of his foldiers, and the houfings of his horfes, to be adorn¬ 
ed with (liver; and hence commanded them to be called 
argyrafpides. By this author it fhould feem, that Alexan- 
de'r’s whole army were called argyrafpides. 
ARGYRI'TIS,/ [from agyyg©-, filver.] Litharge, or 
the fpume of filver. A kind of earth fo named which is 
taken from (ilver-mines, and is befpangled with many par¬ 
ticles of filver. 
ARGYROCO'ME, f in botany. See Baccharis, 
Gnaphauuh, and Xeranthemum. 
ARGYROD'AMAS,/. [offilver, anda^a;, 
a diamond.] A precious (lone of a filver colour. 
ARGYRODEN'DROS,/ in botany. See Protea. 
ARGYROPOE'IA,/. [from apyv go;,- filver, and woies;, 
to make.] The art of making filver from more imperfect 
metals. 
ARGYRO'PYLUS (Johannes), one of the firft of thofe 
learned perfons, who (led into Italy upon the taking of 
Conftantinople by Mahomet II. in 1453, and contributed 
to the revival of the Greek learning in the wed. Cofmo 
de Medicis, duke of Tufcany, made him profellbr of 
Greek at Florence, and appointed him preceptor to his 
fon Peter, and to his grandlon Laurence. He had feveral 
illuftrious pupils at Florence, to whom he read leisures in 
the Greek language and philofophy ; and among the reft 
Angelus Politianus. In 1456, he went into France, to 
implore the afiiftance of Charles VII. in behalf of Come 
friends and relations, whom he wanted to redeem from 
Turkifh flavery. He continued many years in his profel- 
forftiip at Florence; but, the plague at length obliging 
him to quit it, he went to Rome, where he publicly read 
lectures upon the Greek text of Ariftotle. He was car¬ 
ried oft' by an autumnal fever, which he got by an intem¬ 
perate eating of melons, in the 70th year of his age, and 
about the year 1480. 
ARGYROTROPHE'MA,/. [from white, and 
-rprj(pny.«,, food.] A white cooling food made with milk. 
ARGYRUN'TUM, a maritime town of Illyria. Pliny. 
Now Novigrad, a town of Dalmatia. Lat, 44. 30. Ion. 
17. 30. E. 
ARGYTPIAM'NIA, f. [«gyoc, white, and 
a little ftirub.] In botany, a genus of the monoecia tetran- 
dria clafs, in the natural order of tricoccae. The generic 
characters are— 1 . Male flowers. Calyx : perianthium 
fonr-leaved ; leaflets lanceolate, ere£t. Corolla : petals 
four, lanceolate-ovate, ciliate on the margin, iliorter than 
the calyx ; neCtary, four glands between the petals, round- 
i(h, deprelled. Stamina: filaments four, longer than the 
petals, approximated at the bafe, dilated ; antherae (imple. 
Piftillum : rudiment of a ftyle. II. Female flowers in the 
fame raceme under the male ones. Calyx : perianthium 
five-leaved; leaflets lanceolate. Corolla: none. Piftil¬ 
lum : germ ovate, fomewhat three-cornered ; ftyles three, 
fpreading, half-two-cleft, each of the clefts bifid ; ftigmas 
lacerate. Pericarpium : capfule tricoccous, three-celled, 
fix-valved. Seeds: folitary, roundifli.— EJJential Charac¬ 
ter. Male: calyx four-leaved; corolla four-petalled. 
Female: calyx five-leaved ; ftyles dichotomous; capfule 
tricoccous, with folitary feeds. 
Only one fpecies, Argythamnia candicans. This fiirub 
feldom rifes above five feet in height; and the trunk and 
branches are covered with a whitifh bark. The brandies 
are four or five feet long, fometimes rifing upright, and 
at other times lying along the furface of the earth. The 
twigs have leaves at their ends, Handing round them, about 
an inch and one-third in length, and an inch in breadth ; 
they are oval, ferrate, and of a very dark green colour, 
fomething like germander. Flowers axillary, on very fliort 
peduncles. Calyx five-leaved. Stamens fix, greenifti. 
Seed-veflel tricoccous, green, fmootb, and of a pale pur¬ 
ple colour. The leaves when bruifed are very odoriferous. 
This fiirub is a native of Jamaica, where it is pretty fre¬ 
quent in the lower hills, on a dry gravelly foil. 
ARHU'SEN. SeeAARHUtfs. 
