Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

ARCUS.

87

AREIOPAGUS.

sengers. Those actually made use of on the
occasion of a triumphal entry and procession
were merely temporary and hastily erected;
and, having served their purpose, were taken
down again, and sometimes replaced by others
of more durable materials. Stertinius is the
first upon record who erected anything of the
kind. He built an arch in the Forum Boa-
rium, about b. c. 196, and another in the
Circus Maximus, each of which was sur-
mounted by gilt statues. There are twenty-
one arches recorded by different writers, as
having been erected in the city of Rome, five
of which now remain :—1. Arcus Drusi,
which was erected to the honour of Claudius
Drusus on the Appian way. 2. Arcus Titi,
at the foot of the Palatine, which was erected
to the honour of Titus, after his conquest of
.1 udaea ; the bas-reliefs of this arch represent
the spoils from the temple of Jerusalem
carried in triumphal procession. 3. Arcus
Septimii Severi, which was erected by the
senate (a. d. 207) at the end of the Via
Sacra, in honour of that emperor and his two
•:ons, Caracalla and Geta, on account of his

j conquest of the Parthians and Arabians. 4.
Arcus Gallieni, erected to the honour of Gal-
lienus by a private individual, M. Aurelius

'Victor. 5. Arcus Constantini, which was

\ larger than the arch of Titus. As a specimen
of the triumphal arches, a drawing of the arch
of Drusus is given in the preceding page.
ARCUS (/Sufe, TdfoK), 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 aux-
iliaries ; and these auxiliaries, called sagit-
tarii, 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

1 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 (Vofofoj/crj, ywpuTo's, 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.

AREA (aAtos, or a\u>a), the threshing-floor, I
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.

AREIOPAGUS (6 "Apeios -n-dyoi, 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 ('H ev 'Apeiaj Trayco /3ouAtj), which was
sometimes called The Tipper Council ('H avo>
£ova>)), 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 tri-
bunal, 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 consti-
tution was, must in some degree be left to
conjecture, though there is every reason to
suppose that it was aristocratical, the mem-
bers 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,