in it to the Oxus or Ochus, both of which rivers have ACESINES, a large and rapid river of India, falling ACESTES. Vid. Ægestes. ACESTODORUS. Vid. Supplement. ACESTOR. I. an ancient statuary mentioned by Pausanias (6, 7, 2). He was a native of Cnossus, or at least exercised his art there for some time, and was the father of that Amphion who was the pupil of Ptolichus of Corcyra. Piolichus lived about Olymp. 80, 82, and Acestor must have been his contemporary. (Sillig, Dict. of Anc. Artists.)-II. Vid Supplement. ACHEA, 'Axala, a surname of Pallas. Her temple among the Daunians, in Apulia, contained the arms of Diomede and his followers. It was defended by dogs, which fawned on the Greeks, but fiercely attacked all other persons (Aristot. de Mirab.).—II. Ceres was also called Achæa, from her grief (uxoç) at the loss of Proserpina (Plut. in Is. et Os.). Other explanations are given by the scholiast (ad Aristoph. Acharn. 674). Consult also Kuster and Brunck,ad loc., and Suidas, s. v. ACHEI, one of the main branches of the great olic race. (Vid. Achaia and Græcia, especially the latter article.) only once. Athenæus, however (6, p. 270), accuses Euripides of borrowing from this poet. The number of plays composed by him is not correctly ascertained. Suidas (s. v.) gives three accounts, according to one of which he exhibited 44 plays; according to another, 30; while a third assigns to him only 24. Most of the plays ascribed to him by the ancients are suspected by Casaubon (de Sat. Poes. 1, 5) to have been satyric, The titles of seven of his satyrical dramas, and of ten of his tragedies, are still known. The extant fragments of his pieces have been collected and edited by Urlichs, Bonn, 1834. He should not be confounded with a later tragic writer of the same name, who was a native of Syracuse. III. A river, which falls into the Euxine on the eastern shore, above the Promontorium Heracleum. The Greek form of the name is 'Αχαιούς, -οῦντος. (Arrian, Per. Mar. Eux. 130, Blanc.)-IV. An historian mentioned by the scholiast on Pindar (Ol. 7, 42). Vossius (Hist. Gr. 4, p. 501) supposes him to be the same with the Achæus alluded to by the scholiast on Aratus (v. 171); but Boeckh throws very great doubt on the whole matter. (Boeckh, ad Schol. Pind. l. c., vol. ii., p. 166.-V. A general of Antiochus the Great. (Vid. Supplement.) ACHAIA, I. a district of Thessaly, so named from the Achæi (vid. Græcia). It embraced more than Phthiotis, since Herodotus (7, 196) makes it comprehend the country along the Apidanus. Assuming this as its western limit, we may consider it to have reached as far as the Sinus Pelasgicus and Sinus Maliacus on the east. (Mannert, 7, 599.) Larcher (Hist. d'Herod. 8, 7, Table Geogr.) regards Melitaa as the limit on the west, which lies considerably east of the Apidanus. That Phthiotis formed only part of Achaia, appears evident from the words of Scymnus (v. 604). ACHEMENES, the founder of the Persian monarchy, EREIT' 'Axail пaρúhiοi TiкOí (Gail, ad loc.) according to some writers, who identify him with the Homer (Il. 3, 258) uses the term 'Axaida, sc. xúpav, Giem Schid, or Djemschid, of the Oriental historians in opposition to Argos, 'Apyos, and seems to indicate (rid Persia). The genealogy of the royal line is giv- by the former, according to one scholiast, the Peloen by Herodotus (7, 11) from Achæmenes to Xerxes. ponnesus; according to another, the whole country ocThe earlier descent, as given by the Grecian writers, cupied by the Hellenes (rìv nãoav 'Eλλývwv yÿv, and according to which, Perses, son of Perseus and Schol. Il. 3, 75).—II. A harbour on the northeastern Andromeda, was the first of the line, and the individual coast of the Euxine, mentioned by Arrian, in his Perifrom whom the Persians derived their national appella- plus of the Euxine (131, Blanc.), and called by him tion, is purely fabulous. Eschylus (Pers. 762) makes Old Achaia (τì ñaλaiàν 'Axaíav). The Greeks, acthe Persians to have been first governed by a Mede, cording to Strabo (416), had a tradition, that the inhabwho was succeeded by his son; then came Cyrus, itants of this place were of Grecian origin, and natives succeeded by one of his sons; next Merdis, Maraphis, of the Baotian Orchomenus. They were returning, Artaphernes, and Darius; the last not being, howev- it seems, from the Trojan war, when, missing their er, a lineal descendant. For a discussion on this sub-way, they wandered to this quarter. Appian (B. M. ject, consult Stanley, ad loc.: Larcher, ad Herod. 