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AURUNCI, in ancient geography a people of Latium , to-wards Campania .
AUSl, an ancient and very savage people of Libya . Theycelebrated annually a feast in honour of Minerva, in which thegirls divided into two companies, and fought with sticks andstones: those who died of their wounds were concluded not tohave been virgins.
AL'SIT.E, AISIT/E, or JESIT.E, a tribe of ancient Arabs ,supposed by Bochart te have inhabited the land of Uz mentionedin Job.
AUSONES, or AUSONH, a people who anciently occupiedall the'Lower Italy, from the Promontorium Circanun down tothe straits of Sicily , but were afterwards reduced to a much nar-rower compass.
AL'SONfA, the ancient name of Italy ', from its earliest inha-bitants the Ausones.
AUSONIUS, Decius, or Decimus, Magnus , one of thebest poets of the 4th century, was the son of an eminent physician,and born at Bourdeaux. Great care was taken of his education,either because his genius was very promising, or that the schemeof his nativity, which had been ca»t by his grandfather, madethem imagine that he would rise to great honour. lie was ap-pointed consul bv his pupil, Gratian , then emperor, A. D. 379,after having filled other considerable posts. His speech, returningthanks to Gratian , on Ids promotion is highly commended. lielived to a great age. The emperor Theodosius had a great esteemfor him, and pressed him to publish his poems. He is generally■supposed to have been a Christian. The best edition of his poemsis that of Amsterdam in 1671.
AUSPEX, a name originally given to those who were after-•wards denominated augurs. It is formed from arts, a bird, andinspicere, to inspect, auspices, q. d. avispices. Some will haveauspices only to denote those who foretold future events from thesight of birds.
AUSPICIUM, or AUSPICY, nearly the same with Augury.
AUSPLTZ, a fortified town of Moravia .
AUSSE, a town of Moravia , in Olmulz.
AUSSTG, a town of Bohemia, in Leitmeritz .
AUSTEL, St. a town in Cornwall .
AUSTER, [Lai.] the wind blowing from the south.
AUSTERE, rough or astringent. Thus an austere taste is«uch a one as constringes the mouth or tongue ; as that of unripefruits, harsh wines, vitriol, alum, &r.
AUSTERL1TZ, a town of Moravia, in the circle of Brunn ;famed for a recent and decisive victory obtained by Buonaparte over the combined Austrian and Prussian armies. Lon. 24. 48. E.Lat. 49. 8. N.
AUSTRALIS Piscis, the Southern Fish, a constellation ofthe southern hemisphere .
AUSTRIA, a circle of the late German empire, bounded on the\V. by Switzerland ; on the N. by Suabia, Bavaria, Bohemia , andMoravia; on the E. by Hungary, and on the S. by Italy andCroatia . Its name is derived from its situation ; Oast-rick, in theGerman language signifying East Country, which it is with re-spect to the other provinces of Germany . It belongs at presentto the emperor of Austria , as head of that house ; and contains thearchduchy of Austria, the duchies of Stiria, Carinthia, Carniola ,and Goritia. It excels all the provinces of Germany in richnessof pasture, fertility of soil, and salubrity of air. It abounds inall sorts of corn, wine, and fruit; and produces saffron better thanthat of the East Indies. It has also a great variety of minerals,and txroduces vast quantities of sulphur. Us principal rivers arethe Danube and the Ens.
AUSTRIACA Sin era, a name given by Maupertuis to thespots in the sun, as supposing them to be small stars between thesun and us.
AUSTRO-AFRICDS, the S. S. W. wind.
AUSTKOMANCY, AUSTROMANTIA, soothsaying, ora vain method of predicting futurity, from observations of thewind ■.
AUTER Droit, inlaw, is when persons sue, or are sued inanother’s right, as executors, guardians, 8rc,
Auter Foig Acauir, in law, a plea made by a criminal thathe has been already acquitted of the same crime, with which he ischarged. 'There are likewise pleas of auter fois convict and at-taint, that he has been before convicted ot the same felon) .
