Att´alus, the names of three kings of ancient Pergamus (241-133 B.C.), the last of whom bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans. They were all patrons of art and literature.
At´tar, in the East Indies, a general term for a perfume from flowers; in Europe generally used only of the attar or otto of roses, an essential oil made from Rosa centifolia, the hundred-leaved or cabbage-rose, R. damascēna, or damask-rose, R. moschāta, or musk-rose, &c., 100,000 roses yielding only 180 grains of attar. Cashmere, Shiraz, and Damascus are celebrated for its manufacture, and there are extensive rose farms in the valley of Kezanlik in Roumelia and at Ghazipur in Benares. The oil is at first greenish, but afterwards it presents various tints of green, yellow, and red. It is concrete at all ordinary temperatures, but becomes liquid about 84° F. It consists of two substances, a hydrocarbon and an oxygenated oil, and is frequently adulterated with the oils of rhodium, sandal-wood, and geranium, with the addition of camphor or spermaceti.
At´terbury, Francis, an English prelate, born in 1662, and educated at Westminster and Oxford. In 1687 he took his degree of M.A., and appeared as a controversialist in a defence of the character of Luther, entitled, Considerations on the Spirit of Martin Luther, &c. He also assisted his pupil, the Hon. Charles Boyle, in his famous controversy with Bentley on the Epistles of Phalaris. Having taken orders in 1691 he settled in London, became chaplain to William and Mary, preacher of Bridewell, and lecturer of St. Bride's. Controversy was congenial to him, and in 1706 he commenced one with Dr. Wake, which lasted four years, on the rights, privileges, and powers of convocations. For this service he received the thanks of the lower house of convocation and the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Oxford. Soon after the accession of Queen Anne he was made Dean of Carlisle, aided in the defence of the famous Sacheverell, and wrote A Representation of the Present State of Religion. In 1712 he was made Dean of Christ Church, and in 1713 Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster. After the death of the queen in 1714 he distinguished himself by his opposition to George I; and, having entered into a correspondence with the Pretender's party, was apprehended in Aug., 1722, and committed to the Tower. Being banished the kingdom, he settled in Paris, where he chiefly occupied himself in study and in correspondence with men of letters. But even here, in 1725, he was actively engaged in fomenting discontent in the Scottish Highlands. He died in 1731, and his body was privately interred in Westminster Abbey. His sermons and letters are marked by ease and grace; but as a critic and a controversialist he is rather dexterous and popular than accurate and profound.
Attercliffe, a parliamentary division of the borough of Sheffield.
Attic, an architectural term variously used. An Attic base is a peculiar kind of base, used by the ancient architects in the Ionic order and by Palladio and some others in the Doric. An Attic story is a low story in the upper part of a house rising above the main portion of the building. In ordinary language an attic is an apartment lighted by a window in the roof.
At´tica, a State of ancient Greece, the capital of which is Athens. The territory was triangular in shape, with Cape Sunium (Colonna) as its apex and the ranges of Mounts Cithæron and Parnes as its base. On the north these ranges separated it from Bœotia; on the west it was bounded by Megaris and the Saronic Gulf; on the east by the Ægean. Its most marked physical divisions consisted of the highlands, midland district, and coast district, with the two famous plains of Eleusis and of Athens. The Cephissus and Ilissus, though small, were its chief streams; its principal hills, Cithæron, Parnes, Hymettus, Pentelicus, and Laurium. Its soil has probably undergone considerable deterioration, but produced good fruit, especially
olives and figs. These are still cultivated, as well as the vine and cereals, but Attica is better suited for pasture than tillage. According to tradition the earliest inhabitants of Attica lived in a savage manner until the time of Cecrops, who came, 1550 B.C., with a colony from Egypt, taught them all the essentials of civilization, and founded Athens. One of Cecrops' descendants founded eleven other cities in the regions round, and there followed a period of mutual hostility. To Theseus is assigned the honour of uniting these cities in a confederacy, with Athens as the capital, thus forming the Attic State. After the death of Codrus, 1068 B.C., the monarchy was abolished, and the government vested in archons elected by the nobility, at first for life, in 752 B.C. for ten years, and in 683 B.C. for one year only. The severe constitution of Draco was succeeded in 594 by the milder code of Solon, the democratic elements of which, after the brief tyranny of the Pisistratids, were emphasized and developed by Clisthenes. He divided the people into ten classes, and made the Senate consist of 500 persons, establishing as the Government an oligarchy modified by popular control. Then came the splendid era of the Persian War, which elevated Athens to the summit of fame. Miltiades at Marathon, and Themistocles at Salamis, conquered the Persians by land and by sea. The chief external danger being removed, the rights of the people were enlarged; the archons and other magistrates were chosen from all classes without distinction. The period from the Persian War to the time of Alexander (500 to 336 B.C.) was most remarkable for the development of the Athenian constitution. Attica appears to have contained a territory of nearly 850 sq. miles, with some 500,000 inhabitants, 360,000 of whom were slaves, while the inhabitants of the city numbered 180,000. Cimon and Pericles (444 B.C.) raised Athens to its point of greatest splendour, though under the latter began the Peloponnesian War, which ended with the conquest of Athens by the Lacedæmonians. The succeeding tyranny of the Thirty, under the protection of a Spartan garrison, was overthrown by Thrasybulus, with a temporary partial restoration of the power of Athens; but the battle of Cheronæa (338 B.C.) made Attica, in common with the rest of Greece, a dependency of Macedon. The attempts at revolt after the death of Alexander were crushed, and in 260 B.C. Attica was still under the sway of Antigonus Gonatas, the Macedonian king. A period of freedom under the shelter of the Achæan League then ensued, but their support of Mithridates led, in 146 B.C., to the subjugation of the Grecian States by Rome. After the division of the Roman Empire, Attica belonged to the Empire of the East until, in A.D. 396, it was conquered by Alaric the Goth and the country devastated. Attica and Bœotia now form a nome or province of the kingdom of Greece, with a population of 407,063.—Bibliography: Sir J. G. Frazer, Pausanias's Description of Greece, vols. ii and v; C. Wordsworth, Athens and Attica.