7, 11, and Schütz, Excurs. 2, ad Esch. Pers. l. c. 67, 102, Schw.) makes them to have been Achæans, but in other respects coincides with Strabo. Müller ACHEMENIDES, I. a branch of the Persian tribe of (Gesch. Hellen. Stämme, &c., 1, 282) supposes the Pasargade, named from Achæmenes, the founder of Greeks to have purposely altered the true name of the the line. From this family, the kings of Persia were people in question, so as to make it resemble Achæi descended (Herod. 1, 126). Cambyses, on his death- ('Axatoí), that they might erect on this superstructure bed, entreated the Achæmenides not to suffer the king- a mere edifice of fable.-III. A country of the Pelodom to pass into the hands of the Medes (3, 65).—II. ponnesus, lying along the Sinus Corinthiacus, north of A Persian of the royal line, whom Ctesias (32) makes Elis and Arcadia. A number of mountain-streams, the brother, but Herodotus (7, 7) and Diodorus Sicu- descending from the ridges of Arcadia, watered this relus (11, 74) call the uncle of Artaxerxes I. The lat-gion, but they were small in size, and many mere winterter styles him Achæmenes. (Baehr, ad Ctes. l. c.Wessel. ad Herod. l. c.) torrents. The coast was for the most part level, and was hence exposed to frequent inundations. It had few harbours; not one of any size, or secure for ships. On this account we find, that of the cities along the coast of Achaia, none became famous for maritime en ACHÆORUM STATIO, I. a place on the coast of the Thracian Chersonesus, where Polyxena was sacrificed to the shade of Achilles, and where Hecuba killed Polynestor, who had murdered her son Polydorus.—terprise. In other respects, Achaia may be ranked, as II. The name of Achæorum Portus was given to the harbour of Corone, in Messenia. Achæus, I. a son of Xuthus. (Vid. Græcia, relative to the early movements of the Grecian tribes.) II. A tragic poet, born at Eretria, B.C. 484, the very year Eschylus won his first prize. We find him contending with Sophocles and Euripides, B.C. 447. With such competitors, however, he was, of course, not very successful. He gained the dramatic victory to extent, fruitfulness, and population, among the mid- It em that race. tus was defeated by the Lacedæmonian monarch Cle- The origin of the Egialii appears to connect them with the great Ionic race. Ion, son of Xuthus, came from Attica, according to the received accounts, settled in this quarter (Paus. 7, 1.—Strabo,383), obtained in marriage the daughter of King Selinus, and from this period the inhabitants were denominated Egialean lonians. Pausanias, however, probably from other sources of information, makes Xuthus, not Ion, to have settled here. The Pelasgi appear also to have spread over this region, and to have gradually blended with the primitive inhabitants into one community, under the name of Pelasgic Ægialeans (Herod. 7, 94). Twelve cities now arose, the capital being Helice, founded by Ion. At the period of the Trojan war, these cities were subject to the Achæans, and acknowledged the sway of Agamemnon as the head of Matters continued in this state until the Dorian invasion of the Peloponnesus. The Achæans, driven by the Dorians from Argos and Lacedæmon, took refuge in Egialea, under the guidance of Tisamenos, son of Orestes. The Ionians gave their new visiters an unwelcome reception; a battle ensued, the Ionians were defeated, and shut up in Helice; and at last were allowed by treaty to leave this city unmolested, on condition of removing entirely from their former settlements. They migrated, therefore, into Attica (Paus. 7, 1), but soon after left this latter country for Asia Minor (vid. Iones and Ionia). The Achæans now took possession of the vacated territory, and changed its name to Achaia. Tisamenos having fallen in the war with the Ionians, his sons and the other leaders divided the land among themselves by lot, and hence the old division of twelve cantons or districts, as well as the regal form of government, continued until the time of Ögygus or Gygus. (Strabo, 384.-Paus. 7, 6.-Polyb. 