under which Ptolemy includes the whole interior of Africa S. of the Equator; which he regards as belonging to Aethiopia (i. 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, iv. 8, vii. 6).[ P. S. ]
A'GORA (Άγορά), a town situated about the middle of the narrow neck of the Thracian Chersonesus, and not far from Cardia. Xerxes, when invading Greece, passed through it. (Herod, vii. 58; Scylax, p. 28; Steph. B. s. v.) [ L. S. ]
AGRA (Άγρα, Άγραβίας, Ptol. vi. 7. § 5; Steph. B. s. vv.Ίάθριππα, Έγρα), a small district of Arabia Felix, situated at the foot of Mount Hippus, on the eastern coast of the Red Sea, in lat 29 ½ N. (Akra), Iathrippa or Lathrippa scans to have been its principal town. [ W. B. D. ]
AGRAEI (Άγραίοί, Thuc. iii. 106; Strab. p. 449: Άγραείς, Pol. xvii. 5; Steph. Byz. s. v.), a people in the NW. of Aetolia, bounded on the W. by Acarnania, from which it was separated by
Mount Thyamus (Spartovuni) on the NW. by the territory of Argos Amphilochicum; and on the N. by Dolopia. Their territory was called Agrais, or Agraea (Άγραίς, -ίδος, Thuc. iii. 111; Άγραία Strab. p. 338), and the river Achelous flowed through the centre of it. The Agraei were a non-Hellenic people, and at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war were governed by a native king, called Salynthius, who is mentioned as an ally of the Ambraciots, when the latter were defeated by the Acarnanians and Demosthenes in B.C. 426. Two years afterwards (424) Demosthenes marched against Salynthius and the Agraei, and compelled them to join the Athenian alliance. Subsequently they became subject to the Aetolians, and are called an Aetolian people by Strabo. (Thuc. 11. 102, iii. 106, 114, iv. 77; Strab. p. 449; Pol. xvii. 5; Liv. xxxii. 34.) This people is mentioned by Cicero (in Pison, 37), under the name of Agrinae, which is perhaps a corrupt form. Strabo (p. 338) mentions a village called Ephyra in their country; and Agrinium would also appear from its name to have been one of their towns. [Ephyra; Agrinium.] The Aperanti were perhaps a tribe of the Agraei.[Aperantia.] The Agraei were a different people from the Agrianes, who lived on the borders of Macedonia. [Agrianes.]
AGRAEI (Άγραίοι, Ptol. v. 19. § 2; Eratosth. ap. Strab. p. 767), a tribe of Arabs situated near the main road which led from the head of the Red Sea to the Euphrates. They bordered on the Nabathaean Arabs, if they were not indeed a portion of that race. According to Hieronymus (Quaest. in Gen. 25), the Agraei inhabited the district which the Hebrews designated as Midian. Pliny (v. 11. s. 12) places the Agraei much further westward in the vicinity of the Laenitae and the eastern shore of the Red Sea. [ W. B. D. ]
AGRI DECUMA'TES or DECUMA'NI (from decuma, tithe), tithe lands, a name given by the Romans to the country E. of the Rhine and N. of the Danube, which they took possession of on the withdrawal of the Germans to the E., and which they gave to the immigrating Gauls and subject Germans, and subsequently to their own veterans, on the payment of a tenth of the produce. Towards the end of the first or the beginning of the second century after Christ, the country became part of the adjoining Roman province of Rhaetia, and was thus incorporated with the empire. (Tacit. Germ. 29.) Its boundary
AGRIGENTUM.
towards the free part of Germany was protected partly by a wall (from Ratisbon to Lorch), and partly by a mound (from Lorch to the Rhine, in the neighbourhood of Cologne) and Roman garrisons. The protection of those districts against the ever renewed attacks of the Germans required a considerable military force, and this gave rise to a number of towns and military roads, of which many traces still exist. But still the Romans were unable to maintain themselves, and the part which was lost first seems to have been the country about the river Maine and Mount Taunus. The southern portion was probably lost soon after the death of the emperor Probus (A.D. 283), when the Alemanni took possession of it. The latest of the Roman inscriptions found in that country belongs to the reign of Gallienus (A.D. 260 — 268). (Comp. Leichtlen, Schwaben unter den Römern, Freiburg, 1825, 8vo.) The towns in the Decumates Agri were Ambiatinus vicus, Alisum, Divitia, Gesonia, Victoria, Biberna, Aquae Mattiacae, Munimentum Trajani, Artaunum, Triburium, Bragodurum or Bragodunum, Budoris, Carithni, and others. Comp. Rhaetia. [ L. S. ]
AGRIA'NES (Άγριάνης: Ergina), a small river in Thrace, and one of the tributaries of the Hebrus. (Herod, iv. 89.) It flows from Mount Hieron in a NW. direction, till it joins the Hebrus. Some have supposed it to be the same as the Erigon, which, however, is impossible, the latter being a tributary of the Axius. [ L. S. ]
AGRIA'NES (Άγριάνες), a Paeonian people, dwelling near the sources of the Strymon. They formed excellent light-armed troops, and are frequently mentioned in the campaigns of Alexander the Great. (Strab. p. 331; Herod, v. 16; Thuc. ii. 96; Arrian, Anab. L 1. § 11, i. 5. § 1, et alib.)
AGRIGENTUM (Άκράγας: Eth. and Adj.Άκραγαντίνος, Agrigentinus: Girgenti), one of the most powerful and celebrated of the Greek cities in Sicily, was situated on the SW. coast of the island, about midway between Selinus and Gela. It stood on a hill between two and three miles from the sea, the foot of which was washed on the E. and S. by a river named the Acragas, from whence the city itself derived its appellation, on the W. and SW. by another stream named the Hypsas, which unites its waters with those of the Acragas just below the city, and about a mile from its mouth. The former is now called the Fiume di S. Biagio, the latter the Drago, while their united stream is commonly known as the Fiume di Girgenti (Polyb. ix. 27; Siefert, Akragas u. sein Gebiet, p. 20—22).
We learn fix>m Thucydides that Agrigentum was founded by a colony from Gela, 108 years after the establishment of the parent city, or B.C. 582. The leaders of the colony were Aristonous and Pystilus, and it received the Dorian institutions of the mother country, including the sacred rites and observances which had been derived by Gela itself from Rhodes. On this account it is sometimes called a Rhodian colony. (Thuc. vi. 4; Scymn. Ch. 292; Strab. vi. p. 272, where Kramer justly reads Γελώων for Ίώνων Polyb. ix. 27. Concerning the date of its foundation see Schol. ad Pind. Ol. ii. 66; and Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. p. 265.) We have very little information concerning its early history, but it appears to have very rapidly risen to great prosperity and power:
The form Acragas or Agragas in Latin is found only in the Roman poets. (Virg. Aen. iii 703; Sil. Ital. xiv. 210.)
