Aerschot
a town of Belgium on the river Demer, 20 miles N. E. of Brussels and important as a railway center and for its cloth manufactures. Its population at the outbreak of the World War was about 8,000. In the first month of the World War the Germans entered the place and took possession. It was claimed by the Germans that one of their officers was shot by a boy, the son of the burgomaster. A reign of terror set in that lasted three days. 150 inhabitants are alleged to have been shot. Cardinal Mercier stated that he knew of his own knowledge that 91 at least were killed.
Others of the inhabitants were taken as prisoners, first to Louvain, and then into Germany.
ÆSCHINES (es'ke-nēz), a great Athenian orator (389-314 в. c.), rival of Demosthenes. Only three of his "Orations" have come down to our time. He was especially brilliant in his extemporaneous efforts. In his more studied orations, his great merit was the clearness and fullness of the narrative part. ÆSCHYLUS (es'kil-us), the father of the Athenian drama. He was in the sea fight at Salamis, and received a wound in the battle of Marathon. His most solid fame, however, rests on his power as a known to us. The seven tragedies still extant are: "The Suppliants"; "The Persians"; "The Seven against Thebes"; "Prometheus Bound"; and a trilogy, "Oresteia" ("Agamemnon"; "Choëphori"; "Eumenides"). He was the first to introduce two actors on the stage, and to clothe them with dresses suitable to their character. He likewise removed murder from the sight of the audience. He decorated the theater with the best paintings of his time, and the ancient, like the modern stage, exhibited temples, sepulchres, armies, fleets, flying cars, and apparitions. He mounted the actors on stilts, and gave them masks to augment the natural sounds of their voices. He was born in Eleusis about 525 B. c. and died in Sicily about 455 в. c.
His imagination was strong, but wild, vast in its conception, but greatly dealing in improbabilities. The obscurity of his style is admitted.
ÆSCULAPIUS (es-kū-lā'pē-us), the god of medicine, son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis. Apollo brought his son to Chiron, who instructed him in medicine and hunt hunting. In the former, he acquired a high degree of skill, so as to surpass even the fame of his teacher. He not only prevented the death of the living, but even recalled the dead to life. Jupiter, however, induced by the complaints of his brother, Pluto, slew Æsculapius with a thunderbolt. After his death, he received divine honors. Esculapius is represented with a large beard, holding a knotty staff, round which was entwined a serpent, the symbol of convalescence.
Near him stands the cock, the symbol of watchfulness. He is sometimes crowned with the laurel of Apollo. Sometimes also Æsculapius is represented under the image of a serpent only.
ÆSIR, the gods of the Northmen of Scandinavia and Iceland.
ÆSOP ÆSOP (ē'sop), a Greek fabulist, who lived in the 7th century B. C. According to tradition, he was a captive of war, and for a part of his life a slave. Many of his fables have been traced to Egyptian and Indian sources. Socrates, during his ÆSOP imprisonment, put into verse a portion of the Æsopian fables.
ÆSTHETICS or ESTHETICS, the science which treats of the beautiful and the pleasing. The term was first used in its present sense by Wolf, about the middle of the 18th century. According to Herbert Spencer, one characteristic of æsthetic feelings is that they are separated from the functions requisite to sustain life, and it is not till the latter have had proper scope accorded them that the former gain power enough to act. The delight in painting, music, sculpture, poetry, and the drama is æsthetic; and the science investigates the origin of such sensations, the laws which characterize them, and the excellent effects which, when they are not abused, result from their operation to humanity.
ÆSTIVATION, in botany, a term used of the manner in which the parts of a blossom are arranged within a flower bud before the opening of the latter. It is more rarely called prefloration. The word æstivation is separately applied to the calyx, the corolla, the stamens, and the pistil, but not to the flower in general.
ÆTNA. See ETNA.
ÆTOLIA (ē-tō'lē-a), a district of ancient Greece, lying on the N. coast of the AFFINITY Gulf of Corinth. The country had few cities; was, except on the coast, generally wild and barren. Here, according to the legend, Meleager slew the Calydonian boar. The Ætolians make a great figure in the heroic age of Greece; but, at the time of the Peloponnesian War, they were rude and barbarous. The Ætolian confederacy, first called into cxistence about 323 в. c., became an important rival to the Achæan League. Their assembly was styled the Panætolicon.
They were subjugated by the Romans in 189 в. c. Along with Acarnania, Ætolia now forms a department of the modern kingdom of Greece, with a united area of over 3,000 square miles. The chief towns are Missolonghi and Lepanto.