Agnes, Saint (fl. 4th century, Rome; feast day January 21) Legendary Christian martyr, the patron saint of girls. According to tradition, she was a beautiful virgin who turned away all suitors, declaring that she could have no spouse but Jesus. The rejected suitors informed Roman officials that she was a Christian, and she was punished by being exposed in a brothel. There she was left miraculously unharmed; the only man who attempted to violate her was struck blind, and she healed him with prayer. She was later murdered during the persecutions ordered by Diocletian.
Agnew, Spiro T(heodore) (b. Nov. 9, 1918, Baltimore, Md., U.S.—d. Sept. 17, 1996, Berlin, Md.) U.S. politician, the only vice presi¬ dent forced to resign. He studied law at the University of Baltimore and began a law practice in a Baltimore suburb in 1947. He was elected Bal¬ timore county executive in 1962 and then governor of Maryland in 1967. In 1968 and 1972 he was elected vice president on the Republican ticket headed by Richard Nixon. His sometimes colourful denunciations of Viet¬ nam War protesters and other opponents of the Nixon administration brought him much attention in the news media. Investigated for extortion, bribery, and income-tax violations allegedly committed during his gov¬ ernorship, he resigned the vice presidency in 1973 and pleaded no con¬ test to a single income-tax charge. He was fined $10,000 and sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation. Disbarred in 1974, he became a consultant to foreign businesses.
Agni Hindu god of fire, second only to Indra in Vedic mythology. He is the fire of the sun, of lightning, and of the hearth of worship, and is the divine personification of the fire of sacrifice. He is thus the messenger between human and divine orders. Agni is described as ruddy-hued and with two faces, one beneficent and one malignant. In the Rig Veda he is sometimes identified with Rudra, the forerunner of Shiva.
Agnon \ag-'non\, S.Y. orig. Shmuel Yosef Halevi Czaczkes (b.
July 17, 1888, Buczacz, Galicia, Austria-Hungary—d. Feb. 17, 1970, Rehovot, Israel) Israeli writer. Bom into a Polish Galician family, Agnon settled in Palestine in 1907 and chose Hebrew as his literary language. The Day Before Yesterday (1945), perhaps his greatest novel, examines the problem facing the Westernized Jew who immigrates to Israel. Other works include the novels The Bridal Canopy (1919) and A Guest for the Night (1938). He is regarded as one of the greatest modem Hebrew nov¬ elists and short-story writers. In 1966 he and Nelly Sachs shared the Nobel Prize for Literature.
agnosticism Vag-'nas-to-.siz-oirA Doctrine that one cannot know the existence of anything beyond the phenomena of experience. It is popu¬ larly equated with religious skepticism, and especially with the rejection of traditional Christian beliefs under the impact of modern scientific thought. T.H. Huxley popularized philosophical agnosticism after coining the term agnostic (as opposed to gnostic) in 1869, to designate one who repudiated traditional Judeo-Christian theism but was not a doctrinaire atheist (see atheism). Agnosticism may mean no more than the suspension of judgment on ultimate questions because of insufficient evidence, or it may constitute a rejection of traditional Christian tenets.
agora Va-go-roV In ancient Greek cities, an open space serving as an assembly area and backdrop for commercial, civic, social, and religious activities. Use of the agora varied in different periods. Located in the middle of the city or near the harbor, it was often enclosed by public buildings, colonnades containing shops, and stoas for protection from sun and bad weather. The highest honor for a citizen was to be granted a tomb in the agora. See photograph on following page.
Agoracritus or Agorakritos \,a-g9-'rak-r3-t3s\ (fl. 5th century bc) Greek sculptor. A student of Phidias, his most notable work was the colos¬ sal marble statue of Nemesis at Rhamnus. A fragment of the head is in the British Museum, and fragments of the pedestal reliefs are in Athens.
agouti \9-'gu-te\ Any of several species (genus Dasyprocta) of rabbit¬ sized rodents that occur in the American tropics (southern Mexico to
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Agra ► Agrippina I 29
Plaster model of the Agora, Athens, as it might have appeared in the 2nd century
AD
AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CLASSICAL STUDIES AT ATHENS
northern South America). Agoutis are 16-24 in. (40-60 cm) long and have a long body, small ears, either a vestigial tail or none at all, and slender feet with long, hooflike claws. Their wiry fur is reddish brown to blackish, with individual hairs banded in what is called the agouti pattern. Agoutis generally live in forests and eat roots, leaves, and fruit.
Agra \'a-gro\ City (pop., 2001:
1,275,134), west-central Uttar Pradesh state, India. It was founded by Sikandar Lodi in the early 16th century on the Yamuna River southeast of Delhi and was intermittently the Mughal capital. The city fell successively to the Jats and the Marathas in the late 18th century and finally to the British in 1803. It is the site of the Taj Mahal and the imperial tomb of Akbar.
Agra monte \a-gra-'mon-ta\ (y Simoni), Aristides (b. June 3,1868, Camagiiey, Cuba—d. Aug. 19, 1931, New Orleans, La., U.S.) Cuban-bom U.S. physician, pathologist, and bacteriologist. Reared in New York City, he received his M.D. from Columbia University. He was a member of the U.S. Army’s Reed Yellow Fever Board, which discovered in 1901 the role of mosquitoes in transmitting yellow fever. As a professor at the Univer¬ sity of Havana (1900-30), he became an influential leader of scientific medicine in Cuba.
Agri Dagi See Mount Ararat
agribusiness Agriculture operated by business; specifically, that part of a modem national economy devoted to the production, processing, and distribution of food and fibre products and byproducts. Commercial farm¬ ing has largely supplanted the family farm in production of cash crops. Some food-processing firms that operate farms have begun to market fresh produce under their brand names. In recent years, conglomerates involved in nonagricultural businesses have entered agribusiness by buying and operating large farms.
Agricola Vo-'gri-ko-loV Georgius orig. Georg Bauer (b. March 24, 1494, Clauchau, Saxony—d. Nov. 21, 1555, Chemnitz) German scholar and scientist known as the father of mineralogy. A town physician in Sax¬ ony (1527-33), he was among the first to found a natural science upon observation as opposed to speculation. His De re metallica (1556) dealt chiefly with mining and smelting; his De natura fossilium (1546), con¬ sidered the first mineralogy textbook, presented the first scientific classi¬ fication of minerals (based on their physical properties) and described many new minerals, their occurrence, and mutual relationships.
Agricola No-'grik-o-bV Gnaeus Julius (b. June 13, ad 40, Forum Julii, Gallia Narbonensis—d. Aug. 23, 93) Roman general. After Agricola served as tribune and quaestor in Britain and Asia, Vespasian appointed him governor of Britain (77/78-84). In that role he conquered parts of Wales and northern England, then advanced into Scotland and set a fron¬ tier between the Firths of Clyde and Forth. In 83 he crossed the Forth and defeated the Caledonians at Mons Graupius; he then occupied Scotland to the fringe of the Highlands, with forts at the main passes and a fortress
at Inchtuthil. Recalled to Rome, Agricola was offered the proconsulship of Asia but chose retirement. His life is known through the writings of his son-in-law Tacitus.
Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) New Deal pro¬ gram to restore U.S. agricultural prosperity during the Great Depression. Established by an act of Congress in 1933, the AAA sought to curtail farm production of certain staples, in order to raise prices. It also established the Commodity Credit Corp., to make loans to farmers and to purchase and store crops in order to maintain farm prices. The program had lim¬ ited success before it was declared unconstitutional in 1936.