2, 41.) After this monarch's decease, each city assumed a republican government. The Derians, from the very first, had made several attempts to drive the Achæans from their newly-acquired possessions, and had so far succeeded as to wrest from them Sicyon, with its territory, which was ever after regarded as a Dorian state. All farther attempts at conquest were unsuccessful, from the defence made by the Achæans, and the aid afforded to them by their Pelasgic neighbours in Arcadia. The result of this was an aversion on the part of the Achæans to everything Dorian. Hence they took no part with the rest of the Greeks against Xerxes; hence, too, we find them, even before the Peloponnesian war, in alliance with the Athenians; though, in the course of that war, they were forced to remain neutral, or else at times, from a consciousness of their weakness, to admit the Dorian fleets into their harbours. (Thucyd. 1, 111 ACHELOUS, I. a river of Epirus, now the Aspro and 115.-Id. 2, 9.-Id. 8, 3.-Id. 2, 84.) The Potamo, or "White River," which rises in Mount PinAchæans preserved their neutrality also in the wars dus, and, after dividing Acarnania from Etolia (Strab. raised by the ambition of Macedon; but the result 450), falls into the Sinus Corinthiacus. It was a large proved most unfortunate. The successors of Alex- and rapid stream, probably the largest in all Greece, ander seemed to consider the cities of Achaia as and formed at its mouth, by depositions of mud and fair booty, and what they spared became the prey of sand, a number of small islands called Echinades. domestic tyrants. Even after the Peloponnesus had The god of this river was the son of Occanus and ceased to be the theatre of war, and a Macedonian Tethys, or of the Sun and Terra. Fable speaks of a garrison was merely kept at the Isthmus, the public contest between Hercules and the river god for the troubles seemed only on the increase. The whole hand of Deianira. The deity of the Achelous assucountry, too, began to be infested by predatory bands, med the form of a bull, but Hercules was victorious whose numbers were daily augmented by the starving and tore off one of his horns. His opponent, upon cultivators of the soil. At length, four of the princi- this, having received a horn from Amalthea, the daughpal cities of Achaia, viz., Patre, Dyme, Tritaa, and ter of Oceanus, gave it to the victor, and obtained his Pharæ, formed a mutual league for their common safe-own in return. Another account (Ovid, Met. 9, 63) ty. (Polyb. 2, 41.) The plan succeeded, and soon ten cities were numbered in the alliance. About twenty-five years after, Sicyon was induced to join the league by the exertions of Aratus, and he himself was chosen commander-in-chief of the confederacy. All the more important cities of the Peloponnesus gradually joined the coalition. Sparta alone kept aloof, and, in endeavouring to enforce her compliance, Ara ACHATES, a friend of Æneas, whose fidelity was so exemplary, that Fidus Achates became a proverb. (Virg. En. 1, 312.) ACHELOIDES, a patronymic given to the Sirens as daughters of Achelous. (Ovid, Met. 5, fab. 15.— Gierig, ad loc.) makes him to have first assumed the form of a serpent, and afterward that of a bull, and to have retired in disgrace into the bed of the river Thoas, which thenceforward was denominated Achelous. A third version of the fable states, that the Naiads took the horn of the conquered deity, and, after filling it with the various productions of the seasons, gave it to the goddess of plenty, whence the origin of the cornu copia. They our. In Virgil and later poets Acheron sometimes designates the lower world.-II. A river of Bruttium, flowing into the Mare Tyrrhenum a short distance below Pandosia. Alexander, king of Epirus, who had come to the aid of the Tarentines, lost his life in passing this river, being slain by a Lucanian exile. He had been warned by an oracle to beware of the Acherusian waters and the city Pandosia, but supposed that it referred to Epirus and not to Italy. (Justin, 12, 2.— Liv. 8, 24.)-III. A river of Elis, which falls into the Alpheus. On its banks were temples dedicated to Ceres, Proserpina, and Hades, which were held in high veneration. (Strab. 344.)—IV. A river of Bithynia, near the cavern Acherusia, and in the vicinity of He who pretend to see in history an explanation of this le-ter; and it was the stream over which the souls of the gend, make the river Achelous to have laid waste, by dead were first conveyed. The Acheron is representits frequent inundations, the plains of Calydon. This, ed under the form of an old man arrayed in a humid introducing confusion among the landmarks, became restment. He reclines upon an urn of a dark colthe occasion of continual wars between the Etolians and Acarnanians, whose territories the river divided as above stated, until Hercules, by means of dikes, restrained its ravages, and made the course of the stream uniform. Hence, according to this explanation, the serpent denoted the windings of the stream, and the bull its swellings and impetuosity, while the tearing off of the horn refers to the turning away of a part of the waters of the river, by means of a canal, the result of which draining was shown in the fertility that succeeded. (Diod. Sic. 4, 35.) The Achelous must have been considered a river of great antiquity as well as celebrity, since it is often introduced as a general representative of rivers, and is likewise frequently used for the element of water. (Eustath, ad II. 21, 194.