ALCÆUS, one of the greatest of the Greek lyric poets, was a native of Mitylene, and flourished about the end of the seventh century b.c. His family seems to have been noble, and he and his brother struggled hard to gain for themselves the supreme power in their native state. They were unsuccessful, and Alcæus never spared abusive language against the successful aspirants, especially Myrsilus, on whose death he wrote a triumphant ode of joy. Poets in these days were men of action, and accordingly Alcæus fought against the Athenians, under Pittacus, but for some reason or other threw his shield away. There is no cause to suspect his bravery on this account, and indeed he seems to have exaggerated his misdeeds. When Pittacus was appointed governor-general of the state, in opposition to the efforts of Alcæus and his brother, the poet withdrew from his native place, but hurled back biting and sarcastic verses on the ruler. After a time the poet grew weary, repented, and was forgiven by Pittacus. And so it is likely that he spent the rest of his days in peace, amidst the scenes of his childhood. The lyric efforts of Alcæus are very various. Now he sings of wine, of which he was perhaps too fond; now of love, now of war. His most famous were his poems on the civil broils in which he took so prominent a part. We have only fragments of this great poet's works, but there is enough to show his extraordinary gifts. Horace imitated him very frequently.—J. D.
ALCAFORADA, Francis, a Portuguese traveller, who took part in the expedition under the command of John Gonzalve Zarco, which, sixty years before that of America, made the discovery of the isle of Madeira. He drew up an interesting history of the voyage, which bears the date of 1420.
ALCAFORADA, Marianna, a Portuguese lady of noble birth, whose appellation of "une religieuse Portugaise" has acquired a remarkable celebrity, lived in the second half of the seventeenth century. Immured in one of the rich convents of Beja, in the year 1662 she had an opportunity of making the acquaintance of Count Bouton de Chamilly, for whom she conceived a violent passion, which she expressed in a series of letters of remarkable power and pathos. These letters, the vanity of the chevalier led him to deliver to a friend for publication, and in this way the world has become acquainted with the sorrows and the genius of Marianna Alcaforada. Her letters have been frequently reprinted, sometimes with unworthy additions, and are best known in the French translations, published with the title "Lettres Portugaises."—J. S., G.
ALCALA´, Parafan d' Rivera, Duke d', viceroy of Naples under Philip II. king of Spain, was born in 1508. He removed many abuses, and by his extraordinary energy, obviated many calamities that threatened the existence of the Spanish power in Italy. Died in 1571.
ALCALA´, Pedro de, a Spanish missionary, commissioned by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1491 to labour among the Moors of Grenada. He wrote an Arabic grammar, now very rare.
ALCALA´ Y HERRERA, a Portuguese poet, born at Lisbon in 1599. He was originally a merchant, and seems to have carried into his worship of the muses some of the crotchets of his trade. He has left songs without an a, and hymns without an e; both without poetry.
ALCA´MENES, king of Sparta in 747 b.c., finished the war with Helos, and began that with Messenia, two of the many Spartan quarrels with neighbouring states.
ALCAMENES of Athens, a sculptor and toreutes, living about 450 b.c. He was the best pupil, and almost the rival of Phidias, whom he assisted in many of his important enterprises. Amongst his works are recorded—a statue of Venus Aphrodite, which he made in competition with Agoracrites, another pupil of Phidias, over whom he obtained the prize—(this statue was placed in the public gardens at Athens); the group in the western pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, representing the son of Jupiter, Perithous, rescuing his wife from the Centaurs; a statue of Vulcan, which, according to Cicero, represented the lameness of the god without degenerating into deformity; a bronze statue of Mars, of which the Ludovisi Mars is supposed to be a copy, in the same way that the Achilles of the Louvre is considered to be an imitation of another statue by this great sculptor. Even the Venus of Milo is, with some apparent reason, attributed to Alcamenes, who undoubtedly was one of the best artists of the best period of Greek sculpture.—R. M.
ALCAMO, Ciullo d', a very ancient Italian poet mentioned by Dante, was a native of Sicily, and lived towards the end of the twelfth century. One canzone preserved by Crescimbeni, and no more, has been authenticated as the work of this father of Italian song.