AUTHENTIC, something of acknowledged and received au-thority. In law it signifies something cloathed in ali its forma-lities, and attested by persons to whom credit has been regularlygiven. Tims, we say, authentic papers, authentic instruments.The present learned Bishop of Llandaff, Dr. Watson, has heredistinguished between the terms authentic and genuine, when ap-plied to books. A genuine book is that w hich is written by theperson whose name it bears; an authentic book is that which re-lates matter of fact, as it really happened. Thus a book may begenuine without being authentic, and authentic without lining ge-nuine. This distinction is judiciously applied to establish the au-thenticity of the scriptural books in the w orthy Bishop’s secondletter of his Apology for the Bible in his reply to Paine’s dge ofReason. In music, authentic is a term applied to four of the churchmodes or tones, which rise a fourth above their dominants, whichare always a fifth above their finals ; in this distinguished from theplagal modes, which fall a fourth below' their finals. Thus whenin octave is divided arithmetically according to the numbers 2,3, 4, that is, when the fifth is flat, and the fourth sharp, the modeor tone is called authentic, in contradistinction to the plagal tone,w here the octave is divided harmonically, by the numbers 3, 4, b,which makes the fourth a flat, and the fifth a sharp.
AUTHORITY, in law, a power given by word or writing toa second person to transact something, and may be by writ, war-rant, commission, letter of attorney, &e. and sometimes by law.An authority given to another to do what a person himself cannotdo is void ; and it must be for doing a tiling that is lawful, other-wise it will be no good authority.
Authority, in painting, is represented like a grave matron sit-ting in a chair of stale, richly clothed in a garment, embroideredwitii gold, holding in her right hand a sword, and in her left asceptre. By her side is a double trophy of books and arms.
A'UTOCABDA LI, in antiquity, an order of musicians, whowore an ivy crown, or garland. .
AUTOC’EPUALUS, [from «»a;, ipse, and xtpax>i, caput,head,'] a person who has no one over him.
AUTOCHTHONES, [muvSb and Ur.] an appellationassumed by some nations, importing that they sprung, or wereproduced, from the same :>oil which they still inhabited. In thissense, Autochthones amounts to the same with Aborigines,
AU TOC RASY, [_n.uzos.alun., from auz&, self, andpower,] independent power; supremacy.
AUTOCRATOR, [from avro;, himself, and xj an;, power,]a person vested with an absolute independent power, by which heis rendered unaccountable to any other for his actions. "
AUTO-DA-FE. See Act of Faith.
AUTOGRAPHUM, or AUTOGRAPHY, [«vroysre<f>v, froma-jh;, and yjxyui, to write,] a particular person’s own writing ; orthe original of a treatise, in opposition to a copy.
AUTO LOG 1ST, [from avro;, self, and xoyo;, speech,] one whospeaks much of himself.
AUTOLOGY, speaking of, or to one’s self.
AUTOMATE, called also Hiera, one of the Cyclades, 'anisland to the north of Crete , said to have emerged out of the sea.
AUTOMATON, [nbhixcJ ov. In the plural, automata, fromn-J o;, ipse, and *, to be excited,] a machine that hath the
power of motion within itself, and w hich stands in need of no fo-reign assistance ; or a machine so constructed by means of weights,levers, springs, wheels, &c. as to move for a considerable time, asif it were endued with animal life. In this sense, clocks, watches,and all machines of that kind, are automata. But the word i«most commonly applied to such machines, as are made in theform of men and other animals, at the same time that their internalmachinery is so contrived, that they seem voluntarily to act likethe animals they represent. Archytas of Tarentum . who livedB. C. 400, is said to have made a wooden pigeon that could fly. Itis also recorded, that Archimedes made similar automata; that Re-giomontanus made a wooden eagle which flew forth from the cityof Nuremburg , met the emperor, saluted him, and returned; alsothat lie made an iron tlv, which flew out of Ins hand at a feast, andreturned again after living about the room ; that Dr. Hook madethe model of a flying chariot, capable of supporting itself in theair. Many other surprising automata have been exhibited in thepresentage. M. Vaucanson made a duck, which could eat, drink,and imitate exactly the voice of a natural one; and what is stillmore surprising, the food it swallowed was evacuated in a d gested
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