AGATH'OCLES (4 _syl_.) tyrant of Sicily. He was the son of a potter, and raised himself from the ranks to become general of the army. He reduced all Sicily under his power. When he attacked the Carthaginians, he burnt his ships that his soldiers might feel assured they must either conquer or die. Agathoclês died of poison administered by his grandson (B.C. 361-289). Voltaire has a tragedy called _Agathocle_, and Caroline Pichler has an excellent German novel entitled _Agathoclés_. AGATHON, the hero and title of a philosophic romance, by C. M. Wieland (1733-1813). This is considered the best of his novels, though some prefer his _Don Sylvia de Rosalva_. AGDISTES, the name given by Spenser to our individual consciousness or self. Personified in the being who presided over the Acrasian "bowre of blis." That is our selfe, whom though we do not see Yet each doth in himselfe it well perceive to bee. Therefore a God him sage Antiquity Did wisely make, and good Agdistes call-- Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, ii. 12. AGDISTIS, a genius of human form, uniting the two senses and born of an accidental union between Jupiter and Tellus. The story of Agdistis and Atys is apparently a myth of the generative powers of nature. AGED (_The_), so Wemmick's father is called. He lived in "the castle at Walworth." Wemmick at "the castle" and Wemmick in business are two "different beings." Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage, in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns.... It was the smallest of houses, with queer Gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a Gothic door, almost too small to get in at.... On Sundays he ran up a real flag.... The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep.... At nine o'clock every night "the gun fired," the gun being mounted in a separate fortress made of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by a tarpaulin ... umbrella.-- C. Dickens, _Great Expectations_, xxv. (1860). AG'ELASTES (_Michael_), the cynic philosopher.--Sir W. Scott, _Count Robert of Paris_ (time, Rufus). AGESILA'US (5 _syl_.). Plutarch tells us that Agesilaus, king of Sparta, was one day discovered riding cock-horse on a long stick, to please and amuse his children.