assumption the laws of Association naturally emerge in the following 1894), and in Mind, xii. (1887) offding, Hist. of Mod. Philos.

poetry, has always been held to be a most dangerous practice
in prose.
Assonance as a conscious art, in fact, is scarcely
recognized as legitimate in English literature.
(E. G.)
ASSUAN, or ASWAN, a town of Upper Egypt on the east bank
of the Nile, facing Elephantine Island below the First Cataract,
and 590 m. S. of Cairo by rail. It is the capital of a province of
the same name-the southernmost province of Egypt. Popula-
tion (1907) 16,128. The principal buildings are along the river
front, where a broad embankment has been built. Popular
among Europeans as a winter health resort and tourist centre,
Assuan is provided with large modern hotels (one situated on
Elephantine Island), and there is an English church. South-east
of the railway station are the ruins of a temple built by Ptolemy
Euergetes, and still farther south are the famous granite quarries
of Syene. On Elephantine Island are an ancient nilometer and
other remains, including a granite gateway built under Alexander
the Great at the temple of the local ram-headed god Chnubis or
Chnumis (Eg. Khnum), perhaps on account of his connexion
with Ammon (q.v.); two small but very beautiful temples of the
XVIIIth Dynasty were destroyed there about 1820. In the hill
on the opposite side of the river are tombs of the VIth to XIIth
dynasties, opened by Lord Grenfell in 1885-1886. The inscrip-
tions show that they belonged to frontier-prefects whose ex-
peditions into Nubia, &c., are recorded in them. Three and a
half miles above the town, at the beginning of the Cataract, the
Assuan Dam stretches across the Nile. This great engineering
work was finished in December 1902 (see IRRIGATION: Egypt;
and NILE). Above the dam the Nile presents the appearance of
a vast lake. Consequent on the rise of the water-level several
islands have been wholly and others partly submerged, among
the latter Philae (q.v.). On the east bank opposite Philae is the
village of Shellal, southern terminus of the Egyptian railway
system and the starting point of steamers for the Sudan.

ASSUMPSIT (" he has undertaken," from Lat. assumere), a word applied to an action for the recovery of damages by reason of the breach or non-performance of a simple contract, either express or implied, and whether made orally or in writing. Assumpsit was the word always used in pleadings by the plaintiff to set forth the defendant's undertaking or promise, hence the name of the action. Claims in actions of assumpsit were ordinarily divided into (a) common or indebitatus assumpsit, brought usually on an implied promise, and (b) special assumpsit, founded on an express promise. Assumpsit as a form of action became obsolete after the passing of the Judicature Acts 1873 and 1875 (See further CONTRACT; PLEADING and TORT.)

ASSUMPTION, FEAST OF. The feast of the "Assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary " (Lat. festum assumptionis, dormitionis, depositionis, pausationis B. V M.; Gr. Koiunois or åváλnfis tŷs EOTÓKOυ) is a festival of the Christian Church celebrated on the 15th of August, in commemoration of the miraculous ascent into heaven of the mother of Christ. The belief on which this festiva! rests has its origin in apocryphal sources, such as the els r kоiμŋow τĤs vπeрayias deoroivns ascribed to the Apostle John, and the de transitu Mariae, assigned to Melito, bishop of Sardis, but actually written about A.D. 400. Pope Gelasius I. (492-496) included them in the list of apocryphal books condemned by the Decretum de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis; but they were accepted as authentic by the pseudo-Dionysius (de nominbus divinis c. 3), whose writings date probably from the 5th century, and by Gregory of Tours (d. 593 or 594). The latter in his De gloria martyrum (i. 4) gives the following account of the miracle. As all the Apostles were watching round the dying Mary, Jesus appeared with His angels and committed the soul of His Mother to the Archangel Michael Next day, as they were carrying the body to the grave, Christ again appeared and carried it with Him in a cloud to heaven, where it was reunited with the soul. This story is much amplified in the account given by St John of Damascus in the homilies In dormitionem Mariae, which are still read in the Roman Church as the lesson during the octave of the feast. According to this the patriarchs and Adam and Eve also appear at the death-bed, to praise their daughter, through whom they had been rescued from the curse of God, a Jew who touches the body loses both his hands, which are restored to him by the Apostles, and the body lies three days in the grave without corruption before it is taken up into heaven

