Aetolia, and Acarnania. Their interpretation is confirmed by a passage in Tacitus, in which Nicopolis in the south of Epeirus is called by Tacitus (Ann. ii. 53) a city of Achaia; but too much stress must not be laid upon this passage, as Tacitus may only have used Achaia in its widest signification as equivalent to Greece. If M^XP* is not inclusive, Thessaly, Aetolia, and Acarnania must be assigned either wholly to Macedonia, or partly to Macedonia and partly to Epeirus. Ptolemy (iii. 2, seq.), in his division of Greece, assigns Thessaly to Macedonia, Acarnania to Epeiros, and Aetolia to Achaia; and it is probable that this represents the political division of the country at the time at which he lived (A.D. 150). Achaia continued to be a Roman province governed by proconsuls down to the time of Justinian. (Kruse, Hellas, vol. i. p. 573.)
ACHA'RACA (Ax<iKfxwa), a village of Lydia, on the road from Tralles to Nysa, with a Plutonium or a temple of Pluto, and a cave, named Charonium, where the sick were healed under the direction of the priests. (Strab. xiv. pp. 649, 650.)
ACHARNAE (Axo^i^: Eth, 'Axopi^l^y, Acharnanus, Nep. Them., 1.; Adj, 'AxopyucSs), the principal demus of Attica, belon^ng to the tiibe Oeneis, was situated 60 stadia N. of Athens, and consequently not far from the foot of Mt. Parnes. It was from the woods of this mountain that the Acharnians were enabled to carry on that traffic in charcoal for which they were noted among the Athenians. (Aristoph. Acharn. 332.) Their land was fertile; their population was rough and warlike ; and they furnished at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war 3000 hoplites, or a tenth of the whole infantry of the republic. They possessed sanctuaries or altars of Apollo Aguieus, of Heracles, of Athena Hygieia, of Athena Hippia, of Dionysus Melpomenus, and of Dionysus Cissus, so called, because the Achamians said that the ivy first grew in this demus. One of the plays of Aristophanes bears the name of the Acharnians. Leake supposes that branch of the plain of Athens, which is included between the foot of the hills of Khassia and a projection of the range of Aegaleos, stretching eastward from the northern termination of that mountain, to have been the district of the demus Acharnae. The exact situation of the town has not yet been discovered. Some Hellenic remains, situated ¾ of a mile to the westward of Menidhi have generally been taken for those of Archamae; but Menidhi is more probably a oorruption of Uaiovihu. (Thuc. ii. 13, 19 — 21; Ludan, Icaro-Menip, 18; Pind. Nem. ii. 25 ; Paus. i. 31. § 6; Athen. p. 234; Steph. B. s. v.; Leake, Demi of Attica p. 35, seq.)
ACHARRAE, a town of Thessaly in the district Thessallotis, on the river Pamisus, mentioned only by Livy (xxxii. 13), but apparently the same place as the Achame of Pliny (iv. 9. s. 16).
ACHATES (Axdrns), a small river in Sdly,
noticed by Silius Italicus for the remarkable clear-
ness of its waters {perlucent&n splendenti gurgite
Achatetij xiv. 228), and by various other writers as
the place whero agates were found, and from whence
they derived the name of " lapis Adiates," which
they have retained in all modern languages. It has
been identified by Claverins (followed by most mo-
dem geographers) with the river DiriUOy a small
stream on the S. coast of Sicily, about 7 miles £. of
Terranova, which is indeed remarkable for the clear-
ness of its waters: but Pliny, the only author who
affords any elue to its position, distinctiv places the
ACHELOUS.
Achates between Thennae and Selinus, in the SV.
quarter of the island. It cannot, therefore, be the
JHrillOf but its modern name is unknown. (Plin. iii.
8. 8. 14, xzzvii. 10. s. 54 ; Theophiast <fo Lapid,
§ 31 ; Vlb. Seq. p. 3; SoIhL 5. § 25; Cluver. SiciZ
p. 201.)
ACHELO'US ('AxeA^, Ejac 'AxtkAios).
1. (^Atpropotama), tin largest and most cdebrated
river in Greece, rose in Mount Pindus, and after
flowing through the mountainous country of the
Dolopiana and Agraeans, entered the plam of
Acamania and Aetolia near Stratns, and discharged
itself into the Ionian sea, near the Aramanian
town of Oeniadae. It subsequently formed the
boundary between Acamania xad Aet(^ bat in
the time of Thucydides the tenitaiy of Oeniadae
extended oast of tiie river. It is usually called a
river of Acamania, but it is sometimes assigned to
Aeto]i< Its general directioB is from north to
sonth. Its waters are of a whitish yellow or cream
cobur, whence it derives its modern name of Aqfro'
potamo or the White river, and to which Dionysiiis
(432) probably alludes in the epithet kfyvpoSimns.
It is said to have been called more anciently Thoas,
Axenus and Thestins (Thuc. iL 102; Strab. pp.
449, 450, 458; Pint de Fim. 22; Stq>h. B. 8.v.)
We learn from Leake that the reputed sources of
the Achelons ace at a village called KhaUkij which
is probably a oormptdon of Chalcis, at which place
Dionyaius Periegetes (496) places the sources of
the riwr. Its waters are swelled by numeroos
torrents, which it receives in its passage through
the mountains, and when it emecges into the plain
near Stratus its bed is not less than three^narters
of a mile in width. In winter the entire bed
Is often filled, but in the middle of summer the
river is divided into five or six rapid streams, of
which only two are of a considerable size. After
leaving Stratus the river becomes narrower; and,
in the lower part of its course, the plain through
which it fiows was called in antiquity Pacacheloitis
after Uie river. This plain was celebrated for its
fiertility, though covered in great part with marshes,
several of which were formed by the overfiowings of
the Achelons. In this port of its course Ike river
presents the most extraordinary series of wander-
ings; and these deflexions, observes a recent tra-
veller, are not only so sudden, but so extensive,
as to render it difficult to trace tiie exact line of its
bed, — and sometimes, for several miles, having its
direct course towards the sea, it appears to flow
back into the mountains in which it rises. The
Achelons brings down from the mountains an
immense quantity of evthy particles, which have
formed a number of small islands at its month,
which belong to the group andentiy called Kchi-
nades; and part of the mamland near its mouth is
only alluvial depoeitian. [Echutadbs.] (Leake,
Northern Cfreeoej vol. L p. 136, seq., vol. iii. p.
513, voL iv. p. 21 1 ; Mure, Journal of a Tour in
Greece^ vol. L p. 102.) The chi^ tributaries
of the Achelons were: — on its left, the Camfylus
(Ko^tir^Aos, Died. six. 67 : Medghova), a river of
considerable size, flowing from I)olopia through the
territory of the Dryopes and fiuiytanes, and the
Ctathus (K^of, Pol. ap. Ath. p. 424, c.) flowing out of tiie lake Hyrie into the main stream just
above Oonope: — on its right tiie Pbtitarus (Liv.
xliii. 22) in Aperantia, and the Anapus ("Ayavof),
which fell into the main stream in Acamania 80
stadia S. of Stratus. (Thuc ii. 82.)