-raclea. (Apollon. Rhod. 2, 745.) Eurip. Bacch. 625.-Id. Androm. 167.—Aristoph. Lysistr. 381-Heyne, ad Il. 21, 194.) The reason of this peculiar use of the term will be found in the remarks of the scholiast. The Achelous was the largest river in Epirus and Ætolia, in which quarter were the early settlements of the Pelasgic race, from whom the Greeks derived so much of their religion and mythology. Hence the frequent directions of the Oracle | at Dodona, "to sacrifice to the Acheloüs," and hence the name of the stream became associated with some of their oldest religious rites, and was eventually used in the language of poetry as an appellation, kar' ¿óxmv, for the element of water and for rivers, as stated above (Axelov nāv πnyaïov vdwp).—II. There was another river of the same name, of which nothing farther is known, than that, according to Pausanias (8, 38), it flowed from Mount Sipylus. Homer, in relating the story of Niobe (Il. 24, 615), speaks of the desert mountains in Sipylus, where are the beds of the goddess-nymphs, who dance around the Achelous.-III. A river of Thessaly, flowing near Lamia. (Strab. 434.) ACHERDUS, a borough of the tribe Hippothoontis, in Attica. (Steph. B.-Aristoph. Eccles. 360.) ACHERONTIA, I. a town of Bruttium, placed by Pliny on the river Acheron (Plin. 3, 5.)-II. A city of Lucania, now Acerenza, on the confines of Apulia. It was situated high up on the side of a mountain, and from its lofty position is called by Horace nidus Acherontia, "the nest of Acherontia." Procopius speaks of it as a strong fortress in his days. (Horat. Ód. 3, 4, 14, et schol. ad loc.-Procop. 3, 23.) ACHERUSIA, I. a lake in Epirus, into which the Acheron flows. (Vid. Acheron.II. According to some modern expounders of fable, a lake in Egypt, near Memphis, over which the bodies of the dead were conveyed, previous to their being judged for the actions of their past lives. The authority cited in support of this is Diodorus Siculus (1, 92). A proper examination of the passage, however, will lead to the following conclusions: 1st, that no name whatever is given by Diodorus for any particular lake of this kind; and, 2d, that each district of Egypt had its lake for the purpose mentioned above, and that there was not mere ly one for the whole of Egypt. (Diod. Sic. 1, 92, et Wesseling, ad loc.)--III. A cavern in Bithynia, near the city of Heraclea and the river Oxinas, probably on the very spot which Arrian (Peripl. Mar. Eux., p. 125, ed. Blancard) calls Tyndarida. Xenophon (Anab. 6, 2) names the whole peninsula, in which it lies, the Acherusian Promontory. This cavern was two stadia in depth, and was regarded by the adjacent inhabitants as one of the entrances into the lower world. Through it Hercules is said to have dragged Cerberus up to the light of day a fable which probably owed its origin to the inhabitants of Heraclea. (Diod. Sic. 14, 31.-Dionys. Perieg. 790, et Eustath. ad loc.) Apollonius Rhodius (2, 730) places a river, with the name of Acheron, in this quarter. This stream was afterward called, by the people of Heraclea, Soonautes (Zowvavrns), on account of their fleet having been saved near it from a storm. (Apollon. Rhod. 2, 746, et schol. ad loc.) Are the Acheron and the Oxinas the same river? ACHERON, I. a river of Epirus, rising in the mountains to the west of the chain of Pindus, and falling into the Ionian sea near Glykys Limen (гλvкòç Ayýv). In the early part of its course, it forms the Palus Acherusia ('Axepovoía Aiμvn), and, after emerging from this sheet of water, disappears under ground, from which it again rises and pursues its course to the sea. Strabo (324) makes mention of this stream only after its leaving the Palus Acherusia, and appears to have been unacquainted with the previous part of its course. Thucydides, on the other hand (1, 46), would