ARA´TUS OF SICYON, a statesman of ancient Greece, born 272 B.C. In 251 B.C. he overthrew the tyrant of Sicyon and joined that city to the Achæan League, which he greatly extended. He accepted the aid of Antigonus Doson, King of Macedon, against the Spartans, and became in time little more than the adviser of the Macedonian king, who had now made the League dependent on himself. He is said to have been poisoned by Philip V of Macedon, 213 B.C.
ARAUCA´NIANS, a South American native race in the southern part of Chile, occupying a territory stretching from about 37° to 40° of S. lat. They are warlike and more civilized than many of the native races of S. America, and maintained almost unceasing war with the Spaniards from 1537 to 1773, when their independence was recognized by Spain, though their territory was much curtailed. Their early contests with the Spaniards were celebrated in Ercilla's Spanish poem _Araucana_. With the Republic of Chile they were long at feud, and in 1861 had at their head a French adventurer named Antoine de Tounens, who claimed the title of king. In 1882 they submitted to Chile. The Chilian province of Arauco receives its name from them.
[Illustration: Chile pine (_Araucaria imbric[=a]ta_)]
ARAUCA´RIA, a genus of trees of the coniferous or pine order, indigenous to Australasia and South America. The species are large evergreen trees with pretty large, stiff, flattened, and generally imbricated leaves, verticillate spreading branches, and bearing large cones, each scale having a single large seed. The species _A. imbric[=a]ta_ (the Chile pine or monkey-puzzle), with hard, sharp, pointed leaves, was introduced into Britain in 1796. It is a native of the mountains of Southern Chile, where it forms vast forests and yields a hard durable wood. Its seeds are eaten when roasted. The Moreton Bay pine of New South Wales (_A. Cunninghamii_) supplies a valuable timber used in house and boat building, in making furniture, and in other carpenter work. A species, _A. excelsa_, or Norfolk Island pine, abounds in several of the South Sea Islands, where it attains a height of 220 feet with a circumference of 30 feet, and is described as one of the most beautiful of trees. Its foliage is light and graceful, and quite unlike that of _A. imbricata_, having nothing of its stiff formality. Its timber is of some value, being white, tough, and close-grained.