In ancient times the chief city, called Yeb, capital of the frontier nome, the first of the Upper Country, was on the island of Elephantine, guarding the entrance to Egypt. But, owing to the cataract, the main route for traffic with the south was by land along the eastern shore. Here, near the granite quarrieswhence was obtained the material for many magnificent monuments-there grew up another city, at first dependent on and afterwards successor to the island town This city was called Swan, the Mart, whence came the Greek Sycne and Arabic Aswan. Syene is twice mentioned (as Sevench) in the prophecies of Ezekiel, and papyri, discovered on the island, and dated in the reigns of Artaxerxes and Darius II. (464-404 B.C.), reveal the existence of a colony of Jews, with a temple to Yahu (Yahweh, Jehovah), which had been founded at some time before the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses in 523 B.C. They also mention the great frontier garrison against the Ethiopians, referred to by Herodotus. Syene was one of the bases used by Eratosthenes in his calculations for the measurement of the earth. In Roman times Syene was strongly garrisoned to resist the attacks of the desert tribes. Thither, in virtual banishment, Juvenal was sent as prefect by Domitian. In the early days of Christianity the town became the seat of a bishopric, and numerous ruins of Coptic convents are in the neighbourhood Syene appears also to have flourished under its first Arab rulers, but in the 12th century was raided and ruined by Bedouin and Nubian tribes. On the conquest of Egypt by the Turks in the 16th century, Selim I. placed a garrison here, from whom, in part, the present townsmen descend. As the southern frontier town of Egypt See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (ed. 3), s. " Maria "; Mgr.L. proper, Assuan in times of peace was the entrepôt of a consider- Duchesne, Christian Worship (Eng. trans., London, 1904); Wetzer able trade with the Sudan and Abyssinia, and in 1880 its trade and Welte, Kirchenlexikon, s. "Marienfeste "; The Catholic Encyclo Apocrypha," was valued at £2,000,000 annually. During the Mahdia (1884-Pacdia (London and New York, 1907. &c.), s. Assumption 1898) Assuan was strongly garrisoned by Egyptian and British troops. Since the defeat of the khalifa at Omdurman and the fixing (1899) of the Egyptian frontier farther south, the military value of Assuan has declined.

For the Jewish colony see A. H. Sayce and A. E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri discovered at Assuan (Oxford, 1906); E. Sachau, Drei Aramaische papyrus-Urkunden aus Elephantine (Berlin, 1907). For the dam see W. Willcocks. The Nile Reservoir Dam at Assuan (London, 1901). (F. LL. G.)

The festival is first mentioned by St Andrew of Crete (c 650). and, according to the Byzantine historian Nicephorus Callistus (Hist. Eccles. xvii. 28), was first instituted by the Empero Maurice in A.D. 582. From the East it was borrowed by Rome. where there is evidence of its existence so early as the 7th century In the Gallican Church it was only adopted at the same time as the Roman liturgy But though the festival thus became incorporated in the regular usage of the Western Church, the belief in the resurrection and bodily assumption of the Virgin has never been defined as a dogma and remains a pious opinion," which the faithful may reject without imperilling their immortal souls, though not apparently-to quote Melchior Cano (De Locis Theolog. xii. 10)—without " insolent temerity," since such rejec tion would be contrary to the common agreement of the Church By the reformed Churches, including the Church of England, the festival is not observed, having been rejected at the Reforma tion as being neither primitive nor founded upon any " certain warrant of Holy Scripture."

