Chapter 5 of 68 · 1541 words · ~8 min read

chapter 9._

ALSO IN _H. A. Stern, The Captive Missionary._

_H. M. Stanley, Coomassie and Magdala, part 2._

ACABA, the Pledges of.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.

ACADEMY, The Athenian.

"The Academia, a public garden in the neighbourhood of Athens, was the favourite resort of Plato, and gave its name to the school which he founded. This garden was planted with lofty plane-trees, and adorned with temples and statues; a gentle stream rolled through it."

_G. H. Lewes, Biog. History of Philosophy, 6th Epoch_.

The masters of the great schools of philosophy at Athens "chose for their lectures and discussions the public buildings which were called gymnasia, of which there were several in different quarters of the city. They could only use them by the sufferance of the State, which had built them chiefly for bodily exercises and athletic feats. … Before long several of the schools drew themselves apart in special buildings, and even took their most familiar names, such as the Lyceum and the Academy, from the gymnasia in which they made themselves at home. Gradually we find the traces of some material provisions, which helped to define and to perpetuate the different sects. Plato had a little garden, close by the sacred Eleusinian Way, in the shady groves of the Academy, which he bought, says Plutarch, for some 3,000 drachmæ. There lived also his successors, Xenocrates and Polemon. … Aristotle, as we know, in later life had taught in the Lyceum, in the rich grounds near the Ilissus, and there he probably possessed the house and garden which after his death came into the hands of his successor, Theophrastus."

_W. W. Capes, University life in Ancient Athens, pages. 31-33._

For a description of the Academy, the Lyceum, and other gymnasia of Athens.

See GYMNASIA GREEK.

Concerning the suppression of the Academy,

See ATHENS: A. D. 529.

ACADIA.

See NOVA SCOTIA.

ACADIANS, The, and the British Government. Their expulsion.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1713-1730; 1749-1755, and 1755.

ACARNANIANS.

See AKARNANIANS.

ACAWOIOS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: CARIBS AND THEIR KINDRED.

ACCAD. ACCADIANS.

See BABYLONIA, PRIMITIVE.

ACCOLADE.

"The concluding sign of being dubbed or adopted into the order of knighthood was a slight blow given by the lord to the cavalier, and called the accolade, from the part of the body, the neck, whereon it was struck. … Many writers have imagined that the accolade was the last blow which the soldier might receive with impunity: but this interpretation is not correct, for the squire was as jealous of his honour as the knight. The origin of the accolade it is impossible to trace, but it was clearly considered symbolical of the religious and moral duties of knighthood, and was the only ceremony used when knights were made in places (the field of battle, for instance), where time and circumstances did not allow of many ceremonies."

_C. Mills, History of Chivalry, page 1, 53, and foot-note_.

ACHÆAN CITIES, League of the.

This, which is not to be confounded with the "Achaian League" of Peloponnesus, was an early League of the Greek settlements in southern Italy, or Magna Græca. It was "composed of the towns of Siris, Pandosia, Metabus or Metapontum, Sybaris with its offsets Posidonia and Laus, Croton, Caulonia, Temesa, Terina and Pyxus. … The language of Polybius regarding the Achæan symmachy in the Peloponnesus may be applied also to these Italian Achæans; 'not only did they live in federal and friendly communion, but they made use of the same laws, and the same weights, measures and coins, as well as of the same magistrates, councillors and judges.'"

_T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 1, chapter 10._

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ACHÆAN LEAGUE.

See GREECE: B. C. 280-146.

ACHÆMENIDS, The.

The family or dynastic name (in its Greek form) of the kings of the Persian Empire founded by Cyrus, derived from an ancestor, Achæmenes, who was probably a chief of the Persian tribe of the Pasargadæ. "In the inscription of Behistun, King Darius says: 'From old time we were kings; eight of my family have been kings, I am the ninth; from very ancient times we have been kings.' He enumerates his ancestors: 'My father was Vistaçpa, the father of Vistaçpa was Arsama; the father of Arsama was Ariyaramna, the father of Ariyaramna was Khaispis, the father of Khaispis was Hakhamanis; hence we are called Hakhamanisiya (Achæmenids).' In these words Darius gives the tree of his own family up to Khaispis; this was the younger branch of the Achæmenids. Teispes, the son of Achaemenes, had two sons; the elder was Cambyses (Kambujiya) the younger Ariamnes; the son of Cambyses was Cyrus (Kurus), the son of Cyrus was Cambyses II. Hence Darius could indeed maintain that eight princes of his family had preceded him; but it was not correct to maintain that they had been kings before him and that he was the ninth king."

