Part 4 (1/2)

ACHaeAN LEAGUE, a confederation of 12 towns in the Peloponnesus, formed especially against the influence of the Macedonians.

ACHae'ANS, the common name of the Greeks in the heroic or Homeric period.

ACHAI'A, the N. district of the Peloponnesus, eventually the whole of it.

ACHARD, a Prussian chemist, one of the first to manufacture sugar from beetroot (1753-1821).

ACHARD', LOUIS AMeDeE, a prolific French novelist (1814-1876).

ACHA'TES, the attendant of aeneas in his wandering after the fall of Troy, remarkable for, and a perennial type of, fidelity.

ACHELO'uS, a river in Greece, which rises in Mt. Pindus, and falls into the Ionian Sea; also the G.o.d of the river, the oldest of the sons of Ocea.n.u.s, and the father of the Sirens.

ACHEN, an eminent German painter (1556-1621).

ACHENWALL, a German economist, the founder of statistic science (1719-1772).

ACH'ERON, a river in the underworld; the name of several rivers in Greece more or less suggestive of it.

ACH'ERY, a learned French Benedictine of St. Maur (1609-1685).

ACH'ILL, a rocky, boggy island, spa.r.s.ely inhabited, off W. coast of Ireland, co. Mayo, with a bold headland 2222 ft. high.

ACHILLE'ID, an unfinished poem of Statius.

ACHIL'LES, the son of Peleus and Thetis, king of the Myrmidons, the most famous of the Greek heroes in the Trojan war, and whose wrath with the consequences of it forms the subject of the Iliad of Homer. He was invulnerable except in the heel, at the point where his mother held him as she dipt his body in the Styx to render him invulnerable.

ACHILLES OF GERMANY, Albert, third elector of Brandenburg, ”fiery, tough old gentleman, of formidable talent for fighting in his day; a very blazing, far-seen character,” says Carlyle (1414-1486).

ACHILLES TENDON, the great tendon of the heel, where Achilles was vulnerable.

ACHMED PASHA, a French adventurer, served in French army, condemned to death, fled, and served Austria; condemned to death a second time, pardoned, served under the sultan, was banished to the sh.o.r.es of the Black Sea (1675-1747).

ACH'MET I., sultan of Turkey from 1603 to 1617; A. II., from 1691 to 1695; A. III., from 1703 to 1730, who gave asylum to Charles XII. of Sweden after his defeat by the Czar at Pultowa.