ASSUR (Auth. Vers. Asshur), a Hebrew name, occurring in of Assyria. The country of Assyria, which in the Assyro-Babymany passages of the Old Testament, for the land and dominion lonian literature is known as mat Assur (ki), "land of Assur," took its name from the ancient city of Aššur, situated at the

The name Assur is not connected with the Asshur of 1 Chron.ii. 24; ii. 45. Note that it is customary to spell the god-name Ašur and the country-name Aššus.

concession on the part of the Assyrians to the traditions of the principalities. Tirhakah died 667 B.C., and his successor south, for which they always manifested a profound respect. Tandaman (Tanuat-Amon) entered Upper Egypt, where a general Even during the period that the Assyrian monarchs exercised revolt against Assyria took place, headed by Thebes. Memphis complete sway over the south, they rested their claims to the was taken by assault and the Assyrian troops driven out of the control of Babylonia on the approval of Marduk, and they or country. Tyre seems to have revolted at the same time. Assurtheir representatives never failed to perform the ceremony of bani-pal, however, lost no time in pouring fresh forces into the "taking the hand" of Marduk, which was the formal method revolted province. Once more the Assyrian army made its way of assuming the throne in Babylonia. Apart from this conces- up the Nile, Thebes was plundered, and its temples destroyed, sion, it is Assur who pre-eminently presides over the fortunes of two obelisks being carried to Nineveh as trophies (see Nahum iii. Assyria. In his name, and with his approval as indicated by 8). Meanwhile the siege of insular Tyre was closely pressed; favourable omens, the Assyrian armies march to battle. His its water-supply was cut off, and it was compelled to surrender. symbol is carried into the thick of the fray, so that the god is Assur-bani-pal was now at the height of his power. The land of actually present to grant assistance in the crisis, and the victory the Mannā (Minni), south-east of Ararat, had been wasted, its is with becoming humility invariably ascribed by the kings capital captured by the Assyrians, and its king reduced to vassal"to the help of Assur." With the fall of Assyria the rule of age. A war with Teumman of Elam had resulted in the overAssur also comes to an end, whereas it is significant that the throw of the Elamite army; the head of Teumman was sent to cult of the gods of Babylonia--more particularly of Marduk- Nineveh, and another king, Umman-igas, appointed by the survives for several centuries the loss of political independence Assyrians. The kings of Cilicia and the Tabal offered their through Cyrus' capture of Babylonia in 539 B.C. The name of daughters to the harem of Assur-bani-pal; embassies came from Assur's temple at Assur, represented by the mounds of Kaleh | Ararat, and even Gyges of Lydia despatched envoys to "the Sherghat, was known as E-khar-sag-gal-kur-kurra, i.e." House great king" in the hope of obtaining help against the Cimof the great mountain of the lands." Its exact site has been merians. Suddenly the mighty empire began to totter. The determined by excavations conducted at Kaleh Sherghat since Lydian king, finding that Nineveh was helpless to assist him, 1903 by the German Oriental Society. The name indicates the turned instead to Egypt and furnished the mercenaries with existence of the same conception regarding sacred edifices in whose help Psammetichus drove the Assyrians out of the country Assyria as in Babylonia, where we find such names as E-Kur and suppressed his brother satraps. Egypt was thus lost to ("mountain house") for the temple of Bel (q.v.) at Nippur, and Assyria for ever (660 B.C.). In Babylonia, moreover, discontent E-Saggila ("lofty house ") for Marduk's (q.v.) temple at Babylon was arising, and finally Samas-sum-yukin put himself at the and that of Ea (q.v.) at Eridu, and in view of the general depend-head of the national party and declared war upon his brother. ence of Assyrian religious beliefs as of Assyrian culture in general, there is little reason to doubt that the name of Assur's temple represents a direct adaptation of such a name as E-Kur, further embellished by epithets intended to emphasize the supreme control of the god to whom the edifice was dedicated. The foundation of the edifice can be traced back to Uspia (Ushpia), | c. 2000 B.C., and may turn out to be even older. Besides the chief temple, the capital contained temples and chapels to Anu, Adad, Ishtar, Marduk, Gula, Sin, Shamash, so that we are to assume the existence of a sacred precinct in Assur precisely as in the religious centres of the south. On the removal of the seat of residence of the Assyrian kings to Calah (c. 1300 B.C.), and then in the 8th century to Nineveh, the centre of the Assur cult was likewise transferred, though the sanctity of the old seat at Assur continued to be recognized. At Nineveh, which remained the capital till the fall of the Assyrian empire in 606 B.C., Assur had as his rival Ishtar, who was the real patron deity of the place, but a reconciliation was brought about by making Ishtar the consort of the chief god. The combination was, however, of an artificial character, and the consciousness that Ishtar was in reality an independent goddess never entirely died out. She too, like Assur, was viewed as a war deity, and to such an extent was this the case that at times it would appear that she, rather than Assur, presided over the fortunes of the Assyrian armies. (M. JA.) ASSUR-BANI-PAL ("Assur creates a son"), the grand monarque of Assyria, was the prototype of the Greek Sardanapalus, and appears probably in the corrupted form of Asnapper in Ezra iv. 10. He had been publicly nominated king of Assyria (on the 12th of Iyyar) by his father Esar-haddon, some time before the latter's death, Babylonia being assigned to his twinbrother Samas-sum-yukin, in the hope of gratifying the national feeling of the Babylonians. After Esar-haddon's death in 668 B.C. the first task of Assur-bani-pal was to finish the Egyptian campaign. Tirhakah, who had reoccupied Egypt, fled to Ethiopia, and the Assyrian army spent forty days in ascending the Nile from Memphis to Thebes. Shortly afterwards Necho, the satrap of Sais, and two others were detected intriguing with Tirhakah; Necho and one of his companions were sent in chains to Nineveh, but were there pardoned and restored to their 1 As essentially a national god, he is almost identical in character with the early Yahweh of Israel. See Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, Religion of Ancient Babylonia, p. 129.

