A. N T A N T 139 apothecary ; but Buisero, one of the lords of the admir alty at Amsterdam, defrayed his college expenses, and enabled him to take the degree of doctor of physic. He practised with success^ and established his poetic fame by his Y-stroom, an epic on the river Y. He died on the 18th of September 1G64. His writings are remark able for their warmth of fancy and vigour of expression, which sometimes degenerate into extravagance and bom bast. His complete works were printed at Amsterdam in 1714, 4to, with a sketch of his life. ANTONIXI ITINERARIUM, a valuable register, still extant, of the stations and distances along the various roads of the Roman empire, seemingly based on official documents, which were probably those of the survey organ ised by Julius Caesar, and carried out under Augustus. The work has plainly undergone various revisions down to the end of the 3d century. What connection any of the Antonines may have had with it is unknown. The whole Itinerary was printed by H. Stephens at Paris, 1512, and by Wesseling at Amsterdam, 1735. The part relating to Britain appeared at London, 1799, as Iter Britanniarum, with a new commentary, by Thomas Reynolds. ANTONINUS LIBERALIS, a Greek grammarian, who probably lived about 147 A.D. His Avork, /xera/xo/x/Koo-ewv <ruva.yoFfr), consists of forty-one tales of mythical metamor phoses, and is chiefly valuable for the study of Greek mythology. One of the best editions is that of Koch, Leipsic, 1832, 8vo. ANTONINUS, MARCUS AURELIUS. See AURELIUS, MARCUS. ANTONINUS, TITUS AURELIUS FULVUS BORONIUS ARRIUS, surnamed Pius, was the son of Aurelius Fulvus, a Roman consul, whose family had originally be longed to Nemausus (Nismes). He was born near Lanuvium, 86 A.D., and, having lost his father, was brought up under the care of Arrius Antoninus, his maternal grandfather, a man of integrity and culture, and on terms of friendship with the younger Pliny. Having filled with more than usual success the offices of quaestor and pnetor, he obtained the consulship in 120 A.D.; was next chosen one of the four consulars for Italy ; greatly increased his reputation by his conduct as proconsul of Asia ; acquired much influence with the emperor Hadrian, by whom he was at length adopted as his son and successor in February 138 A.D.; and a few months afterwards, on Hadrian s death, was en thusiastically welcomed to the throne by the Roman people, who, for once, were not disappointed in their anticipation of a happy reign. For Antoninus came to his new office with simple tastes, kindly disposition, ex tensive experience, a well-trained intelligence, and the sincerest desire for the welfare of his subjects. Instead of plundering the provinces to support his prodigality, he emptied his private treasury to assist the provinces. In stead of exaggerating into treason whatever was suscep tible of unfavourable interpretation, he turned the very conspiracies that were formed against him into opportuni ties of signalising his clemency. Instead of stirring up the persecution of the Christians, and gloating over the sufferings of their martyrs, he extended to them the strong hand of his protection through all the empire. Rather than give occasion to that oppression which he regarded as inseparable from an emperor s progress through his Antoninus Pius. dominions, he was content to spend all the years of his reign in Rome, or its neighbourhood. Under his patronage the science of jurisprudence was cultivated by men of high ability, and a number of enactments were passed in his name that are equally characteristic of his humanity and his justice. Of the public transactions of this period we have but scant information, but, to judge by what we possess, those twenty-two years were not remarkably eventful. No conquests of importance were attempted, and there were no very dangerous attacks to repel, though all round the frontiers a kind of simmering hostility produced a suc cession of minor invasions and revolts. The one military result which is of interest to us now is the building of the wall of Antoninus from the Forth to the Clyde. In his domestic relations Antoninus was not so fortunate. His wife, Faustina, has almost become a by-word for her lack of womanly virtue ; though, either through his ignorance of her conduct, or in spite of his being aware of it, she seems to have kept her hold on his affections to the last. On her death he did honour to her memory in many ways ; but in none more remarkable than by the foundation of a charity for orphan girls, who bore the title of Alimentarice Faustiniance. He had by her two sons and two daughters; but they all died before his elevation to the throne, except Annia Faustina, who became the wife of his successor, Marcus Aurelius, and deepened the infamy of the name she inherited from her mother. Antoninus died of fever on the 7th of March 161, giving, as we are told, the key note to his life in the last word that he uttered when the tribune of the night-watch came to ask the password sEquanimitas. The only account of his life handed down to us is that of Julius Capitolinus. ANTONINUS, WALL OF, called GRAHAM S DYKE by the natives of the district through which it passed, is the name given by historians to that series of defensive posts, connected by a rampart and a wall, which at one time extended across the island from the Frith of Clyde on the west to the Frith of Forth on the east. The former of these appellations it has received from the Roman emperor in whose reign it was erected ; the origin of the latter is more doubtful, a probable opinion being that which regards it as a corruption of the Celtic greim, a place of strength, and diog, a trench or rampart. We are informed by Tacitus that Agricola, during his fourth summer in Britain (81 A.D.), occupied himself in consolidating his previous conquests, and that for this purpose he caused a series of detached forts to be built on the isthmus that joins the two friths as a barrier against the still unconquered Caledonians of the north. It was along, or almost along, the same line, that one of his suc cessors in the command of the Roman troops in Britain raised the more permanent military work known as Antonine s wall. The writer of the life of the emperor Antoninus Pius in the Histories Augustas Scriptorcs Sex, usually supposed to have been Julius Capitolinus, expressly states that Lollius Urbicus, a legate of that emperor, erected, after several victories over the Britons, " another rampart of turf " to check their inroads. No locality is specified, but a frag ment of a stone, now in the museum of the university of Glasgow, has an inscription in which the name of this Lollius seems to occur. This fragment, and the numerous monumental records bearing the name of Antonine that have been discovered along its course, identify beyond all reasonable doubt the wall between the Forth and Clyde as that spoken of by the annalist, and furnish satisfactory proof of the correctness of its best-known name. And if a small pillar figured by Gordon, and at one time in the library of the university of Edinburgh, was found, as is
probable, near the wall, it fixes the year 140 A.D. as thePage:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/153
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