seem to have misunderstood the information which he had received respecting it. His account is certainly a confused one, and has given rise to an inaccuracy in D'Anville's map. The error of D'Anville and others consists in placing the Palus Acherusia directly on the coast, and the city of Ephyre at its northeastern extremity; in the position of the latter contradicting the very words of the writer on whom they rely. No other ancient authority places the Palus Acherusia on the coast. Pausanias (1, 17) makes the marsh, the river, and the city, to have been situated in the interior of Thesprotis; and he mentions also the stream Co- ACHILLEA, an island near the mouth of the Borys cytus (which he styles idup ȧrepréσтаTоv), as being in thenes, or, more properly, the western part of the Drothe same quarter. He likewise states it as his opin-mus Achillis insulated by a small arm of the sea. (Vid. ion, that Homer, having visited these rivers in the Dromus Achillis and Leuce.) course of his wanderings, assigned them, on account of their peculiar nature and properties, a place among the rivers of the lower world. The poets make Acheron to have been the son of Sol and Terra, and to have been precipitated into the infernal regions and there changed into a river, for having supplied the Titans with water during the war which they waged with Jupiter. Hence its waters were muddy and bit ACHILLAS, 1. a bishop of Alexandrea from A.D. 311 to 321. His martyrdom is commemorated on the 7th of November.-II. An Alexandrean priest, banished with Arius, 319 A.D. He fled to Palestine.-III. (Vid. Supplement) ACHILLEIS, a poem of Statius, turning on the story of Achilles. (Vid. Statius.) ACHILLES, I. a son of the Earth (ynyévns), unto whom Juno fled for refuge from the pursuits of Jupiter, and who persuaded her to return and marry that deity. Jupiter, grateful for this service, promised him that all who bore this name for the time to com should be illustrious personages. (Ptol. Hephast 19 apud Photium, Biblioth., vol. i., p. 152, ed. Bekker.) | Phoenix as his first instructer (I. 9, 481, seqq.), while -II. The preceptor of Chiron (Id.).—III. The invent- from another passage (l. 11, 831) it would appear. or of the ostracism (Id.).—IV. A son of Jupiter and that the young chieftain merely learned from the cenLamia. His beauty was so perfect, that, in the judg-taur the principles of the healing art. Those, howment of Pan, he bore away the prize from every com- ever, who pay more regard in this case to the statepetitor. Venus was so offended at this decision, that ments of other writers, make Chiron to have had she inspired Pan with a fruitless passion for the nymph charge of Achilles first, and to have fed him on the Echo, and also wrought a hideous change in his own marrow of wild animals; according to Libanius, on person (Id.).-V. A son of Galatus, remarkable for that of lions, but according to the compiler of the his light coloured, or, rather, whitish hair (Id.).—VI. Etymol. Mag., on that of stags. (Compare Bayle, The son of Peleus, king of Phthiotis in Thessaly. Dict. Hist. 1, 53.) Chiron is said to have given him His mother's name appears to have been a matter of the name of Achilles ('Axikλevç), from the circumsome dispute among the ancient expounders of my stance of his food being unlike that of the rest of men thology (Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. 1, 558), although the (à priv., and xian, "fructus quibus vescuntur homimore numerous authorities are in favour of Thetis, nes"). Other etymologies are also given; but most one of the sea-deities. According to Lycophron (v. likely none are true. (Compare, on this part of our 178), Thetis became the mother of seven male chil- subject, the Etymol. Mag.-Ptol. Hephast. apud dren by Peleus, six of whom she threw into the fire, Photium, Biblioth., vol. i., p. 152, ed Bekker.-Heyne, because, as Tzetzes informs us in his scholia, they ad Il. 1, 1.