Elamite aid was readily forthcoming, especially when stimulated by bribes, and the Arab tribes joined in the revolt. The resources of the Assyrian empire were strained to their utmost. But thanks in some measure to the intestine troubles in Elam, the Babylonian army and its allies were defeated and driven into Babylon, Sippara, Borsippa and Cutha. One by one the cities fell, Babylon being finally starved into surrender (648 B.C.) after Samas-sum-yukin had burnt himself in his palace to avoid falling into the conqueror's hands. It was now the turn of the Arabs, some of whom had been in Babylon during the siege, while others had occupied themselves in plundering Edom, Moab and the Hauran. Northern Arabia was traversed by the Assyrian forces, the Nabataeans were almost exterminated, and the desert tribes terrorized into order. Elam was alone left to be dealt with, and the last resources of the empire were therefore expended in preventing it from ever being again a thorn in the Assyrian side.

But the effort had exhausted Assyria. Drained of men and resources it was no longer able to make head against the Cimmerian and Scythian hordes who now poured over western Asia. The Cimmerian Dugdammē (Lygdamis in Strabo i. 3, 16), whom Assur-bani-pal calls "a limb of Satan," after sacking Sardis, had been slain in Cilicia, but other Scythian invaders came to take his place. When Assur-bani-pal died in 626 (?) B.C. his empire was already in decay, and within a few years the end came. He was luxurious and indolent, entrusting the command of his armies to others whose successes he appropriated, cruel and superstitious, but a magnificent patron of art and literature. The great library of Nineveh was to a considerable extent his creation, and scribes were kept constantly employed in it copying the older tablets of Babylonia, though unfortunately their patron's tastes inclined rather to omens and astrology than to subjects of more modern interest. The library was contained in the palace that he built on the northern side of the mound of Kuyunjik and lined with sculptured slabs which display Assyrian art at its best. Whether Kandalanu (Kinēladanos), who became viceroy of Babylonia after the suppression of the revolt, was Assur-bani-pal under another name, or a different personage, is still doubtful (see SARDANAPALUS).

