Ascheberg was appointed governor of Dal in 1679, and, in 1680, governor-general of Scania, Halland, Göthaborg and Bohuslän; in the same year he was created a fieldmarshal; in 1681 the king appointed him his privy-councillor, in which quality he did good service to his country; and in 1687 he was created Count of Söfdeborg and Agerup, but he is nevertheless called Count of Ascheberg. He died on the 17th of April, 1693. Count Ascheberg left a MS. journal of his campaigns, and other contemporary events, which was of great use to the author of the work cited below. (Swen Bring, Gref Rütger von Ascheberg, Kongeligen Radets, General-Gouverneurens och Fält-Marskalkens Lefwerne. The author of this book is often called Lagerbring.) W. P. CHRISTIAN HEINRICH, Kapellmeister to the Duke of Merseburg, was born at Alt-Stettin, Dec. 29, 1654, where his father, who had been previously kapellmeister at Wolfenbüttel, was settled. After receiving instruction from his father, he was placed under the tuition of Joh. Theile (Fétis says, under that of J. Schütz), and he afterwards became a pupil of Schmeltzer of Vienna, where he added to his other musical studies that of the violin. In 1677 he received an appointment in the orchestra of the Duke of Zeitz, and afterwards that of principal violin in the band of the Duke of Merseburg. In 1692 he again visited Vienna, where he was recognised as one of the best violin-players of his time; and having dedicated to the emperor six sonatas for the violin, he received the present of a gold chain and a handsome sum of money. In 1713 he was appointed kapellmeister to the Duke of Merseburg, and six years afterwards he retired to Jena, where he died, December 13, 1732. The only work which he is known to have published is entitled "Gast- und Hochzeit-Freude; bestehend in Sonaten, Präludien, Allemanden, Curanten, Baletten, Arien, Sarabanten, mit 3, 4, 5, und 6 Stimmen, nebst dem Basso continuo." (Gerber, Lexicon der Tonkünstler; Fétis, Biographie_universelle des Musiciens.) E. T.

ASCHENBRENNER,

ASCHENBURG, R. SIMEON, the Levite

,(ר' שמעון הלוי מאשנבורג או אושנבורג)

a German Jewish commentator, who lived during the middle and latter part of the sixteenth century. His family was settled at Aschaffenburg on the Main, whence he derives his surname. He has been variously misnamed by various authors. Bartolocci, perhaps after Hottinger, calls him Uschemburg, and the "Acta Eruditorum Lipsiensia" have made it into Osneburg. His principal work is called "Debek Tob” (“Good Solder," Is. xli. 7), which is a super-commentary on the celebrated commentary of Rashi (R. Solomon Jarchi) on the Pentateuch, with engravings illustrative of the subject. It was first printed at Venice by Jo. de Gara,

under the author's own eye, A.M. 5348 (A.D. 1588), in 4to. De Rossi has given this edition as A.D. 1548, but this is most probably an error of the press; as he adds, that after finishing it he left Venice for Jerusalem, to pass the rest of his life in that city, and we shall have occasion to show, in referring to another of his works, that this journey to Palestine took place as late at least as the year A.D. 1591. The "Debek Tob" was also printed at Cracow by Isaac ben Aaron Prostitz, A.M. 5350 (A.D. 1590), and A.M. 5353 (A.D. 1593), and at Lublin, A.M. 5398 (A.D. 1638), and at Prague, the date of which we do not find; these editions appear to be all in 4to., and were all in Rabbi Oppenheimer's Library. The last edition, edited by Solomon Salmon Ben Moses Raphael, of London, which has the commentary of Rashi in the square Hebrew letter, and the notes of Aschenburg in the Rabbinical character below, was printed at Amsterdam by Solomon Ben Joseph Probs or Proops, A.M. 5474 (A.D. 1714), 12mo. De Rossi calls it a work most useful for those who would understand the commentary of Rashi on the Pentateuch. He also wrote "Biurim". (" Explanations or Illustrations"); they refer to the works of celebrated Rabbis, and the manuscript was in the possession of Joh. Jac. Schudtius. It had a preface by R. Asher Ben Jacob Phorins, in which he says that he received the work at Venice from R. Simeon ben Isaac, the Levite, of Frankfort, then taking his departure for the Holy Land, A.M. 5391 (A.D. 1631), by whom it was written. It seems probable that Wolff has here made an error in the date, and that 5391 should be 5351 (A.D. 1591), for the Simeon ben Isaac here named is almost certainly Aschenburg himself, who is called a Doctor of Frankfort on the title of the Cracow edition of the "Debek Tob." (Wolfius, Biblioth. Hebr. i. 1131, iii. 1139; De Rossi, Dizion. Storic. degl. Autor. Ebr., i. 57; Bartoloccius, Biblioth. Mag. Rabb., iv. 412; Hottinger, Biblioth. Oriental., ch. i. p. 6; Acta Eruditor. Lips., 1710, 338.)