-Wassenberg, ad schol. in Il. 1, p. 130.) were not of the same nature with herself, and the Calchas having predicted, when Achilles had attained treatment she had received was unworthy of her rank the age of nine years, that Troy could not be taken as a goddess. The scholiast on Homer, however (Il. without him, Thetis, well aware that her son, if he 16, 37), states, that Thetis threw her children into the joined that expedition, was destined to perish, sent fire in order to ascertain whether they were mortal or him, disguised in female attire, to the court of Lycomnot, the goddess supposing that the fire would consume edes, king of the island of Scyros, for the purpose what was mortal in their natures, while she would of being concealed there. A difficulty, however, arises preserve what was immortal. The scholiast adds, in this part of the narrative, on account of the early that six of her children perished by this harsh experi- age of Achilles when he was sent to Scyros, which ment, and that she had, in like manner, thrown the can only be obviated by supposing, that he remained seventh, afterward named Achilles, into the flames, several years concealed in the island, and that the when Peleus, having beheld the deed, rescued his off- Trojan war occupied many years in preparation. (Comspring from this perilous situation. Tzetzes (ubi su- pare the remarks of Heyne, ad Apollod.,l. c., p. 316, pra) assigns a different motive to Thetis in the case and Gruber, Wörterbuch der altclassischen Mythologie of Achilles. He makes her to have been desirous of und Religion, vol. i., p. 32.) At the court of Lycomconferring immortality upon him, and states that with edes, he received the name of Pyrrha (Пvppú, Ruthis view she anointed him (Expiev) with ambrosia fa"), from his golden locks, and became the father of during the day, and threw him into fire at evening. Neoptolemus by Deidamia, one of the monarch's Peleus, having discovered the goddess in the act of daughters. (Apollod. l. c.) In this state of concealconsigning his child to the flames, cried out with ment Achilles remained, until discovered by Ulysses, alarm, whereupon Thetis, abandoning the object she who came to the island in the disguise of a travelling had in view, left the court of Peleus and rejoined the merchant. The chieftain of Ithaca offered, it seems, nymphs of the ocean. Dictys Cretensis makes Peleus various articles of female attire for sale, and mingled to have rescued Achilles from the fire before any part with them some pieces of armour. On a sudden blast of his body had been injured but the heel. Tzetzes, being given with a trumpet, Achilles discovered himfollowing the authority of Apollodorus, gives his first self by scizing upon the arms. (Apollod. I. c.-Staname as Ligyron (Aɩyúpwv), but the account of Aga- tius, Achill. 2, 201.) The young warrior then joined mestor, cited by the same scholiast, is more in ac- the army against Troy. This account, however, of cordance with the current tradition mentioned above. the concealment of Achilles is contradicted by the exAgamestor says, that the first name given to Achilles press authority of Homer, who represents him as prowas Pyrisous (Пvpíσooç), i. e., "saved from the fire." ceeding directly to the Trojan war from the court of What has thus far been stated in relation to Achilles, his father. (II. 9, 439.) As regards the forces which with the single exception of the names of his parents, he brought with him, the poet makes them to have Peleus and Thetis, is directly at variance with the au- come from the Pelasgian Argos, from Alus, Alope, and thority of Homer, and must therefore be regarded as Trachis, and speaks of them as those who possessed a mere posthomeric fable. The poet makes Achilles Phthia and Hellas, and who were called Myrmidones, say, that Thetis had no other child but himself; and Hellenes, and Achæi. (II. 2, 681, seqq.) Hence, though a daughter of Peleus, named Polydora, is men- according to Heyne, the sway of Achilles extended tioned in a part of the Iliad (16, 175), she must have from Trachis, at the foot of Mount Eta, as far as the been, according to the best commentators, only a half river Enipeus, where Pharsalus was situated, and sister of the hero. (Compare Heyne, ad loc.) Equally thence to the Peneus.-The Greeks, having made at variance with the account given by the bard, is the good their landing on the shores of Troas, proved so more popular fiction, that Thetis plunged her son into superior to the enemy as to compel them to seek shelthe waters of the Styx, and by that inmersion render- ter within their walls. (Thucyd. 