AUTHORITIES.-George Smith, History of Assurbanipal (1871); S. A. Smith, Die Keilschrifttexte Asurbanipals (1887-1889); P. Jensen in E. Schrader's Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, ii. (1889); J. A. Knudtzon, Assyrische Gebete an den Sonnengott (1893); C. Lehmann, Schamashschumukin (1892). (A. H. S.)

ASSUS [mod. Behram], an ancient Greek city of the Troad, on the Adramyttian Gulf. The situation is one of the most magnificent in all the Greek lands. The natural cleavage of the trachyte into joint planes had already scarped out shelves which it was comparatively easy for human labour to shape; and so, high up this cone of trachyte, the Greek town of Assus was built, tier above tier, the summit of the crag being crowned with a Doric temple of Athena. The view from the summit is very beautiful and of great historical interest. In front is Lesbos, one of whose towns, Methymna, is said to have sent forth the founders of Assus, as early, perhaps, as 1000 or 900 B.C. The whole south coast-line of the Troad is seen, and in the south-east the ancient territory of Pergamum, from whose masters the possession of Assus passed to Rome by the bequest of Attalus III. (133 B.C.). The great heights of Ida rise in the east. Northward the Tuzla is seen winding through a rich valley. This valley was traversed by the road which St Paul must have followed when he came overland from Alexandria Troas to Assus, leaving his fellowtravellers to proceed by sea. this road led, is still flanked by two massive towers, of Hellenic The north-west gateway, to which work. On the shore below, the ancient mole can still be traced by large blocks under the clear water. Assus affords the only harbour on the 50 m. of coast between Cape Lectum and the east end of the Adramyttian Gulf; hence it must always have been the chief shipping-place for the exports of the southern Troad. The great natural strength of the site protected it against petty assailants; but, like other towns in that region, it has known many masters-Lydians, Persians, the kings of Pergamum, Romans and Ottoman Turks. From the Persian wars to about 350 B.C. Assus enjoyed at least partial independence. It was about 348-345 B.C. that Aristotle spent three years at Assus with Hermeas, an ex-slave who had succeeded his former master Eubulus as despot of Assus and Atarneus. Aristotle has left some verses from an invocation to Arete (Virtue), commemorating the worth of Hermeas, who had been seized by Persian treachery and put to death.

Under its Turkish name of Behram, Assus is still the commercial port of the southern Troad, being the place to which loads of valonia are conveyed by camels from all parts of the country. Explorations were conducted at Assus in 1881-1883 by Mr J. T. Clarke for the Archaeological Institute of America. The main object was to clear the Doric temple of Athena, built about 470 B.C. This temple is remarkable for a sculptured architrave which took the place of the ordinary frieze. The scenes are partly mythological (labours of Heracles), partly purely heraldic. Eighteen panels were transported to the Louvre in 1838; other fragments rewarded the Americans, and a scientific ground-plan was drawn. The well-preserved Hellenistic walls were also studied.

