Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/722

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ANTINOMY.
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ANTIOCH.

"conflict between two propositions, each of which seems to be true, but neither of which has any more claim to our assent than the other." Kant uses the term antithetic in the same sense. Such a conflict arises when our reason "ventures to go beyond the limits of our experience." There are four of these antinomies: the first two being called mathematical, the last two dynamic. In each ease the positive assertion is called the thesis, its negation is called the antithesis. Briefly, his theses are: The world (1) is limited in space and time, (2). consists of parts that are simple, (3) admits of causality through freedom, (4) implies the existence of an absolutely neces- sary being. Over against these stand the anti- theses: The world (1) is without limits in space or time, (2) consists of parts always composite, (3) admits of no causality but that of natural law, (4) implies the existence of no absolutely necessary being. Kant overcomes these antin- omies by showing that the contradiction is not real if critically considered with due discrimina- tion between noumena and phenomena. See Cat- egory : Kant.


ANTINORI, Un'te-no're. Marchese Orazio (1811-82). An Italian zoölogist and African explorer, born at Perugia. He went to Egypt in 1859, and with Carlo Poggia explored the Upper Nile country. In the Bulletin of the Italian Geographical Society, of which he became one of the founders in 1867, he gives an interesting account of his travels through Nubia. He made a tour through Bogoland, north of Abyssinia, after the opening of the Suez Canal, and in 1875 went to Tunis to investigate the practicability of Roudaire's plan for flooding a portion of the Sahara Desert in order to establish communication with the Mediterranean. He headed an important expedition to Shoa in 1876, and gave the first definite information concerning the zoöology of that country.


ANTIN'OÜS (Gk. Ἀντίνοος, Antinoos). A beautiful youth of Claudiopolis, in Bithynia. He was page to the Emperor Hadrian, and the object of his extravagant affection, accompanying him in all his travels, but was either drowned accidentally in the river Nile, or, as some suppose, committed suicide from a loathing of the life he led, in 122 A.D. His memory and the grief of the Emperor were perpetuated by many beautiful statues and bas-reliefs, of which several have been found in the villa of Hadrian near Tivoli (Tibur). "In all the figures of Antinoüs," says Winckelmann, "the face has a rather melancholy expression; the eyes are large, with fine outlines; the profile is gently sloped downward; and the mouth and chin are especially beautiful." The city of Besa, in the Thebaïs. near which Antinoüs was drowned, was also rebuilt by Hadrian, and the name of Antinoüpolis conferred upon it, in memory of his favorite. Antinoüs was further enrolled among the gods, and temples erected to him in Egypt and Greece. Antinoüs is a character in two historical romances, Antinoüs, by Taylor, translated from the German by Safford (New York, 1882), and The Emperor (Der Kaiser), by Ebers (Stuttgart, 1880), done into English by Clara Bell.


AN'TIOCH (Gk. Ἀντιόχεια, Antiocheia; Lat. Antiocha, or Antiochia). The ancient capital of the Hellenistic kings of Syria, on the Orontes, and the most magnificent of the sixteen cities of that name built by Seleucus Nicator, and named for his father, Antiochus. Its situation was admirably chosen. The river Orontes, issuing from the mountains of Lebanon, flows north as far as the thirty-sixth parallel of latitude, and then southwest into the Mediterranean. On the left bank of the river, and at a distance of twenty miles from the sea, lay the famous city, in the midst of a fertile and beautiful plain, ten miles long by five broad. By its harbor, Seleucia, it had communication with all the maritime cities of the West, while it became, on the other hand, an emporium for the merchandise of the East. Behind it lay the vast Syrian desert, across which traveled the caravans from Mesopotamia and Arabia. On the north, the plain of Antioch is bounded by the mountain chain of Amanus, connected with the southeastern extremity of Mount Taurus: and on the south, which is more rocky, by the broken declivities of Mount Casius, from which the ancient town was distant less than two miles. In early times, a part of the city stood upon an island, which has now disappeared. The rest was built partly on the plain, and partly on the rugged ascent toward Mount Casius. The slopes above the city were covered with vineyards, while the banks of the river displayed, as they do even at the present day, a gorgeous profusion of eastern fruit-trees. The ancients called it "Antioch the Beautiful," and the "Crown of the East." It was a favorite residence of the Seleucid princes and of the wealthy Romans, and was famed throughout the world for its luxury. It received from Strabo the name of Tetrapolis, on account of three new sites having been successively built upon, and each surrounded with a wall. Founded by Seleucus Nicator about 300 B.C., it received its first addition from him; its second from Seleucus Callinicus (246-226 B.C.); and its third from Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.). Its public edifices were magnificent. The principal were the palace, the senate house, the temple of Jupiter, burnished with gold, the theatre, amphitheatre, and Cæsarium. It had an aqueduct, a public promenade, and innumerable baths. After the founding of Constantinople it ceased to be the first city of the East, but it rose to new dignity as a Christian city, for Antioch was in fact the mother church of Gentile Christianity, the home of the first ministry of Paul, the spot from which he set out on his missionary journeys through Asia Minor and Greece, and the scene of the first conflict between Jewish and Gentile Christianity, the result of which was the Apostolic Council in Jerusalem about 51 A.D. Ten councils were held at Antioch. Churches sprang up, exhibiting a new style of architecture, which soon became prevalent: and even Constantine himself spent a considerable time here, adorning the town and strengthening its harbor, Seleucia.

The Antiochians themselves, however, brought about the ruin of their beautiful city. They were famous, above all other people in ancient times, for their biting and scurrilous wit, and for their ingenuity in devising nicknames. When the Persians, under Chosroës, invaded Syria in 538 A.D., the inhabitants could not refrain from jesting at them. The Persians took ample revenge by the total destruction of the city, which, however, was rebuilt by Justinian. The next important event in its history was its conquest by the Saracens in the seventh century. In the ninth century it was recovered by the Greeks under Nicephorus Phocas, but in 1084 it again fell into the hands of the Mohammedans. The Crusaders be-