ASCIA'NO, GIOVANNI D', a Sienese painter, of the latter part of the fourteenth century. He was the pupil of Berna da Siena, and completed, in the pieve or parish church of Arezzo, a series of frescoes which his master had left unfinished. He surpassed Berna in colouring. (Lanzi Storia Pittorica, &c.) R. N. W.

ASCIO'NE, AN'GELO, a clever Neapolitan fruit-painter of the latter part of the seventeenth century. He was the scholar of Gio. Battista Ruoppoli. (Dominici, Vite de Pittori Napolitani.) R. N. W.

A'SCLAPO. [TIRO.] ASCLEPIADA (Ασκληπιάδαι), the name of the descendants of Esculapius

The authorities for each particular indivi- | dual will be given in the articles on such names as may be thought worthy of special notice: it may be sufficient to state here that the mythological parts rest chiefly on the authority of Pausanias; the genealogy, from Podalirius to Hippocrates II., or the Great, is taken chiefly from John Tzetzes, confirmed occasionally by other incidental notices; and the later names are mentioned by Suidas, with a few hints from Galen and other writers. The dates are (in every instance except Hippocrates II. and Aristotle I.) entirely conjectural, and are merely intended to point out the probable century in which each person lived. But besides the names which are contained in the genealogy, several other persons are mentioned as having belonged to the family of the Asclepiada. Thus Suidas and Tzetzes speak of a person named Thymbræus of Cos, who had two sons, each of whom (singularly enough) was called Hippocrates, forming the fifth and sixth individuals of that name in their lists; and they also mention Praxianax as being the father of Hippocrates VII. Besides these, we find the names of Pausanias, the son of Anchitus; Praxagoras, the son of Nicarchus, or Nearchus; Critodemus, Xenophon, Ctesias, and others. (Le Clerc, Hist. de la Med.; Fabricius, Biblioth. Græca, vol. xiii. p. 247, ed. vet.; Littré, Œuvres Complètes d' Hippocr., tome i. p. 34, &c.) W. A. G. ASCLE PIADES ('Aσкλntiádns), the name of several ancient Greek physicians, some of whom may perhaps have themselves taken the appellation, either as a kind of honorary title, or to intimate their real or assumed connection with the family of the Asclepiada. A list of the physicians of this name is given in Le Clerc's "Hist. de la Méd. ;" Fabricius, "Biblioth. Græca," vol. xiii. p. 87, et seq., ed. vet.; and also in a little work by C. G. Gumpert, entitled Asclepiadis Bithyni Fragmenta," Weimar, 1794, 8vo. There is another work on the same subject (which the writer has never met with), by C. F. Harless, entitled "De Medicis Veteribus Asclepiades Dictis," Bonn, 1828, 4to. This author enumerates thirteen physicians of this name; but of these there are only three that require notice.

66

C. CALPURNIUS ASCLEPIADES was born at Prusa, in Bithynia, A.D. 88, and appears to have enjoyed a great reputation, as he was presented with the freedom of seven cities by the Emperor Trajan. He died at the age of seventy, A.D. 158. From his having been a native of Prusa some persons have supposed him to have been a descendant of the more celebrated physician, commonly called "Asclepiades Bithynus." Reinesius has an ancient inscription in his honour. (Inscript. class xi. § 4, p. 608.)