in 1802. In 1805 he became professor of classical literature in the university of Landshut, where he remained till 1826, when it was transferred to Munich. There he lived till his death on the 31st of October 1841. In recognition of his work he was made an aulic councillor and a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. He is known principally for his work during the last twenty-five years of his life on the dialogues of Plato. His Platon's Leben und Schriften (1816) was the first of those critical inquiries into the life and works of Plato which originated in the Introductions of Schleiermacher and the historical scepticism of Niebuhr and Wolf. Distrusting tradition, he took a few of the finest dialogues as his standard, and from internal evidence denounced as spurious not only those which are generally admitted to be so (Epinomis, Minos, Theages, Arastae, Clitophon, Hipparchus, Eryxias, Letters and Definitions), but also the Meno, Euthydemus, Charmides, Lysis, Laches, First and Second Alcibiades, Hippias Major and Minor, Ion, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and even (against Aristotle's explicit assertion) The Laws. earliest, marked chiefly by the poetical and dramatic element, The genuine dialogues he divides into three series:-(1) the i.e. Protagoras, Phaedrus, Gorgias, Phaedo; (2) the second, marked by dialectic subtlety, i.e. Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, Parmenides, Cratylus; (3) the third group, combining both qualities harmoniously, i.e. the Philebus, Symposium, Republic, Timaeus, Critias. The work was followed by a complete edition of Plato's works (11 vols., 1819-1832) with a Latin translation and commentary. His last work was the Lexicon Platonicum (3 vols., 1834-1839), which is both valuable and comprehensive. In his works on aesthetics he combined the views of Schelling with those of Winckelmann, Lessing, Kant, Herder, Schiller and others. His histories of philosophy are marked more by critical scholarship than by originality of thought, though they are interesting as asserting the now familiar principle that the history of philosophy is not the history of opinions, but of reason as a whole; he was among of thought. Beside his works on Plato, he wrote, on aesthetics, the first to attempt to formulate a principle of the development System der Kunstlehre (1805) and Grundriss der Aesthetik (1807); republished 1809, but soon forgotten), Grundriss einer Geschichte on the history of philosophy, Grundlinien der Philosophie (1807, der Philosophie (1807 and 1825), and Hauptmomente der Geschichte der Philosophie (1829); in philology, Grundlinien der Philologie (1808), and Grundlinien der Grammatik, Hermeneutik und Kritik (1808).

Baku, on the Caspian, in 38° 27′ N. lat. and 48° 53′ E. long., on ASTARA, a port of Russian Transcaucasia, government of the river of the same name, which forms the frontier between Persia and Russia. Russian merchandize is landed there and forwarded to Azerbaiján and Tabriz via Ardebil.

ASTARABAD, a province of Persia bounded N. by the Caspian W. by Mazandaran, and E. by Khorasan. The country, Sea and Russian Transcaspian, S. by the Elburz Mountains, mountainous in its southern portion, possesses extensive forests, fertile valleys, producing rice, wheat and other grains in abundance, and rich pasturages. The soil, even with little

See J. T. Clarke, Assos, 2 vols., 1882 and 1898 (Papers of Arch. Inst. of America, i. ii.); and authorities under TROAD. (D. G. H.) ASSYRIA. The two great empires, Assyria and Babylon, which grew up on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, can be separated as little historically as geographically. From the beginning their history is closely intertwined; and the power of the one is a measure of the weakness of the other. This inter-culture, is exceedingly productive, owing to the abundance of dependence of Assyrian and Babylonian history was recognized by ancient writers, and has been confirmed by modern discovery. But whereas Assyria takes the first place in the classical accounts to the exclusion of Babylonia, the decipherment of the inscriptions has proved that the converse was really the case, and that, with the exception of some seven or eight centuries, Assyria might be described as a province or dependency of Babylon. Not only was Babylonia the mother country, as the tenth chapter of Genesis explicitly states, but the religion and culture, the literature and the characters in which it was contained, the arts and the sciences of the Assyrians were derived from their southern neighbours. They were similar in race and language. (See BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA.)

AST, GEORG ANTON FRIEDRICH (1778-1841), German philosopher and philologist, was born at Gotha. Educated there and at the university of Jena, he became privat-docent at Jena

water which irrigates and fertilizes it. But while the province in many parts presents a landscape of luxuriant beauty, it is a prey to the ravages of disease, principally malarial fevers due to the extensive swamps formed by waters stagnating in the forests, and to the frequent incursions of the Goklan and Yomut Turkomans, who have their camping-grounds in the northern part of the province, and until about 1890 plundered caravans sometimes at the very gates of Astarabad city, and carried people off into slavery and bondage. The province has a population of about 100,000 and pays a yearly revenue of about £30,000. The inhabitants, notwithstanding the unhealthiness of their climate, are a strong and athletic race, belying their yellow and (administrative divisions):-(1) Astarabad town; (2) Astarabad rustak (villages); (3) Sadan rustak; (4) Anazan; (5) Katúl; sickly appearance. The province has the following bulúk (6) Findarisk, with Kuhsar and Nodeh; (7) Shahkuh Sávar.