1, 11.) No sooner ed the whole of his body invulnerable, except the heel was this done than the Greeks were forced to turn by which she held him. On this subject Homer is al- their principal attention to the means of supporting together silent; and, indeed, such a protection from their numerous forces. A part of the army was theredanger would have derogated too much from the char-fore sent to cultivate the rich vales of the Thracian acter of his favourite hero. There are several passa- Chersonese, then abandoned by their inhabitants on ges in the Iliad which plainly show, that the poet does account of the incursions of the barbarians from the not ascribe to Achilles the possession of any peculiar interior. (Thucyd. ubi supra.) But the Grecian arphysical defence against the chances of battle. (Com-my, being weakened by this separation of its force, pare Il. 20, 262: id. 288: and especially, 21, 166, where Achilles is actually wounded by Asteropæus.) The care of his education was intrusted, according to he common authorities, to the centaur Chiron, and to Phoenix, son of Amyntor. Homer, however, mentions could no longer deter the Trojans from again taking the field, nor prevent succours and supplies from being sent into the city. Thus the siege was protracted to the length of ten years. During a great part of this time, Achilles was employed in lessening the resources of Priam by the reduction of the tributary cities of Asia Minor. With a fleet of eieven vessels he ravaged the coasts of Mysia, made frequent disembarcations of his forces, and succeeded eventually in destroying eleven cities, among which, according to Strabo (584), were Hypoplacian Thebe, Lyrnessus, and Pedasus, and in laying waste the island of Lesbos. (Compare Homer, Il. 9, 328.) Among the spoils of Lyrnessus, Achilles obtained the beautiful Briscis, while, at the taking of Thebe, Chryseis the daughter of Chryses, a priest of Apollo at Chrysa, became the prize of Agamemnon. A pestilence shortly after appeared in the Grecian camp, and Calchas, encouraged by the proffered protection of Achilles, ventured to attribute it to Agamemnon's detention of the daughter of Chryses, whom her father had endeavoured to ransom, but in vain. The monarch, although deeply of fended, was compelled at last to surrender his captive, but, as an act of retaliation, and to testify his resentment, he deprived Achilles of Briseis. Hence arose "the anger of the son of Peleus," on which is based the action of the Iliad. Achilles on his part withdrew his forces from the contest, and neither prayers, nor entreaties, nor direct offers of reconciliation, couched in the most tempting and flattering terms (Il. 9, 119, eqq.), could induce him to return to the field. Among other things the monarch promised him, if he would forget the injurious treatment which he had received, the hand of one of his daughters, and the sovereignty. of seven cities of the Peloponnesus. (Il. 9, 142 and 149.) The death of his friend Patroclus, however, by the hand of Hector (Il. 16, 821, seqq.), roused him at length to action and revenge, and a reconciliation having thereupon taken place between the two Grecian leaders, Briseis was restored. (Il. 19, 78, seqq.-Id. 246, seqq.) As the arms of Achilles, having been worn by Patroclus, had become the prize of Hector, Vulcan, at the request of Thetis, fabricated a suit of impenetrable armour for her son. (I. 18, 468, seqq.) Arrayed in this, Achilles took the field, and after a great slaughter of the Trojans, and a contest with the god of the Scamander, by whose waters he was nearly overwhelined, met Hector, chased him thrice around the walls of Troy, and finally slew him by the aid of Minerva. (II. 22, 136, seqq.) According to Homer (Il. 24, 14, seqq.), Achilles dragged the corpse of Hector, at his chariot-wheels, thrice round the tomb of Patroclus, and from the language of the poet, he would appear to have done this for several days in succession. Virgil, however, makes Achilles to have dragged the body of Hector thrice round the walls of Troy. In this it is probable that the Roman poet fol*lowed one of the Cyclic, or else Tragic, writers. (Heyne, Excurs. 18, ad En. 1.) The corpse of the Trojan hero was at last yielded up to the tears and supplications of Priam, who had come for that purpose to the teat of Achilles, and a truce was granted the Trojans for the performance of the funeral obsequies. (I. 24, 599. Id. 669.) Achilles did not long survive his illustrious opponent. Some accounts make him to have died the day after Hector was slain. The common authorities, however, interpose the combats with Penthesilea and Memnon previous to his death. (Compate Heyne, Excurs. 19, ad Æn. 1.—Quint. Smyrn. 