A Smaller Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities

by William Smith

Arch of Drusus at Rome

ARCUS (βιός, τόξον), the bow used for shooting arrows, is one of the most ancient of all weapons, but is characteristic of Asia rather than of Europe. In the Roman armies it was scarcely ever employed except by auxiliaries; and these auxiliaries, called sagittarii, were chiefly Cretes and Arabians. The upper of the two figures below shows the Scythian or Parthian bow unstrung; the lower one represents the usual form of the Grecian bow, which had a double curvature, consisting of two circular portions united by the handle. When not used, the bow was put into a case (τοξοθήκη, γωρυτός, corytus), which was made of leather, and sometimes ornamented. It frequently held the arrows as well as the bow, and on this account is often confounded with the pharetra or quiver.

Arcus, Bow. (From paintings on vases.)

Corytus, Bow-case. (From a Relief in the
Vatican, Visconti, iv. tav. 43.)

ĀRĔA (ἅλως, or ἁλωά), the threshing-floor, was a raised place in the field, open on all sides to the wind. Great pains were taken to make this floor hard; it was sometimes paved with flint stones, but more usually covered with clay and smoothed with a roller.

ĂREIOPĂGUS (ὁ Ἄρειος πάγος, or hill of Ares) was a rocky eminence, lying to the west of, and not far from the Acropolis at Athens. It was the place of meeting of the council (Ἡ ἐν Ἀρείῳ πάγῳ βουλή), which was sometimes called The Upper Council (Ἡ ἄνω βουλή), to distinguish it from the senate of Five-hundred, which sat in the Cerameicus within the city. It was a body of very remote antiquity, acting as a criminal tribunal, and existed long before the time of Solon, but he so far modified its constitution and sphere of duty, that he may almost be called its founder. What that original constitution was, must in some degree be left to conjecture, though there is every reason to suppose that it was aristocratical, the members being taken, like the ephetae, from the noble patrician families. [[Ephetae].] By the legislation of Solon the Areiopagus was composed of the ex-archons, who, after an unexceptionable discharge of their duties, “went up” to the Areiopagus, and became members of it for life, unless expelled for misconduct. As Solon made the qualification for the office of archon to depend not on birth but on property, the council after his time ceased to be aristocratic in constitution; but, as we learn from Attic writers, continued so in spirit. In fact, Solon is said to have formed the two councils, the senate and the Areiopagus, to be a check upon the democracy; that, as he himself expressed it, “the state riding upon them as anchors might be less tossed by storms.” Nay, even after the archons were no longer elected by suffrage, but by lot, and the office was thrown open by Aristides to all the Athenian citizens, the “upper council” still retained its former tone of feeling. Moreover, besides these changes in its constitution, Solon altered and extended its functions. Before his time it was only a criminal court, trying cases of “wilful murder and wounding, of arson and poisoning,” whereas he gave it extensive powers of a censorial and political nature. Thus we learn that he made the council an “overseer of everything, and the guardian of the laws,” empowering it to inquire how any one got his living and to punish the idle; and we are also told that the Areiopagites were “superintendents of good order and decency,” terms as unlimited and undefined as Solon not improbably wished to leave their authority. When heinous crimes had notoriously been committed, but the guilty parties were not known, or no accuser appeared, the Areiopagus inquired into the subject, and reported to the demus. The report or information was called apophasis. This was a duty which they sometimes undertook on their own responsibility, and in the exercise of an old established right, and sometimes on the order of the demus. Nay, to such an extent did they carry their power, that on one occasion they apprehended an individual (Antiphon), who had been acquitted by the general assembly, and again brought him to a trial, which ended in his condemnation and death. Again, we find them revoking an appointment whereby Aeschines was made the advocate of Athens before the Amphictyonic council, and substituting Hyperides in his room. They also had duties connected with religion, one of which was to superintend the sacred olives growing about Athens, and try those who were charged with destroying them; and in general it was their office to punish the impious and irreligious. Independent, then, of its jurisdiction as a criminal court in cases of wilful murder, which Solon continued to the Areiopagus, its influence must have been sufficiently great to have been a considerable obstacle to the aggrandisement of the democracy at the expense of the other parties in the state. Accordingly, we find that Pericles, who was opposed to the aristocracy, resolved to diminish its power and circumscribe its sphere of action. His coadjutor in this work was Ephialtes, a statesman of inflexible integrity, and also a military commander. They experienced much opposition in their attempts, not only in the assembly, but also on the stage, where Aeschylus produced his tragedy of the Eumenides, the object of which was to impress upon the Athenians the dignity, sacredness, and constitutional worth of the institution which Pericles and Ephialtes wished to reform. Still the opposition failed: a decree was carried by which, as Aristotle says, the Areiopagus was “mutilated,” and many of its hereditary rights abolished, though it is difficult to ascertain the precise nature of the alterations which Pericles effected. The jurisdiction of the Areiopagus in cases of murder was still left to them. In such cases the process was as follows:—The king archon brought the case into court, and sat as one of the judges, who were assembled in the open air, probably to guard against any contamination from the criminal. The accuser first came forwards to make a solemn oath that his accusation was true, standing over the slaughtered victims, and imprecating extirpation upon himself and his whole family were it not so. The accused then denied the charge with the same solemnity and form of oath. Each party then stated his case with all possible plainness, keeping strictly to the subject, and not being allowed to appeal in any way to the feelings or passions of the judges. After the first speech, a criminal accused of murder might remove from Athens, and thus avoid the capital punishment fixed by Draco’s Thesmi, which on this point were still in force. Except in cases of parricide, neither the accuser nor the court had power to prevent this; but the party who thus evaded the extreme punishment was not allowed to return home, and when any decree was passed at Athens to legalize the return of exiles, an exception was always made against those who had thus left their country. The Areiopagus continued to exist, in name at least, till a very late period. Thus we find Cicero mentioning the council in his letters; and an individual is spoken of as an Areiopagite under the emperors Gratian and Theodosius (A.D. 380). The case of St. Paul is generally quoted as an instance of the authority of the Areiopagus in religious matters; but the words of the sacred historian do not necessarily imply that he was brought before the council. It may, however, be remarked, that the Areiopagites certainly took cognizance of the introduction of new and unauthorised forms of religious worship, called ἐπίθετα ἱερά, in contradistinction to the πάτρια or older rites of the state.

ĂRĒNA. [[Amphitheatrum].]