Augeas (a¨-jē'as), a fabulous king of Elis, in Greece, whose stable contained 3000 oxen, and had not been cleaned for thirty years. Hercules undertook to clear away the filth in one day in return for a tenth part of the cattle, and executed the task by turning the River Alphēus through it. Augeas, having broken the bargain, was deposed and slain by Hercules.
Auger (a¨'gėr), an instrument for boring holes considerably larger than those bored by a gimlet, used by carpenters and joiners, ship-wrights, &c.
Augereau (ōzh-rō), Pierre François Charles, Duke of Castiglione, Marshal of France, son of a mason, born at Paris 1757. He adopted the life of a soldier, and by 1796 had reached the rank of general of division in the army of Italy. At Casale, Lodi, Castiglione, and Arcole he highly distinguished himself. In 1797 he was at Paris, and was the instrument of the coup d'état of the 18th of Fructidor (4th Sept.). In 1799 he was chosen a member of the Council of Five Hundred. He then obtained the command of the army in Holland, and fought till the end of the campaign. In 1803 he was appointed to lead the army collected at Bayonne against Portugal. In 1804 he was named marshal of the empire, and grand officer of the Legion of Honour. He subsequently took part in the battles of Jena and Eylau, held a command in Spain, and in July, 1813, led the army in Bavaria against Saxony, taking part in the battle of Leipzig. On Napoleon's abdication he submitted to Louis XVIII, who named him a peer. He died 1816.
Aughrim, a village in Co. Galway, Ireland, memorable for the decisive victory gained in the neighbourhood, 12th July, 1691, by the forces of William of Orange, under Ginkel, over the Irish and French troops, under St. Ruth. The total English casualties were about 1700, while the Irish lost at least 7000 men as well as all their war material. This battle caused the complete submission of the country.
Augier (ō-zhi-ā), Emile, noted French dramatist, born 1820, came young to Paris, entered a lawyer's office, but relinquished law for literature; elected an academician in 1857, in 1868 a commander of the Legion of Honour. His first and one of his best dramas was the comedy La Ciguë (1844); among his other works are L'Aventurière, Gabrielle, Paul Forestier, Le Mariage d'Olympe, Le Gendre de M. Poirier, Les Effrontés, Le Fils de Giboyer, Les Lions et les Renards, Maître Guérin, Les Fourchambault, &c. He died in 1889.
Augite (a¨'jīt) is the commonest member of the pyroxene group of minerals; a constituent of many igneous rocks, such as basalt, gabbro, &c. It crystallizes in short almost rectangular
prisms of the monoclinic system, modifying planes causing cross-sections to be eight-sided. Its specific gravity is about 3.2; lustre vitreous; hardness sufficient to scratch glass; colour usually dark. It is a silicate of calcium, magnesium, iron, and aluminium, and alters in geological time by slow recrystallization into hornblende, possibly with some loss of calcium. It may be imitated by the artificial fusion of its constituents. A transparent, green, non-aluminous variety found at Zillertal, in Tyrol, is used in jewellery.
Augsburg (ougz'bu¨rh; Lat. Augusta Vindelicorum), a city of Bavaria, at the junction of the Wertach and Lech, antique in appearance, but with some fine streets, squares, and handsome or interesting buildings, including a splendid town hall, a lofty belfry (Perlach Tower), cathedral, with paintings by Domenichino, Holbein, &c.; St. Ulrich's Church; the bishop's palace, where the Augsburg Confession was presented to the Diet, afterwards a royal residence; the Fugger Palace, or mansion of the celebrated Fugger family; the public library; the theatre; the Academy of Arts; and the Fuggerei, a separate quarter of the city, consisting of fifty-three small houses, tenanted at a merely nominal rent by indigent Roman Catholics. Augsburg was a renowned commercial centre in the Middle Ages, and is still an important emporium of South German and Italian trade; industries: cotton spinning and weaving, dyeing, woollen manufacture, machinery and metal goods, books and printing, chemicals, &c. The Emperor Augustus established a colony here about 12 B.C. In 1276 it became a free city, and, besides being a great mart for the commerce between the north and south of Europe, it was a great centre of German art in the Middle Ages. It early took a conspicuous part in the Reformation. (See next article.) In 1806 it was incorporated in Bavaria. Pop. (1919), 154,555.
Augsburg Confession, a document which was presented by the Protestants at the Diet of Augsburg, 1530, to the Emperor Charles V and the Diet, and being signed by the Protestant States was adopted as their creed. Luther made the original draft; but as its style appeared too violent it was given to Melanchthon for amendment. The original is to be found in the imperial Austrian archives. Afterwards Melanchthon arbitrarily altered some of the articles, and there arose a division between those who held the original and those who held the altered Augsburg Confession. The former is received by the Lutherans, the latter by the German Reformed.
Au´gurs, a board or college of diviners who, amongst the Romans, predicted future events and announced the will of the gods from the occurrence of certain signs. These consisted of signs in the sky, especially thunder and lightning; signs from the flight and cries of birds; from the feeding of the sacred chickens; from the course taken or sounds uttered by various quadrupeds or by serpents; from accidents or occurrences, such as spilling the salt, sneezing, &c. The answers of the augurs as well as the signs by which they were governed were called auguries, but bird-predictions were properly termed auspices. Nothing of consequence could be undertaken without consulting the augurs, and by the mere utterance of the words alio die ('meet on another day') they could dissolve the assembly of the people and annul all decrees passed at the meeting.