ALCANTARA, Diego d', a distinguished Spanish architect of the sixteenth century. He was appointed by king Philip II. to the direction of the works of the royal palaces, and of those of the cathedral of Toledo. He died in 1587.—R. M.
ALCAZAR, Balthazar d', a Spanish poet, of whom little is known besides the fact that he was a contemporary of Cervantes, and wrote a number of madrigals and short poems of the kind popular in the sixteenth century.
ALCEDO, Antonio, a Spanish geographer, lived in the latter part of the eighteenth century. He was the author of a geographical and historical dictionary of the West Indies, translated into English in 1812.
ALCESTE, the daughter of Pelias, and wife of Admetus, king of Thessaly, is said to have devoted herself to death in consequence of the declaration of an oracle, to save the life of her husband, who was afflicted with a dangerous disease, but who was rescued from the infernal powers by Hercules.
ALCETAS, a king of Epirus, predecessor of Pyrrhus.
ALCHINDIUS or ALKINDI, Abou Yakoof ibn Ishak Ibn Assabah, an Arabian physician and philosopher, born at Bassora, who lived at the court of the caliph Al-Mamûn. He was the author of more than two hundred works on medicine, mathematics, logic, and music, a catalogue of which may be found in the work of Casari, "Arabica philosophorum bibliotheca." Several of his writings were translated into Latin during the middle ages. He endeavored to found his medical system upon mathematical principles.—J. W. S.
ALCIATI, Andrea, an Italian jurist of Alzano in the Milanese territory. He was born in May, 1492, and died in June, 1550. He gained great distinction as professor of civil law at the universities of Avignon, Bourges, Pavia, Milan, Bologna, and Ferrara. He introduced some degree of literary refinement into the barbarous language of jurisprudence, but he disgraced himself by avarice and gluttony. Towards the latter part of his life, he was created prothonotary of Rome by Pope Paul III., and was raised by the emperor to the rank of a count palatine. He wrote a commentary upon Tacitus, and a history of Milan.—J. W. S.
ALCIBIADES, son of Clinias and Dinomache, was born at Athens about the year 452 b.c. Through his father, he claimed descent from Eurysaces the son of Ajax, while his mother was a member of the noble house of the Alcmæonidæ. His father dying while he was yet young, appointed Pericles his guardian. The concurring testimony of the ancients proves Alcibiades to have been endowed with all the gifts of nature and of fortune, in an extraordinary degree. To extreme personal beauty, a point to which the Greeks attached an importance which we should now think extravagant, were united in him a boundless ambition, an indomitable courage, and the rarest intellectual powers. He was a most persuasive orator, and yet, at the same time, an astute and versatile statesman, and, still further, an able and successful general: he was Demosthenes, Talleyrand, and Marlborough, all in one. But with all this, he was essentially unprincipled, and, after a life of incessant activity, the latter part of which was employed in neutralizing the work of the former part, he found himself unable to repair the ruin he had wrought; he lived to see the fall of Athens, in consequence of his own previous machinations against her, in spite of the extraordinary efforts he had made in the last years of his life to avert her doom.
The beauty and genius of Alcibiades drew around him, as was natural, a crowd of flatterers and admirers; the influence which his eloquence obtained for him with the people caused him to be courted and loaded with presents by the tributaries of Athens who had any point to gain in the public assembly; and last, not least, the great philosopher of antiquity had a singular affection for him, and seems to have earnestly endeavoured to enlist his varied powers in the cause of virtue and justice. Alcibiades, we are told, returned the affection of Socrates, delighted to converse with him, and took in good part the tone of irony or censure which his admonitions sometimes assumed. Each had saved the other's life in battle: at Potidæa, 432 b.c., where Alcibiades was wounded, Socrates stood over him, and kept the enemy at bay until succour arrived, and, eight years later, at the battle of Delium, Alcibiades was enabled to render a similar service to Socrates. The philosopher, according to Plato, endeavoured to