1,21, seqq.) According to the more received account, as it is given by the scholiast on Lycophron (v. 269), and also by Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius, Achilles, having become enamoured of Polyxena, the daughter of Priam, signified to the monarch that he would become his ally on condition of receiving her hand in marriage. Priam consented, and the parties having come for that purpose to the temple of the Thymbræan Apollo, Achilles was treacherously slain by Paris, who had concealed himself there, being wounded by him with an arrow in the heel. Another tradition, related by Arctinus, makes him to have been slain (in accordance with Hector's prophecy, Il. 21, 452), in the Scaan gate, while rushing into the city. Hyginus states that Achilles went round the walls of Troy, boasting of his exploit in having slain Hector, until Apollo, in anger, assumed the form of Paris, and slew him with an arrow (Hygin. fab. 107), but, with surprising inconsistency, he mentions in another place (fab. 110), that he was slain by Deiphobus and Alexander or Paris. The scholiast on Lycophron, cited above, says that the Trojans would not give up the corpse of Achilles until the Greeks had restored the various presents with which Priam had redeemed the dead body of Hector. The ashes of the hero were mingled in a golden urn with those of Patroclus, and the promontory of Sigæum is said to mark the place where both repose. A tomb was here erected to his memory, and near it Thetis caused funeral games to be celebrated in honour of her son, which were afterward annually observed by a decree of the oracle of Dodona (vid. Sigrum). It is said, that, after the taking of Troy, the ghost of Achilles appeared to the Greeks, and demanded of them Polyxena, who was accordingly sacrificed on his tomb by his son Neoptolemus, or Pyrrhus. (Eurip. Hec. 35, seqq.-Senec. Troad. 191.—Ovid, Met. 13, 441, seqq.-Q. Calab. 14.) Another account makes the Trojan princess to have killed herself through grief at his loss. (Tzetzes, ad Lycophr. 323.-Philostratus, Heroica., p. 714, ed. Morellus.) The Thessalians, in accordance with the oracle just mentioned, erected a temple to his memory at Sigaum, and rendered him divine honours. Every year they brought thither two bulls, one white and the other black, crowned with garlands, and along with them some of the water of the Sperchius. (Gruber, Wörterbuch der altclassischen Mythologie, vol. i., p. 48.) Another and still stranger tradition informs us, that Achilles survived the fall of Troy and married Helen; but others maintain that this union took place after his death, in the island of Leuce, where many of the ancient heroes lived in a separate elysium (vid. Leuce). When Achilles was young, his mother asked him whether he preferred a long life spent in obscurity, or a brief existence of military glory. He decided in favour of the latter. (Compare I. 9, 410, seqq.) Some ages after the Trojan war, Alexander, in the course of his march into the East, offered sacrifices on the tomb of Achilles, and expressed his admiration as well of the hero, as of the bard whom he had found to immortalize his name. (Plutarch, Vit. Alexand. 15.) -VII. Tatius, a native of Alexandrea, commonly assigned to the second or third century of the Christian era. The best critics, however, such as Huet, Chardon la Rochette, Coray, and Jacobs, make him to have flourished after the time of Heliodorus, since they have discovered in him what they consider manifest imitations of the latter writer. Nay, if it be true that Musæus, whom he has also imitated, composed his poem of Hero and Leander before 430 or 450 of our era, we must then place Achilles Tatius even as low as the middle of the 5th century. (Schoell, Hist. Litt. Gr. 6, 231.) According to Suidas, he became, towards the end of his life, a Christian and bishop. But as the lexicographer makes no mention of his episcopal see, and as Photius, who speaks in three different places of him, is silent on this head, it may be permitted us to doubt the accuracy of Suidas's statement. (Photii Bibliothec., vol. i., p. 33, ed. Bekker.-Id. ibid., p. 50.-Id. ibid., p. 66.) Equally unworthy of reliance would appear to be another remark of the same lexicographer, that Achilles Tatius wrote a treatise on the sphere. If this were correct, we ought to put him one or two centuries earlier, inasmuch as Firmicus, a Latin writer of the middle of the fourth century, cites the "Sphere of Achilles." (Astron. 4, 10.) Suidas, however, who is not accustomed to discriminate very nicely be tween persons bearing the same name, here confounds |