great a number of fcholiafts 
and commentators upon him : among whom are Ariftar- 
chus of Samos, the Aryftylli the geometricians, Apollo¬ 
nius, the Kvacneti, Crates, Numenius the grammarian, 
Pyrrhus of Magnefia, Thales, Zeno, and many others, 
as may be feen in Voftius, p. j56. Suidas aferibes feveral 
3 other* 
