Asylum was a sanctuary or place of refuge, where criminals and debtors sheltered themselves from justice, and from which they could not be taken without sacrilege. Temples were anciently asylums, as were Christian churches in later times. The term in the 19th century was usually applied to an institution for receiving, maintaining, and, so far as possible, ameliorating the condition of persons labouring under certain bodily defects or mental maladies. Later the term was applied to a refuge for the unfortunate, such as those suffering persecution in their own country. Research Asylum
The oath of abjuration was an oath which by an English act passed in 1701 had to be taken by all holders of public offices, clergymen, teachers, members of the universities, and lawyers, adjuring and renouncing the exiled Stuarts. It was superseded in 1858 by a more comprehensive oath, declaring allegiance to the present royal family. Abjuration of the realm was an oath that a person guilty of felony, and who had taken sanctuary, might take to go into exile, and not return on pain of death. Research Oath of Abjuration
Agis IV was a king of Sparta. He succeeded to the throne in 244 BC, and reigned for four years. He attempted a reform of the abuses which had crept into the state - his plan comprehending a redistribution of the land, a division of wealth, and the cancelling of all debts. Opposed by his colleague Leonidas, advantage was taken of his absence in an expedition against the Aetolians, to depose him. Agis at first took sanctuary in a temple, but he was entrapped and hurriedly executed by his rival. Research Agis IV
Felicia Dorothea Hemans (born Felicia Dorethea Brown) was an English poet. She was born in 1793 at Liverpool and died in 1835. She first appeared as an author in 1808, with a volume entitled Early Blossoms, which was followed in 1812 by her more successful volume, The Domestic Affections. In the same year she married Captain Hemans, who, however, left her six years later, shortly before the birth of her fifth son. She then devoted herself to literature, winning public notice by her poems entitled The Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy, The Sceptic, Modern Greece, and Dartmoor, the last, in 1821, gaining the prize of the Royal Society of Literature.
In 1825 she took up her residence at Rhyllon, near St Asaph, where she wrote her Lays of Many Lands, ForestSanctuary, and Records of Woman. In 1828 she moved to Waverfree, near Liverpool, where, in 1830, she published one of her most popular volumes, entitled The Songs of the Affections. In 1831 she moved to Dublin, where she published her Hymns for Childhood, National Lyrics and Songs for Music, and Scenes and Hymns of Life.
Her poetry is essentially lyrical and descriptive, and is always sweet, natural, and pleasing. In her earlier pieces she was imitative, but she ultimately asserted her independence, and produced many short poems of great beauty and pathos. Research Felicia Hemans
In Greek mythology, Acontius was a beautiful youth of Ceos. To win the love of Cydippe, daughter of a noble Athenian, he threw before her, in the precinct of the temple of Artemis, an apple on which he had written the vow: 'I swear by the sanctuary of Artemis to marry Acontius.' Cydippe read the words aloud and threw the apple away but the goddess had heard her, and when Cydippe was about to marry another she fell so ill that her father married her to Acontius by order of the Delphic oracle. Research Acontius
Aesculapius was the Greek god of medicine and latterly adopted by the Romans, usually said to have been a son of Apollo. He was worshipped in particular at Epidaurus, in Peloponnesus, where a temple with a grove was dedicated to him. The sick who visited his temple had to spend one or more nights in the sanctuary, after which the remedies to be used were revealed in a dream. Those who were cured offered a sacrifice to Aesculapius, commonly a cock. He is often represented with a large beard, holding a knotty staff, round which is entwined a serpent, the serpent being specially his symbol. .Near him often stands a cock. Sometimes Aesculapius is represented under the image of a serpent only. Research Aesculapius
In Roman mythology, Bona Dea was a goddess of chastity, fertility and healing. She was worshipped from the earliest times exclusively by women. A prophetic deity with a sanctuary in the Aventine, she revealed her oracles only to women, and men were not even allowed to know her name. Bona Dea means 'good goddess', and she was also called Fauna. Legend has it that she was related to the god Faunus, but the legends differ as to whether she was his sister, wife or daughter. Research Bona Dea
Abbreviations
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