Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/226

Ærtszen, Pieter, called "Long Peter" on account of his height, an historical painter of great merit as regards both drawing and colouring, was born at Amsterdam in 1520, and died in 1573. When a youth he distinguished himself by painting homely scenes, in which he reproduced articles of furniture, cooking utensils, &c., with marvellous fidelity, but he afterwards cultivated historical painting. Several of his best works—altar-pieces in various churches—were destroyed in the religious wars of the Netherlands. An excellent specimen of his style on a small scale, a picture of the crucifixion, may be seen in the Antwerp Museum. Ærtszen was a member of the Academy of St Luke, in whose books he is entered as Langhe Peter, schilder. Three of his sons attained to some note as painters.

Æs is commonly translated brass, but the æs of the Romans, like the χαλκός of the Greeks, was used to signify not only pure copper, but also a bronze, or alloy of copper and tin. Brass, in the modern acceptation of an alloy of copper and zinc, was unknown to the ancients. The cutting instruments of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians were originally of bronze. The Romans borrowed their arms, as well as their money, from the Etruscans. Analysis of the bronzes of these nations shows that they contained about 12 per cent. of tin, which gave them hardness and the capability of receiving a good edge. As the most ancient coined money of the Romans was of copper or bronze, æs came to be used for money in general, even after the introduction of silver and gold coinage; as æs alienum was used to signify borrowed money, debt. Æs equestre, Æs hordearium, Æs militare, were terms for the pay of Roman soldiers (previous to the introduction of the regular stipendium), which was furnished, it would appear, not from the public treasury, but by certain private persons as decreed by the state. The first, which amounted to 10,000 asses, was the purchase-money of the horse of an eques. The second, amounting to 2000 asses, was the pay of an eques, and was furnished by unmarried women, widows, and orphans, if possessed of a certain amount of property. The æs militare, reckoned by Niebuhr at 1000 asses a year, was the pay of a foot soldier.

Æschines, an Athenian philosopher, said to have been the son of a sausage-maker. He was continually with Socrates; which occasioned that philosopher to say that the sausage-maker's son was the only person who knew how to pay a due regard to him. It is alleged that poverty obliged him to go to Sicily to the court of Dionysius; and that he met with great contempt from Plato, but was extremely well received by Aristippus, to whom he showed some of his dialogues, receiving from him a handsome sum of money. He did not venture to profess philosophy at Athens, Plato and Aristippus being in such high esteem; but he opened a school, in which he taught philosophy to maintain himself. He afterwards wrote orations for the forum. Phrynicus, in Photius, ranks him amongst the best orators, and mentions his orations as the standard of the pure Attic style. Hermogenes has also spoken very highly of him. He write, besides, several dialogues:—1. Concerning virtue, whether it can be taught; 2. Eryxias, or Erasistratus: concerning riches, whether they are good; 3. Axiochus: concerning death, whether it is to be feared,—but those extant on the several subjects are not genuine remains. M. le Clerc has given a Latin translation of them, with notes and several dissertations, entitled Silvæ Philologicæ.

Æschines, a celebrated Grecian orator, was born in Attica 389 years before the Christian era. According to his own account, he was of distinguished birth; according to that of Demosthenes, he was the son of a courtesan, and a humble performer in a company of comedians. But whatever was the true history of his birth and early life, his services as a soldier and his talents, which were considerable, procured him great applause; and, as a public speaker, he became a formidable rival to Demosthenes himself. The two orators, inspired probably with mutual jealousy and animosity, became at last the strenuous leaders of opposing parties. Æschines had almost from the first advocated peace with Philip of Macedon, and having been sent on several embassies to negotiate with the king, had been treated with much respect. He was, in consequence, accused by Demosthenes of having received money as a bribe when he was employed on one of these embassies. He indirectly retaliated by bringing an accusation against Ctesiphon, the friend of Demosthenes, for having moved a decree, contrary to the laws, to confer on Demosthenes a golden crown as a mark of public approbation. A numerous assembly of judges and citizens met to hear and decide the question. Each orator employed all his powers of eloquence; but Demosthenes, with superior talents, and with more justice on his side, was victorious; whereupon Æschines went into exile. According to Plutarch, the resentment of Demosthenes was now softened into generous kindness: for when Æschines was going into banishment, he requested him to accept of a sum of money; which made him exclaim, "How do I regret leaving a country where I have found an enemy so generous, that I must despair of ever meeting with a friend who shall be like him!" But this story seems more than doubtful. Æschines, after staying some years in Asia Minor, opened a school of eloquence at Rhodes. He is said to have commenced his lectures by reading to his audience the two orations which had been the cause of his banishment. His own oration received great praise, but that of Demosthenes was heard with boundless applause. In so trying a moment, when vanity must be supposed to have been deeply wounded, he is reported to have said, with a noble generosity of sentiment, "What would you have thought if you had heard him thunder out the words himself!" Æschines afterwards removed to Samos, where he died in the 75th year of his age. Three only of his orations are extant. His eloquence is of a very high order, and as an orator he is second only to Demosthenes.

Æschylus, the father of the Greek tragic drama, was born in the year 525 B.C., in the Attic demos of Eleusis. The period of his youth and manhood coincides, therefore, with that great uprising of the national spirit of the Greeks, caused by the successive attempts of Darius, king of Persia, and his son Xerxes, to enslave their European neighbours on the north and west shores of the Ægean; and it was no doubt as much for the advantage of his poetical faculty as for the development of his manhood, that he took an active part in those famous military achievements by which the march of the insolent Asiatic hosts was repelled. The father of Attic tragedy helped, in the year 490, to drive the captains of Darius into the marshes of Marathon, and, ten years later, encompassed with ruin the multitudinous armament of Xerxes within the narrow strait of Salamis. The glories of this naval achievement, the bard who had helped to win it with his sword afterwards lived to celebrate with the lyre, and left to the world the play of the Persians, as a great national record of combined poetry and patriotism almost unique in history. Of his subsequent career at Athens only a few scanty notices remain, and those chiefly connected with the representation of his plays. We know that he composed seventy plays, and that he gained the prize for dramatic excellence thirteen times; further, that the Athenians esteemed his works so highly as to allow some of them to be represented after his death,—a privilege, in their dramatic practice, altogether anomalous. We know, also, that in the course of his life he paid one or two visits to Sicily, to which country he was attracted,