Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/329

A Ft A A II A 300 tants used to rise to 20,000. The place suffered severely from the French during the Peninsular War. The treaty of 1772 between France and Spain was concluded at "Aranjuez ; and there the insurrection broke out in 1808, which ended in the abdication of Charles IV. ARARAT. This name, originally designating a whole district of Asia (Gen. viii. 4), has long been appropriated by the uniform usage of Europeans to the lofty Armenian mountain which stands on the confines of the Russian, Turkish, and Persian dominions, in lat. 39 42 N., long. 44 35 E., known to the Armenians as Jfasis, to the Turks as Ak-Dagh, and to the Persians as Kuh-i-Nuh, or Noah s Mountain. Whether the tradition, which makes it the resting-place of the ark, is of any historical value or not, there is at least poetical fitness in the hypothesis, inasmuch as this mountain is about equally distant from the Black Sea and the Caspian, from the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. Another tradition accepted alike by Christians and Mahometans fixed on Mount Judi, in. the south of Armenia, as the ark s resting-place. There so- called genuine relics of the ark were exhibited, and a monastery and mosque of commemoration were built ; but the monastery was destroyed by lightning in 776 A.D., and the tradition has declined in credit. Mount Ararat is the culminating point of the Armenian plateau, which reaches at its base a height of 3000 feet. From this it rises in a graceful isolated cone (having at its side the more perfect but less lofty cone of Little Ararat) far into the region of perennial snow. It was long believed by the Armenian monks that no one was permitted to reach the " secret top " of Ararat with its sacred remains. The summit, however, has been frequently reached in the course of this century. Tournefort had failed in 1 700 ; the Pasha of Bayazeed had been equally unsuccessful ; but on Sept. 27, 1829, Dr Parrot of Dorpat, a German in the employment of Russia, set foot on the " dome of eternal ice." Ascents have since been made by Antonomoff (1834 and 1843); Wagner and Abich (1845); Chodzko, Chanykoff, Moritz, and a party of Cossacks in the service of the Russian Government (1850); Major Stuart (185G); and Colonel Monteith (185G). Mr Freshfield, who reached within about 800 feet of the summit in 1868, thus describes the moun tain: "It stands perfectly isolated from all the other ranges, with the still more perfect cone of Little Ararat (a typical volcano) at its side. Seen thus early in the season (May), with at least 9000 feet of snow on its slopes, from a distance and height well calculated to permit the eye to take in its true proportions, we agreed that no single mountain we know presented such a magnificent and impressive appear ance as the Armenian Giant." It has been ascertained that the higher peak, or Ak-Dagh, is 17,112 (1331 higher than Mount Blanc), and the lower, or Allah-Dagh, about 13,085 feet above the level of the sea. That the mountain was of volcanic origin was well known, but all eruptive activity was supposed to have long ceased. Reiueggs was discredited, it may be justly, when he spoke of seeing it in eruption in 1 785. But in 1840 there was a vast eruption of sulphurous vapours from its sides, and a tremendous earthquake shook the surrounding country. The village of Arguri and the monastery of St James were destroyed, and great damage was done to Nakhchevan, Sharur, and Ardubad. Major Voskoboinikoffs Report (Athenceum, 1841, p. 157) was, as Wagner has pointed out, erroneous in some of its details, but in the main trustworthy. There are a number of glaciers in the upper portion, and the climate of the whole district is very severe. The greater part of the mountain is destitute of trees, but the lower Ararat is clothed with birches. The fauna and flora are both comparatively meagre. (Parrot .Rdsezum Ararat, Berlin, 1834 ; Wagner, Rciscnachdem Ararat, <i-c., Stuttgart, 1848; Abich, in Bulletin dt la Soc. dc Geogr. dc France, 4 scr. part i., and in Monalsbtrichten tier Gcs. fiir Efdk. zu Berlin, 1846, and his Die Bcsteiyung dcs Ararat, St Petersburg, 1849 ; Dubois, Voy. autour du Caucase ; Morier s Second Journey ; D. "W. Freshfield, Travels in the Central Caucasus and Bashan, 1869.) ARAS, the ancient Araxes (Turk, and Arab. Ras, Armen. Erash, Georg. Kashki], a river which rises south of Erze- roum, in the Bingol-Dagh (Mountain of the Thousand Wells), and flows east through the province of Erzeroum and Russian Armenia, passing between Mount Ararat and Erivan, till it joins the Kur (Cyrus) coming from the north, and falls with it into the Caspian Sea. Its separate course is about 500 miles long, and it receives a number of tribu taries, of which one of the chief is the Zenghi, which passes by Erivan and drains lake Goukcha or Sivan. A number of towns are situated on the banks of the Aras, as Hassan- Kaleh, Kagisman, and Abbasabad. It forms the boundary between Russia and Persia from 44 to 48 E. long. The Araxes was known by hearsay to Herodotus, and is the Phasis of Xenophon. It is a rapid and muddy stream, dangerous to cross when swollen by the melting of the snows in Armenia, but fordable in its ordinary state. ARATUS, one of the rulers of Sicyon, was born in that city, 271 B.C. His father, Clinias, was slain by Abantidas ; and Aratus, then seven years of age, only escaped a similar fate through the kindness of Soso, the sister of Abantidas, who had him conveyed secretly to Argos. At the age of twenty he regained without blood shed his native city of Sicyon, and induced the citizens to join the Achaean League. He obtained assistance in money from Ptolemy, whom he visited, and soon after (2i5 B.C.) he was elected general of the League. Two years later, when again general, he took Corinth from the Macedonians, and united it to the League. About the same time ho defeated the /Etolians at Pellene, and his success drew many other cities into the League, which, under the careful management of Aratus, was rapidly becoming a powerfid confederation. Its power, however, roused the jealousy of Cleomenes of Sparta, and in 226 war broke out between the Spartans and Achseans. Cleomenes was victorious at Lycseum, Megalopolis, Hecatombaeum, and Dyme, and completely broke the power of the League. As a last resource, Aratus entered into negotiation with Antigonus of Macedonia, and, by promising to deliver up Corinth, secured his assistance. Antigonus was made general of the League, and in 222 totally defeated Cleomenes in the battle of Sellasia. The general peace which now ensued was broken by the turbulent JEtolians, who invaded Acha3a. Aratus having marched against them, suffered so severe a defeat at Caphae that he was accused and tried for mismanagement ; his former great services alone saved him from suffering the penalty of failure. Philip of Macedonia, who was then called in to the assistance of the Achaeans, succeeded in establishing peace, but his ambition was roused by the hope of obtaining supre macy in Greece. The counsels of Aratus became dis tasteful to him, and Plutarch does not hesitate to ascribe the death of Aratus, a few years later (213 B.C.), to poison administered by the command of his royal master. The body was conveyed to Sicyon, where a monument was erected as a memorial of his services. Aratus is one of the few great names in later Greek history. He had an intense hatred of tyrants, and devoted his whole life to the attainment of liberty for Greece. His talents as a statesman were great, but their effect was marred by his incompetence and want of success as a general. ARATUS, a Greek poet, was born at Soli, in Cilicia. The date of his birth is uncertain, but it is known he lived about 270 B.C., and as he was court-physician to Antigonus Gonatas, king of Macedonia, he must have been contem

porary with several of the great Alexandrian writers,