ASCLEPIADES PHARMACION (Papμakiwv), so called, apparently, from his knowledge of Materia Medica, lived about the end of the

first century after Christ, or the beginning of the second, as he quotes Andromachus, Dioscorides, and Scribonius Largus, and is himself quoted by Galen. He is sometimes called Asclepiades Junior, to distinguish him from Asclepiades Bithynus. He wrote a work on Pharmacy, in ten books, of which the former five treated of external remedies, and were called by the name" Marcellas;" so that they were quoted as "the first Marcellas," "the second Marcellas," &c. The other five books were devoted to internal remedies, and were in a similar way inscribed with the name "Mason." None of these books are now extant, but they are very frequently quoted by Galen, and generally with apparent approbation. From the numerous extracts thus preserved we may judge of the general character of the work, which seems to have contained much valuable matter, together with some remedies absurd and superstitious. A tolerably full account of his prescriptions is given by Haller, in his "Bibliotheca Chirurgica," and "Bibliotheca Medicinæ Practicæ." Some of his medical formulæ are stated by Dr. Cramer, in his "Anecdota Græca Parisiensia," to be preserved in a MS. in the Royal Library at Paris, which (judging from the titles) are probably copied from Galen, as they are found in his work "De Compos. Medicam. Sec. Locos." Le Clerc and others have fallen into a mistake, which it may be useful to notice, in supposing that the full name of Asclepiades Pharmacion was Marcus Terentius Asclepiades. The passage on which this conjecture is founded is, perhaps, corrupt; but even if it be sound, the person mentioned cannot be Asclepiades Pharmacion, as the whole chapter, where the name occurs, is extracted from one of his works.

ASCLEPIADES BITHY'NUS, one of the most celebrated of the ancient physicians, is generally supposed to have been a native of one of the towns called Prusa in Bithynia, and to have been born about the middle of the second century B.C. He travelled about for some time when young, visiting, among other places, Alexandria, Parium in Mysia, and probably Athens, where (if the story told by Athenæus refers to him) he gained his living by grinding at a mill during the night, in order that he might attend the lectures on philosophy during the day. It does not appear quite certain what was the subject of his early studies, as he is said to have gained some of his medical knowledge during his travels, and to have settled at Rome as a rhetorician. Probably, however, he had learned a little of everything, and, like many other personages of a similar character, was quite ready to follow any profession or employment that seemed most likely to answer his present purpose. His success at Rome as a rhetorician (for it seems to be unreasonable scepticism to disbelieve Pliny's statement) was

not very encouraging; but this was soon more than counterbalanced by his extraordinary popularity as a physician. This may be accounted for in various ways: his own talents were no doubt great, and they were displayed to the best advantage by a ready and persuasive eloquence. He took warning from the fate of Archagathus (the first foreign physician that settled at Rome), and endeavoured to please and flatter the tastes of his patients in every possible way. Some happy and wonderful cures added to his fame, and particularly his having discovered a person to be alive when he was supposed to be dead, and was about to be buried. He also managed to mix in very good society, and is known to have been intimate with the orator, M. Licinius Crassus; and lastly, the fact of his enjoying excellent health himself, and his boasting wager with Fortune, staking his reputation as a physician on its continuance, may no doubt have had some influence with the people. Of the events of his life after his arrival at Rome, nothing more is known, except that he was invited by Mithridates the Great, king of Pontus, to reside at his court; that he declined the offer, and sent the king some of his works instead; and that (as Pliny says) he won his bet with Fortune, and died at last at a great age, from accidentally falling down stairs, probably about the middle of the first century B.C. Among his pupils are mentioned Artorius (the physician to Augustus), Philonides, Titus Aufidius, Nicon, Clodius, Niceratus, and above all, Themison, the founder of the sect of the Methodici. The school founded by Asclepiades himself was very popular, and his system, in different modifications, long continued to exercise an important influence on medical science. His own personal character and talents have been very differently estimated; for while the general opinion of the ancients was decidedly favourable to him, that of most of the moderns has been almost as uniformly the contrary. Probably the judgment of the latter is nearer the truth, and Asclepiades is to be classed with Paracelsus, Van Helmont, and other clever medical adventurers of still more modern times. His writings appear to have been numerous: nineteen on different medical subjects are mentioned by Gumpert, of which nothing but some fragments remain. So much, however, has been said of Asclepiades by different ancient authors, that we are able to trace out his philosophical and medical opinions with tolerable minuteness. He took, as the fundamental principle of his pathology, the doctrine of atoms, or corpuscular system; but appears to have followed the theory of Heraclides of Pontus, rather than of Epicurus, as his corpuscular elements (Ŏyko) differed in some degree from the atoms of the latter philosopher. He supposed them to be incongruous and without propor

