Scanned text contains errors.
ARATEIA.
was placed (Vitruv. iv. 9). Of this we have an example in a medallion on the Arch of Constantine at Rome, representing an altar erected before a statue of Apollo. See the annexed cut.
It was necessary that an altar should be "built in the open air, in order that the steam of the sacrifice might "be wafted up to heaven, and it might be built in any place, as on the side of a mountain, on the shore of the sea, or in a sacred grove. But as the worship of the gods was in later times chiefly connected with temples, altars became an indispensable part of the latter, and though there could be altars without temples, there could hardly be temples without altars. The altars of burnt-offerings, at which animal sacrifices were presented, were erected before the temples (/foyuoi Trpovdot^ Aesch. SuppL 497), as shown in the woodcut in the article antae ; but there were also altars, on which incense was burnt and bloodless sacrifices offered, within the temple, and principally before the statue of the divinity to whom they were dedicated. All altars were places of refuge. The supplicants were considered as placing themselves under the protection of the deities to whom the altars were consecrated ; and violence to the unfortunate, even to slaves and criminals, in such circumstances, was regarded as violence towards the deities themselves. It was also the practice among the Greeks to take solemn oaths at altars, either taking hold of the altar or of the statue of the god. Cicero (pro Balb. 5) expressly mentions this as a Greek practice. (Comp. K. F. Hermann, G-ottes-dienst. Alterth. d. Grriechen, § 17, and § 22. n. 9.) ARAEOSTYLOS. [templum.] ARATEIA (dpdreia), two sacrifices offered every year at Sicyon in honour of Aratus, the general of the Achaeans, who after his death was honoured by his countrymen as a hero, in consequence of the comniftiid of an oracle. (Paus. ii. 9. § 4.) The full account of the two festive days is preserved in Plutarch’s Life of Aratus (c. 53). The Sicyonians, says he, offer to Aratus two sacrifices
117
ARATRUM.
every year: the one on the day on which he delivered his native town from tyranny, which is the fifth of the month of Daisius, the same which the Athenians call Anthesterion ; and this sacrifice they call crwr^pia,. The other they celebrate in the month in which they believe that he. was born. On the first, the priest of Zeus offered the sacrifices ; on the second, the priest of Aratus, wearing a white ribbon with purple spots in the centre, songs being sung to the lyre by the actors of the stage. The public teacher (yvjjij/a-o-iapxos) led his boys and youths in procession, probably to the heroum of Aratus, followed by the senators adorned with garlands, after whom came those citizens who wished to join the procession. The Sicyonians still observe, he adds, some parts of the solemnity, but the principal honours have been abolished by time and other circumstances. (Wachsmuth, Hellen. Alterth. vol.ii. p. 528.) [L.S.]
ARATRUM (&porpoi’ a plough. The Greeks appear to have had from the earliest times diversities in the fashion of their ploughs. Hesiod (Op. et Dies., 432) advises the farmer to have always two ploughs, so that if one broke the other might be ready for use ; and they were to be of two kinds, the one called avrSyvov, because in it the plough-tail (jv^s, buris, bura) was of the same piece of timber with the share-beam (eAv^ua, dens, dentale) and the pole (pittas, IffToSo^s, temo) • and the other called tt^/ct^, i. e. compacted, because in it the three above-mentioned parts, which were moreover to be of three different kinds of timber, were adjusted to one another, and fastened together by means of nails (7<fyw£oicnz>). (Comp. Horn. II. x. 353, xiii. 703.)
The method of forming a plough of the former kind was by taking a young tree with two branches proceeding from its trunk in opposite directions, so that whilst in ploughing the trunk was made to serve for the pole, one of the two branches stood upwards and became the tail, and the other penetrated the ground, and, being covered sometimes with bronze or iron, fulfilled the purpose of a share. This form is exhibited in the uppermost figure of the annexed woodcut, taken from a medal. The
next figure shows the plough still used in Mysia, as described and delineated by Sir C. Fellows. It is a little more complicated than the first plough, inasmuch as it consists of two pieces of timber in* stead of one, a handle (^%ir^ stiva) being inserted into the larger piece at one side of it. SirC. Fellows
i 3
