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AGAMEMNON—AGAPEMONE. 
  
  
  
back in plaits, but is raised when the animal is 
alarmed. 
AGAMEMNON, son of King Atreus, and brother 
of Menelaus. After his father’s death, he reigned in 
Mycene, and married Clytemnestra, by whom he 
had three children—Iphigenia, Electra, and Orestes, 
afterwards celebrated in the Greek drama. When 
Paris, son of the Trojan king, Priam, seduced and 
carried away Helena, the wife of Menelaus, A., 
with his injured brother, made a tour throughout 
Greece, exhorting all the leaders of the people to 
unite their forces in an expedition against Troy. 
Having gained their alliance, A. was appointed 
general-in-chief of the united forces assembled at 
Aulis in Beeotia, where they were delayed some 
time. In the following campaign against Troy, 
which forms the subject of Homer’s Iliad, 
A. is described as a very stately and dignified 
character. After the fall of Troy, he returned 
home, taking with him Cassandra, the daughter of 
Priam. Shortly afterwards, he was murdered by 
Clytemnestra, aided by Aflgisthus, in whose care he 
had left his wife and children. A tragical fate had 
always lowered over the house of A.; and the 
destinies of his children—Iphigenia, Electra, and 
Orestes—were the favourite subjects of the Greek 
drama. 
A'GAMI (Psophia), a genus of South Americar 
birds, allied to Cranes. Only two species are known. 
They are sometimes called 7rumpeters, from a peculiar 
  
  
Agami. 
sound which they make. The best known species is 
the Gold-breasted Trumpeter (P. crepitans), which is 
of the size of a large pheasant, but with much longer 
legs and neck, and a very short tail. It runs very 
quickly ; so much so, that a tame one in England 
has been known to keep up with hounds. It is 
capable of the most perfect domestication. 
A'GAP A were love-feasts, or feasts of charity, 
usually celebrated by the early Christians in 
connection with the Lord’s Supper. The name is 
derived from the Greek word agape, which signifies 
love or charity. At these feasts, the rich Christians 
presented their poorer brethren in the faith with 
gifts, and all ate together, in token of their equality 
before God and their brotherly harmony.”  The 
meetings were opened and closed with prayer; and 
during the feast, spiritual songs were sung. At 
first, a bishop or presbyter presided, who read a 
portion of Scripture, proposed questions upon it, and 
received the various answers of the brethren. After- 
wards, whatever information had been obtained 
regarding the other churches, was read—such as the 
official letters of overseers, or private communica- 
tions from eminent members; and thus a spirit of 
practical sympathy was engendered. Before the 
conclusion of the proceedings, money was collected 
  
for widows, orphans, the poor, prisoners, and those 
who had suffered shipwreck. Then the members 
embraced, and the feast was ended with a ¢ philan- 
thropic prayer.” As early as the 2d c., the custom 
of celebrating the A. and the Lord’s Supper together 
had ceased, on account of the persecutions. Justin, 
when writing on the latter subject, does not speak 
of the former; but Ignatius, on the other hand, 
seems to regard them as identical. Generally, the 
feast of the A. preceded the celebration of the Lord’s 
Supper. But during the period of the persecutions, 
when the Christians had often to hold divine service 
before dawn, the A. were, for the most part, 
delayed till the evening. Later, a formal separation 
was made between the two rites. In the 3d and 
4th centuries, the A. had degenerated into a common 
banquet, where the deaths of relatives, and the 
anniversaries of the martyrs, were commemorated, 
and where the clergy and the poor were guests; but 
with the increase of wealth, and the decay of reli- 
gious earnestness and purity in the Christian Church, 
these A. became occasions of great riotousness and 
debauchery. Councils declared against them, forbade 
the clergy to take any share in their celebration, 
and finally banished them from the church. At the 
same time, it must be admitted that the heathens 
ignorantly calumniated the practices of the Chris- 
tians in these A., and that the defences made by 
Tertullian, Minuciug, Felix, Origen, &c., are emi- 
nently successful. The Moravians have attempted 
to revive these A., and hold solemn festivals, with 
prayer and praise, where tea is drunk, and wheaten 
bread, called Love-bread, is used. 
AGAPE'MONE (Gr. love-abode), a conventual 
establishment of a singular kind, consisting of 
persons of both sexes, founded at Charlynch, near 
Bridgewater, in the county of Somerset, by Mr 
Henry James Prince, formerly a clergyman of the 
Church of Fngland. The inmates are called 
Lampeter Brethren, and belong to a new religious 
sect originating with Mr Prince, and a Mr Starkey, 
also a clergyman. The adherents of the sect 
generally, of whom there are many in the south- 
western counties, are known as Princeites or 
Starkeyites. 
As curate in a village on the coast of Dorsetshire, 
Mr Starkey, who possessed the gift of eloquence to 
an extraordinary degree, effected real good. His 
parishioners, most of them lawless smugglers, and 
those who flocked to hear his discourses, listened 
to him as to one inspired ; and many who did not 
follow him in his wild theories, ascribe their first 
real impressions of religion to his ministry while 
he was yet a clergyman of the Established Church. 
Gradually, his doctrine changed, and in company 
with Mr Prince, he began to hold forth in barns, 
whence loud howlings were heard by the passers- 
by. People of all classes flocked to hear the new 
preachers ; even clergymen’s families were infected 
with the taint of this heresy, which spread through 
the secluded villages on the coast, obtaining especial 
hold among the farmers, several of whom, as in the 
times of the apostles, brought their wealth, and laid 
it at ¢ Brother Prince’s’ feet-—community of goods 
being the tenet most strenuously insisted upon. 
Meanwhile, funds accumulated rapidly. Three 
of the Brothers—Messrs Price, Thomas, and Cobb— 
married three sisters, daughters of a wealthy widow 
lady named Nottidge. These young women, hand- 
some, clever, and of independent fortune, began 
by listening, against the wish of their parent, to 
Mr Prince’s preaching, and finally left their home 
to marry his disciples. A fourth sister afterwards 
followed their example. So strong was the feeling 
under which they acted, that, on their aged mother 
coming in person to remonstrate on their conduct, 
71