At´ticus, Titus Pomponius, a Roman of great wealth and culture, born 109 B.C., and died 32 B.C. On the death of his father he removed to Athens to avoid participation in the civil war, to which his brother Sulpicius had fallen a victim. There he so identified himself with Greek life and literature as to receive the surname Atticus. It was his principle never to mix in politics, and he lived undisturbed amid the strife of factions. Sulla and the Marian party, Cæsar and Pompey, Brutus and Antony, were alike friendly to him, and he was in favour with Augustus. Of his close friendship with Cicero proof is given in the series of letters addressed to him by Cicero. He married at the age of fifty-three, and had one daughter, Pomponia, named by Cicero Atticula and Attica. He reached the age of seventy-seven years without sickness, but, being then attacked by an incurable disease, ended his life by voluntary starvation. He was a type of the refined Epicurean, and an author of some contemporary repute, though none of his works have reached us.—The name Atticus was given to Addison by Pope, in a well-known passage (Prologue to the Satires, addressed to Dr. Arbuthnot).
At´tila (in Ger. Etzel), the famous leader of the Huns, was the son of Mundzuk, and the successor, in conjunction with his brother Bleda, of his uncle Roua. The rule of the two leaders extended over a great part of Northern Asia and Europe, and they threatened the Eastern Empire, and twice compelled the weak Theodosius II to purchase an inglorious peace. Attila caused his brother Bleda to be murdered (444), and in a short time extended his dominion over all the peoples of Germany and exacted tribute from the Eastern and Western emperors. The Vandals, the Ostrogoths, the Gepidæ, and a part of the Franks united under his banners, and he speedily formed a pretext for leading them against the Empire of the East. He laid waste all the countries from the Black to the Adriatic Sea, and in three encounters defeated the Emperor Theodosius, but could not take Constantinople. Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece all submitted to the invader, who destroyed seventy flourishing cities; and Theodosius was obliged to purchase a peace. Turning to the west, the 'scourge of God', as his defeated enemies termed him, crossed with an immense army the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Seine, came to the Loire, and laid siege to Orleans. The inhabitants of this city repelled the first attack, and the united forces of the Romans under Aetius, and of the Visigoths under
their king, Theodoric, compelled Attila to raise the siege. He retreated to Champagne, and waited for the enemy in the plains of Châlons. In apparent opposition to the prophecies of the soothsayers the ranks of the Romans and Goths were broken; but when the victory of Attila seemed assured, the Gothic prince Thorismond, the son of Theodoric, poured down from the neighbouring height upon the Huns, who were defeated with great slaughter. Rather irritated than discouraged, he sought in the following year a new opportunity to seize upon Italy, and demanded Honoria, the sister of Valentinian III, in marriage, with half the kingdom as a dowry. When this demand was refused he conquered and destroyed Aquileia, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo, laid waste the plains of Lombardy, and was marching on Rome when Pope Leo I went with the Roman ambassadors to his camp and succeeded in obtaining a peace. Attila went back to Hungary, and died on the night of his marriage with Hilda or Ildico (453), either from the bursting of a blood-vessel or by her hand. The description that Jordanès (or Jornandes) has left us of him is in keeping with his Kalmuck-Tartar origin. He had a large head, a flat nose, broad shoulders, and a short and ill-formed body; but his eyes were brilliant, his walk stately, and his voice strong and well-toned.—Bibliography: Thierry, Koenig Attila und seine Zeit; E. Hutton, Attila and the Huns.