tion (avapμo), divisible and liable to be broken (@pavoroí), and subject to various changes and accidents (TanTol); to move about without order in infinite space, to knock against each other, and thus, from their fracture, to form others still more minute, from the union of which were produced visible bodies. These opinions he applied to the explanation of the questions concerning the formation of the human body, the origin of disease, &c., man being the result of the accidental union of corpuscles in a determinate form, and health or sickness being produced according as their motion in the pores of the human body is regular and harmonious, or the reverse. A full account of his medical practice and opinions may be found in the works of Le Clerc, Haller, Sprengel, and especially of Gumpert, from which the following specimens have been selected, as being some of the most curious and worthy of notice. He knew little of anatomy, though in this respect he probably was not much, if at all, behind his contemporaries; for though he may have confounded nerves and ligaments, and veins and arteries, yet it would not be difficult to produce instances of the same blunders in still later writers. He seems to have been the first person who divided diseases into acute and chronic; he everywhere disparages the power and tendency of the efforts of Nature, saying that they were as often injurious as salutary. It is from him that the well-known maxim proceeds, that a physician's duty consists in healing his patients safely, speedily, and pleasantly; he rejected violent remedies, and placed his chief dependence on diet and regimen; he was sparing in the use of emetics, and frequently, instead of purgatives, ordered a clyster; he was a friend to blood-letting, but seldom had recourse to cupping; he recommended friction, different kinds of exercise, cold bathing, and cold affusion; he used wine much more freely than his predecessors, which was said to be one of the causes of his popularity; he seems to have used certain remedies on certain days, ordering for instance, in a tertian fever, a clyster on the third days after the attack, an emetic on the fifth, repose in bed on the sixth, &c., which method was afterwards extended by his successors to a ridiculous degree. His chief surgical improvement was his venturing to recommend the operation of bronchotomy. There is extant a short Greek poem, consisting of eighty-three verses, entitled ""ryεινὰ Παραγγέλματα,” Sanatory Precepts." This has been ascribed to Asclepiades of Bithynia, but a writer in the " Rheinisches Museum" (p. 444 in the vol. for 1843), has shown that it could not have been written before the seventh century after Christ. The first twenty-five lines appeared in Aretin's "Beiträge zur Geschichte der Literatur," 1807, vol. ix. p. 1001: the whole was published

66

without a translation, but with critical notes, | in the Vienna "Jahrbuch der Literatur," 1834, vol. lxv. p. 93, by Schubart, and also by R. von Welz, Würzburg, 1842. A short Greek poem in barbarous iambics, consisting of twenty-one lines, with the same title, but ascribed to the Asclepiadæ, is inserted in the first volume of Ideler's "Physici et Medici Graeci Minores," Berlin, 1841, 8vo.; but we are unable to say whether these lines form part of the poem mentioned above. Besides the works of Gumpert and Harless on the life and writings of Asclepiades, the following on the same subject are mentioned by Choulant, "Handb. der Bücherkunde für die Aeltere Medicin," Leipzig, 8vo. 1841; Ant. Cocchi, "Discorso Primo sopra Asclepiade," Florence, 1758, 4to.; Giov. Fort. Bianchini, "La Medicina d'Asclepiade per ben curare le Malattie Acute, raccolta da varii Frammenti Greci e Latini," Venice, 1769, 4to.; K. F. Burdach," Asklepiades und John Brown, eine Parallele," Leipzig, 1800, 8vo.; K. F. Burdach, "Scriptorum de Asclepiade Index," Leipzig, 1800, 4to. W. A. G. ASCLEPIADES ('Aoñλnñiádns). Besides the physicians who were known by this name, there were a considerable number of ancient Greeks, chiefly literary men, who bore it in common. All the works of these persons have perished, except a series of epigrams and a few unimportant fragments in prose; and although brief references to the writers abound in the Greek and Roman authors (especially in those of the later periods), there are few cases in which it is possible to collect details as to the lives of the writers alluded to, or even to appropriate the notices with certainty to the particular persons for whom they were intended. The materials for a history of those Asclepiada who were not physicians have been industriously collected and ingeniously used by Meursius and Vossius: Meursius, "Notæ in Chalcidium," p. 24-27; Vossius, "De Historicis Græcis," lib. i. cap. 10, 18, 22, lib. iii. part 3. References to the principal ancient authorities will be found at the following places in Harles' edition of the "Bibliotheca Græca" of Fabricius: i. 441, 445, 465, 507, 615; ii. 113, 289; iii. 35, 513, 761, 797; iv. 466, 579; v. 112, 229, 535, 719, 750; vi. 218, 254, 304, 360, 611; vii. 374, 476; x. 762; xi. 246, 583. The principal passages, indeed almost all, are cited and commented on by Werfer, in the dissertation noted below.

