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ALCHINDUS ALCiLEONIDJi: 263 monians and Persians at Cyzicus, captured that town, Chalcedon, and Byzantium, restored to the Athenians their supremacy by sea, and after these brilliant achievements returned to Athens in 407, where he was received with general enthusiasm. His triumph was com- plete when he celebrated with unusual splen- dor the Eleusinian mysteries. Being appointed commander-in-chief of all the land and sea forces, he sailed with a fleet to Asia Minor, to reduce some of the Ionian islands and cities. The pay and provisions for his soldiers not ar- riving, and his position becoming dangerous, he was obliged to leave his army in command of Antiochus, while he himself sought supplies in Caria. During his absence, the Spartan com- mander Lysander had the art to draw Anti- ochus into an engagement, in which the Athe- nians were defeated and a part of their vessels destroyed. Alcibiades now again lost favor. He went into voluntary banishment, to a castle which he had built in Pactye, Thrace. When the Athenian fleet was in 405 lying at ^Egospo- tamos, Alcibiades informed the generals of the perilous position which they had selected, and forewarned them of the fatal result of the bat- tle soon after fought there, which caused the fall of Athens in the following year, and its subjec- tion to the thirty tyrants. The Spartans, who now ruled at Athens, renewed the decree of banishment against him, and Alcibiades fled toward the court of Artaxerxes II. to win over that monarch to the cause of his fallen country. He was on his way thither, in the dominions of the satrap Pharnabazus, when one night his house was surrounded by armed men, and set on fire. He rushed out, sword in hand, but fell pierced with arrows. The Spartans, feel- ing their supremacy insecure while Alcibiades lived, had probably thus plotted with Pharna- bazus for his destruction. ALCHINDUS. See ALKINDI. ALCINOUS, in Greek mythology, son of N"au- sithous and grandson of Neptune. In the story of the Argonauts he is king of the island of Drepane, where he entertained Jason and his companions. In the Odyssey he rules over the Phaeaces in the island of Scheria. ALCIPHRON, a Greek writer, supposed to have been a contemporary of Lucian, flourish- ing about A. D. 170. He was the author of 113 fictitious letters, in which certain representa- tive characters fishermen, peasants, parasites, and courtesans are made to portray, in the purest Attic, the opinions and idiosyncrasies of the classes to which they respectively belong. These letters are mostly given as if written from Athens or its vicinity, in the age immedi- ately following that of Alexander the Great. The best edition of them is that of Seiler (Leipsic, 2d ed., 1856). ALCIRA, an old walled town of Spain, on an island in the river Jucar, in the province and 24 m. S. of Valencia; pop. about 14,000. It is irregularly built, but is adorned by several churches and bridges over the Jucar, and a fine railway depot belonging to the Valencia and Almansa line. It was an important town in Moorish times. ALCMJ20N. I. In ancient Greek legends, a son of Amphiaraus and Eriphyle of Argos, and brother of Amphilochus. Eriphyle hav- ing been bribed by Polynices with the neck- lace and robe of Harmonia to induce Amphi- araus to join the expedition of the seven against Thebes, the latter, foreseeing that he should fall, charged his sons to kill her when they were grown up. Meantime, an oracle having declared that the expedition of the epigoni would be successful if commanded by Alcmseon, Polynices again bribed Eriphyle with the peplus of Harmonia to persuade him to com- ply. On his return Alcmteon fulfilled his father's injunction by killing her. For this crime he was afflicted with madness and tor- mented by the Furies, who drove him into ex- ile, and doomed him to a life of perpetual wandering. Arriving in Psophis, he was hos- pitably received and purified by its king, Phe- geus, who gave him his daughter Arsinoe in marriage. To her Alcmseon presented the necklace and robe of Harmonia. But Psophis having been visited by a famine because of Alcmaaon's sojourn there, he had to depart, and, by the advice of an oracle, went to the land of the river god Achelous, where he married the nymph Calirrhoe. His new spouse coveting the magical robe and necklace which he had given to Arsinoe, Alcmaaon went to Psophis and obtained them from the daughter of Phegeus, under the pretence that he was going to dedicate them at Delphi. But when Phegeus heard that they had been presented to Calir- rhoe, he sent his sons to slay Alcmaaon and avenge the insult offered to their sister. Alc- maeon was afterward worshipped as a hero in many parts of Greece. II. A Greek natural philosopher, born in the Hellenic city of Cro- tona in southern Italy, about the middle of the 6th century B. 0. He is said to have studied under Pythagoras, and to have been the first who ventured on the practice of dis- secting animals. He wrote several medical and philosophical treatises, of which a few fragments remain. ALCMJEONIDJ), a noble Athenian family, de- scendants of Alcma3on, the great-grandson of Nestor. The whole family were expelled from Athens about 596 B. 0. by a council of 300 nobles, to whom, by the advice of Solon, they had submitted the case of the archon Megacles, one of their number. Megacles was accused of having been guilty of sacrilege in his treach- ery toward Cylon and his comrades, whom he killed after promising them safety a crime which in the opinion of the council brought a stain upon all the Alcmaeonids. After an exile of about 30 years they succeeded in returning to the city, and even, after a few years, in seizing the government and ex- pelling Pisistratus. Although Megacles after- ward restored him, and gave him his daugh-