_M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, volume 5, book 8, chapter 3._

ALSO IN _G. Rawlinson, Family of the Achæmenidæ, appendix to book 7 of Herodotus_.

See, also, PERSIA, ANCIENT.

ACHAIA:

"Crossing the river Larissus, and pursuing the northern coast of Peloponnesus south of the Corinthian Gulf, the traveller would pass into Achaia—a name which designated the narrow strip of level land, and the projecting spurs and declivities between that gulf and the northernmost mountains of the peninsula. … Achaean cities—twelve in number at least, if not more—divided this long strip of land amongst them, from the mouth of the Larissus and the northwestern Cape Araxus on one side, to the western boundary of the Sikyon territory on the other. According to the accounts of the ancient legends and the belief of Herodotus, this territory had been once occupied by Ionian inhabitants, whom the Achaeans had expelled."

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 4 (volume 2)._

After the Roman conquest and the suppression of the Achaian League, the name Achaia was given to the Roman province then organized, which embraced all Greece south of Macedonia and Epirus.

See GREECE: B. C. 280-146.

"In the Homeric poems, where … the 'Hellenes' only appear in one district of Southern Thessaly, the name Achæans is employed by preference as a general appelation for the whole race. But the Achæans we may term, without hesitation, a Pelasgian people, in so far, that is, as we use this name merely as the opposite of the term 'Hellenes,' which prevailed at a later time, although it is true that the Hellenes themselves were nothing more than a particular branch of the Pelasgian stock. … [The name of the] Achæans, after it had dropped its earlier and more universal application, was preserved as the special name of a population dwelling in the north of the Peloponnese and the south of Thessaly."

_Georg Friedrich Schömann, Antiquity of Greece: The State, Introduction._

"The ancients regarded them [the Achæans] as a branch of the Æolians, with whom they afterwards reunited into one national body, i.e., not as an originally distinct nationality or independent branch of the Greek people. Accordingly, we hear neither of an Achæan language nor of Achæan art. A manifest and decided influence of the maritime Greeks, wherever the Achæans appear, is common to the latter with the Æolians. Achæans are everywhere settled on the coast, and are always regarded as particularly near relations of the Ionians. … The Achæans appear scattered about in localities on the coast of the Ægean so remote from one another, that it is impossible to consider all bearing this name as fragments of a people originally united in one social community; nor do they in fact anywhere appear, properly speaking, as a popular body, as the main stock of the population, but rather as eminent families, from which spring heroes; hence the use of the expression 'Sons of the Achæans' to indicate noble descent."

_E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 1, chapter 3._

ALSO IN _M. Duncker, History of Greece, book 1, chapter 2, and book 2, chapter 2._

See, also, ACHAIA, and GREECE: THE MIGRATIONS.

ACHAIA: A. D. 1205-1387. Mediæval Principality.

Among the conquests of the French and Lombard Crusaders in Greece, after the taking of Constantinople, was that of a major part of the Peloponnesus—then beginning to be called the Morea—by William de Champlitte, a French knight, assisted by Geffrey de Villehardouin, the younger—nephew and namesake of the Marshal of Champagne, who was chronicler of the conquest of the Empire of the East. William de Champlitte was invested with this Principality of Achaia, or of the Morea, as it is variously styled. Geffrey Villehardouin represented him in the government, as his "bailly," for a time, and finally succeeded in supplanting him. Half a century later the Greeks, who had recovered Constantinople, reduced the territory of the Principality of Achaia to about half the peninsula, and a destructive war was waged between the two races. Subsequently the Principality became a fief of the crown of Naples and Sicily, and underwent many changes of possession until the title was in confusion and dispute between the houses of Anjou, Aragon and Savoy. Before it was engulfed finally in the Empire of the Turks, it was ruined by their piracies and ravages.

_G. Finlay, History of Greece from its Conquest by the Crusaders,