Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/26

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ACHAEUS.
ACHELOUS.

accounts, as well as those which were merely mythical, but he entitled them μυθικὰ to avoid calumny and to indicate the pleasant nature of the work. It was compiled from Conon, Apollodorus, Protagoras and others. (Phot. Bibl. cod. 189; Tzetz. Chil. vii. 144.)

ACHAEA (Ἀχαία), a surname of Demeter by which she was worshipped at Athens by the Gephyraeans who had emigrated thither from Boeotia. (Herod, v. 61; Plut. Is. et Osir. p. 378, d.)

2. A surname of Minerva worshipped at Luceria in Apulia where the donaria and the arms of Diomedes were preserved in her temple. ( Aristot. Mirab. Narrat. 117.)[L. S.]

ACHAEUS (Ἀχαιός), according to nearly all traditions a son of Xuthus and Creusa, and consequently a brother of Ion and grandson of Hellen. The Achaeans regarded him as the author of their race, and derived from him their own name as well as that of Achaia, which was formerly called Aegialus. When his uncle Aeolus in Thessaly, whence he himself had come to Peloponnesus, died, he went thither and made himself master of Phthiotis, which now also received from him the name of Achaia. (Paus. vii. 1. §2; Strab. viii. p. 383 ; Apollod. i. 7. § 3.) Servius (ad Aen. i. 242) alone calls Achaeus a son of Jupiter and Pithia, which is probably miswritten for Phthia.[L. S.]

ACHAEUS (Ἀχαιός), son of Andromachus, whose sister Laodice married Seleucus Callinicus, the father of Antiochus the Great. Achaeus himself married Laodice, the daughter of Mithridates, king of Pontus. (Polyb. iv. 51. § 4, viii. 22. § 1 1.) He accompanied Seleucus Ceraunus, the son of Callinicus, in his expedition across mount Taurus against Attalus, and after the assassination of Seleucus revenged his death; and though he might easily have assumed the royal power, he remained faithful to the family of Seleucus. Antiochus the Great, the successor of Seleucus, appointed him to the command of all Asia on this side of mount Taurus, b. c. 223. Achaeus recovered for the Syrian empire all the districts which Attalus had gained; but having been falsely accused by Hermeias, the minister of Antiochus, of intending to revolt, he did so in self-defence, assumed the title cf king, and ruled over the whole of Asia on this side of the Taurus. As long as Antiochus was engaged in the war with Ptolemy, he could not march against Achaeus; but after a peace had been concluded with Ptolemy, he crossed the Taurus, united his forces with Attalus, deprived Achaeus in one campaign of all his dominions and took Sardis with the exception of the citadel. Achaeus after sustaining a siege of two years in the citadel at last fell into the hands of Antiochus b. c. 214, through the treachery of Bolis, who had been employed by Sosibius, the minister of Ptolemy, to deliver him from his danger, but betrayed him to Antiochus, who ordered him to be put to death immediately. (Polyb. iv. 2. § 6, iv. 48, v. 40. § 7, 42, 57, vii. 15—18, viii. 17—23.)

ACHAEUS (Ἀχαιός) of Eretria in Euboea, a tragic poet, was born B. C. 484, the year in which Aeschylus gained his first victory, and four years before the birth of Euripides. In B. C. 477, he contended with Sophocles and Euripides, and though he subsequently brought out many dramas, according to some as many as thirty or forty, he nevertheless only gained the prize once. The fragments of Achaeus contain much strange mythology, and his expressions were often forced and obscure. (Athen. x. p. 451, c.) Still in the satyrical drama he must have possessed considerable merit, for in this department some ancient critics thought him inferior only to Aeschylus. (Diog. Laer. ii. 133.) 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. (Suidas, s. v.) This Achaeus should not be confounded with a later tragic writer of the same name, who was a native of Syracuse. According to Suidas and Phavorinus he wrote ten, according to Eudocia fourteen tragedies. (Urlichs, Ibid.)[R. W.]

ACHAE'MENES (Ἀχαιμένης). 1. The ancestor of the Persian kings, who founded the family of the Achaemenidae (Ἀχαιμενίδαι), which was the noblest family of the Pasargadae, the noblest of the Persian tribes. Achaemenes is said to have been brought up by an eagle. According to a genealogy given by Xerxes, the following waa the order of the descent: Achaemenes, Teïspes, Cambyses, Cyrus, Teïspes, Ariaramnes, Arsames, Ilystaspes, Darius, Xerxes. (Herod, i. 125, vii. 11; Aelian, Hist. Anim. xii. 21.) The original seat of this family was Achaemenia in Persis. (Steph. s.v. Ἀχαιμενία) The Roman poets use the adjective Achaemenius in the sense of Persian. (Hon Carm. iii. 1. 44, xiii. 8 ; Ov. Ar. Am. L 226, Met. iv. 212.)

2. The son of Darius I. was appointed by his brother Xerxes governor of Egypt, b. c. 484. Ho commanded the Egyptian fleet in the expedition of Xerxes against Greece, and strongly opposed tho prudent advice of Demaratus. When Egypt revolted under Inarus the Libyan in b. c. 460, Achaemenes was sent to subdue it, but was defeated and killed in battle by Inarus. (Herod, iii. 12, vii. 7, 97, 236 ; Diod. xi. 74.)

ACHAEME'NIDES or ACHEME'NIDES, a son of Adamastus of Ithaca, and a companion of Ulysses who left him behind in Sicily, when he fled from the Cyclops. Here he was found by Aeneas who took him with him. (Virg. Aen. iii. 613, &c. ; Ov. Ex Pont. ii. 2. 25.)[L. S.]

ACHA'ICUS, a surname of [L. Mummius]

ACHA'ICUS (Ἀχαϊκός), a philosopher, who wrote a work on Ethics. His time is unknown. (Diog. Laert. vi. 99 ; Theodor. Graec. affect, cur. viii. p. 919, ed. Schulze ; Clem. Alex. Strom. iv. p. 496, d.)

ACHELO'IS. 1. A surname of the Sirens, the daughters of Achelous and a muse. (Ov. Met. V. 552, xiv. 87; Apollod. i. 7. § 10.)

2. A general name for water-nymphs, as in Columella (x. 263), where the companions of the Pegasids are called Acheloides.[L. S.]

ACHELO'US (Ἀχελῷος), the god of the river Achelous which was the greatest, and according to tradition, the most ancient among the rivers of Greece. He with 3000 brother-rivers is described as a son of Oceanus and Thetys (Hes. Theog. 340), or of Oceanus and Gaea, or lastly of Helios and Gaea. (Natal. Com. vii. 2.) The origin of the river Achelous is thus described by Servius (ad Virg. Georg. i. 9; Aen. viii, 300): When Achelous on one occasion had lost his daughters, the Sirens, and in his grief invoked his mother Gaea, she received him to her bosom, and on the spot where she received him, she caused the river bear-