ARRAS (20), a French town in the dep. of Pas-de-Calais, long celebrated for its tapestry; the birthplace of Damiens and Robespierre.

AR`RIA, a Roman matron, who, to encourage her husband in meeting death, to which he had been sentenced, thrust a poniard into her own breast, and then handed it to him, saying, “It is not painful,” whereupon he followed her example.

AR`RIAN, FLAVIUS, a Bithynian, a friend of Epictetus the Stoic, edited his “Enchiridion”; wrote a “History of Alexander the Great,” and “Periplus,” an account of voyages round the Euxine and round the Red Sea; b. 100, and died at an advanced age.

ARROW-HEADED CHARACTERS, the same as the CUNEIFORM (q. v.).

ARRU ISLANDS (15), a group of 80 coralline islands, belonging to Holland, W. of New Guinea; export mother-of-pearl, pearls, tortoise-shell, &c.

AR`SACES I., the founder of the dynasty of the Arsacidae, by a revolt which proved successful against the Seleucidae, 250 B.C.

ARSACIDAE, a dynasty of 31 Parthian kings, who wrested the throne from Antiochus II., the last of the Seleucidae, 250 B.C.

ARSIN`OE, the name of several Egyptian princesses of antiquity; also a prude in Moliere’s “Misanthrope.”

ARTA, GULF OF, gulf forming the NW. frontier of Greece.

ARTS, THE.  There are three classes of these, the Liberal, the Fine, and the Mechanical:  the Liberal, implying scholarship, graduation in which is granted by universities, entitling the holder to append M.A. to his name; the Mechanical, implying skill; and the Fine, implying the possession of a soul, discriminated from the mechanical by the word spiritual, as holding of the entire, undivided man, heart as well as brain.

ARTAXER`XES, the name of several Persian monarchs:  A. I., called the “Long-handed,” from his right hand being longer than his left; son of Xerxes I.; concluded a peace with Greece after a war of 52 years; entertained Themistocles at his court; king from 465 to 424 B.C.  A. II., MNEMON, vanquished and killed his brother Cyrus at Cunaxa in 401, who had revolted against him; imposed in 387 on the Spartans the shameful treaty of ANTALCIDAS (q. v.); king from 405 to 359 B.C.  A. III., OCHUS, son of the preceding, slew all his kindred on ascending the throne; in Egypt slew the sacred bull Apis and gave the flesh to his soldiers, for which his eunuch Bagsas poisoned him; king from 359 to 338 B.C.  A. IV., grandson of Sassan, founder of the dynasty Sassanidae; restored the old religion of the Magi, amended the laws, and promoted education; king from A.D. 223 to 232.

ARTE`DI, a Swedish naturalist, assisted Linnaeus in his “Systema Naturae”; his own great work, “Ichthyologia,” published by Linnaeus after his death (1703-1735).

AR`TEGAL, the impersonation and champion of Justice in Spenser’s “Faerie Queene.”

AR`TEMIS, in the Greek mythology the daughter of Zeus and Leto, twin sister of Apollo, born in the Isle of Delos, and one of the great divinities of the Greeks; a virgin goddess, represented as a huntress armed with bow and arrows; presided over the birth of animals, was guardian of flocks, the moon the type of her and the laurel her sacred tree, was the Diana of the Romans, and got mixed up with deities in other mythologies.