A R I 
A'RI, a town of Italy, in the kingdom of Maples, and 
province of Abruzzo Citra, five miles fouth-eaft of Civita 
di Chieti. 
A'RIA, one of the ancient names of Thrace ; that is, 
martial, from the character of the people, whofe country 
Euripides calls the refidence of Mars, and Sophocles his 
place of nativity. 
Aria, and Ariana, whether the fame or difiinCt coun¬ 
tries, authors are not agreed. Strabo mentions both, and 
gives more extenfive bounds to Ariana than to Aria, with¬ 
out particularly defining them ; only in general he fays, 
that Ariana begins from India, and is bounded by the In¬ 
dus on the eaft; on the fouth by the great fea; by Paro- 
pamifus on the north, and by the mountains, quite to Portae 
Cafpiae; on the weft by the fame boundaries by which 
Parthia is feparated from Media, Carmania from Parseta- 
cene and Periia. Aria has its limits thus deferibed by Pto¬ 
lemy : on the north, fome parts of Margiana and BaCtri- 
ana ; on the eaft, the Paropamifidae; on the fouth, the 
Drangiana; and Strabo fays, the Arii adjoin to the Paro- 
pamifidae on the weft. 
Aria, called Ariapolh ; now Herat, in Chorafan, fet 
down in an ancient map as fituated on the river Arias, 
which probably gave name to the country Aria. Arrian 
calls the river Areios ; Pliny, Aritis; Ainmian , Arias \ now 
Heri, which runs by Alexandria, alfo called Alexandria 
Arion or Ariorum. 
Aria, jft [ Ital. ] In mufic, an air, fong, or tune. , 
Aria-bepou,A ln botany. See Meria. 
Aria Theophrasti. See Crataegus. 
Aria-veela. See Cleonie. 
ARI ADN/E'A,A in Grecian antiquity, two feftivals at 
Naxos, in honour of two women named Ariadne. One of 
them being the daughter of king Minos, they had, in the 
folemnity dedicated to her, a (how of forrow and mourn¬ 
ing ; and, in memory of her being left by Thefeus near 
the time of child-birth, it was ufual for a young man to 
lie down and counterfeit all the agonies of a woman i"n la¬ 
bour. This feftival is faid to be firft inftituted by Thefeus, 
to atone for his ingratitude to that princefs.—The other 
Ariadne was thought to be of a gay and fprightly temper; 
and therefore her feftival was obferved with mufic and 
other expreftiions of mirth and joy. 
ARIAD'NE, daughter of Minos, king of Crete, by 
Pafiphae. She was fo ftruck with the charms of Thefeus, 
who was going to be devoured by the Minotaur, that (lie 
gave him a ball of thread, by which means he got out of 
the labyrinth after he had vanquifhed that monfter. She 
ran away with him, and he married her according to his 
promife ; but he abandoned her, and left her on a rock in 
the ifle of Naxos, where, after bewailing her misfortune 
for fome time, (he became the prieftefs of Bacchus. Ac¬ 
cording to fome writers, Bacchus loved her after Thefeus 
had forfaken her, and gave her a crown with feven ftars, 
which after her death was made a conftellation in heaven. 
ARIA'NA, an extenfive country, comprifing Paropa- 
mifus, Arachofia, Drangiana, and Gedrofia, if we fuppofe 
it to reach to the fea. See Aria. 
ARIAN'NA, a fmall village, fix miles north-eaft from 
the city of Tunis. Here is a beautiful range of the an¬ 
cient Carthaginian aqueduct, feventy-four feet high, fup- 
ported by columns fixteen feet fquare, which (till increafed 
in grandeur the nearer it approached to Carthage. The 
(tones are all diamond-cut. Near this (pot feveral ancient 
mattamones, or fubterraneous magazines for corn, have 
been difeovered within thefe few years, capable of con- 
tainingioobulbels, ftrongly arched with large fquare (tones. 
ARIA'NO, a town of Italy, in the kingdom of Naples, 
in the ulterior principality, with a bifhop’s fee. Mr. 
Swinburne defcribes it as a poor place, built upon the un¬ 
even fummit of a mountain, with an extenfive look-out on 
all Tides, but expofed to every blaft that blows. It is 
without trade or manufactures; having declined ever fince 
the defolation caufed by an earthquake in 1456. Below 
the town is a convent of Dominicans, vvliofe.houfe, with- 