Those Asclepiade of whose history any particulars can be related with confidence may be conveniently distributed in three classes: 1. Poets; 2. Literary men of other kinds; 3. Christian ecclesiastics.

1. The poets who bore the_name_were three or more. ASCLEPIADES, A LYRIC POET, gave his name to the Asclepiadic verse; although, according to Fortunatianus, it was not invented by him, but had been used by

|

Alcæus and Sappho before his time. (Gaisford, Hephaestion, ed. 1810, p. 58; Gaisford, Scriptores Latini Rei Metricæ, 1837, p. 353.) ASCLEPIADES OF SAMOS lived in the Alexandrine period. Theocritus is said by his scholiast to have been a pupil of this Asclepiades, whom he and Moschus name with great respect, and whom Meleager likewise commemorates in the poem by which he prefaced his collection of epigrams. All the three give to Asclepiades the name of Sicelides, which is supposed to denote that his father's name was Sicelus. The manner in which he is spoken of by Theocritus and Moschus shows him to have been a writer of pastoral poetry; but none of his works of that class exist. The scholiast of Theocritus, however, informs us that he wrote epigrams likewise. To him, therefore, have been assigned the thirty-nine epigrams which appear in the Greek Anthology under the name of Asclepiades (Brunck, i. 211-219; Jacobs, i. 144-153). But it is uncertain how many of them belong to this Asclepiades.

ASCLEPIADES OF ADRAMYTTIUM, the third of those who have been mentioned above as poets bearing this name, is expressly set forth in the manuscripts as the author of one at least of those epigrams. (Jacobs, Anthologia Græca, vii. 21-56, xiii. 864; Fabricius, Bibliotheca Græca, ii. 113, iv. 466; Passow, in Ersch and Gruber, Allgemeine Encyclopädie; Theocritus, vii. 40, with the Scholium; Moschus, iii. 98; Meleager, i. 46.)

2. Of the Asclepiada whom it was proposed to place in the miscellaneous class, there are only four as to whom we know any thing positive.

ASCLEPIADES OF MYRLEA, a native of Bithynia, is commemorated by Suidas. According to that writer, he was the son of one Diotimus, studied at Alexandria as a youth in the reign of the fourth Ptolemy, and taught at Rome in the time of Pompey the Great. The long interval which elapsed between Ptolemy Philopator and Pompey shows that there is here some mistake; and Vossius, who has been followed by most of the more modern critics, supposes that Suidas confounds two successive Asclepiada, both of whom may have been natives of the same town. There are, however, no materials for allotting to each of the two his share in the authorship of the numerous works which Suidas asserts to have been written by Asclepiades of Myrlea. Meursius gives the following list of these, citing the authorities for each article:-1. A work called piλoσóowv βιβλίων διορθωτικά. 2. A treatise on the poet Cratinus. 3. A work περὶ Νεστορίδος. 4. A work on grammarians (περὶ γραμματιKv), containing eleven books or more. A commentary (πóμvnμa) on the Odyssey. 6. A history of Bithynia, of which the tenth book is referred to. To this list should be added-7. A work on the nations of Spain,

5.