ACHAIA ACHILLES. 



21 



Another poet of Syracuse. 5. A cousin -german to 

 Seleucus Ceraunus and Antiochus the Great, kings 

 of Syria, who enjoyed, for many years, the dominions 

 he had usurped from Antiochus ; but at last was be- 

 trayed by a Cretan to the last-mentioned king, and 

 his limbs being cut off, his body was sewed in the 

 skin of an ass and gibbeted. 



ACHAIA ; properly, a narrow district of Pelopon- 

 nesus, extending westward along the bay of Corinth. 

 Early writers, particularly the poets, sometimes in- 

 clude all Greece under the name of Achaia. At the 

 time of the Achaean league, the Romans applied the 

 name of Achaia to all the country beyond the isth- 

 mus, which had entered into the league ; after the 

 dissolution of which, Greece was divided, by a decree 

 of the Roman senate, into two provinces, viz. that of 

 Macedonia, containing also Thessaly, and that of 

 Achaia, including all the other states of Greece. 

 (See Gibbon's Roman Hist. chap. 1. vol. i.) 



ACHARD, Frederic Charles, born at Berlin, April 

 28, 1754, an eminent naturalist and chemist, princi- 

 pally known by his invention, in 1800, of a process 

 for manufacturing sugar from beets, which, since 

 that time, has been brought to greater perfection. 

 He was director of the department of physics, in the 

 Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin. To enable 

 him to extend his manufacture, the great importance 

 of which was acknowledged by the French Institute 

 (July, 1800), the king ot Prussia presented him with 

 an estate at Kunern, in Silesia, where his establish- 

 ment, at the time of the closing of the ports of Eu- 

 rope, by the decree of Berlin, was attended with such 

 success, tliat, in the winter of 1811, it daily yielded 

 300 pounds of sirup. Achard, connected with it, in 

 18 12, an institution for the purpose of teaching his 

 mode of manufacture, which attracted the attention 

 of foreigners. He died at Kunern, April 20, 1821. 

 Besides a number of treatises on physics and agri- 

 culture, he published several articles on the manu- 

 facture of sugar from beets. 



ACHATES ; the companion of JSneas, and his most 

 faithful friend, celebrated by Virgil. 



ACHEEN, ATCHEEX, AGHEM or ACHEN ; part of Su- 

 matra, of a triangular form, and containing about 

 26,000 square miles. The lands between its two 

 ranges of mountains are fertile. The Achanese are 

 stouter, taller, and darker-coloured than the other 

 people of the island, more industrious, have more 

 general knowledge, and deal, as merchants, in a more 

 liberal manner. They are Mahommedans ; their sai- 

 lors are expert and bold, and employ a multitude of 

 vessels in trade and fishing. The government is 

 despotic, monarchical, and hereditary; their laws 

 extremely severe. The capital of the kingdom is 

 Acheen, Ion. 95 46' E., lat. 5 22' N. ; pop. about 

 36,000. Its chief trade is now with Hindostan, from 

 whence it receives cotton goods in return for gold 

 dust, jewels, sapan wood, betel-nut, pepper, sulpnur, 

 camphor, and benzoin. Europeans bring their opium, 

 iron, arms, &c. (See Marsden's History of Sumatra.) 



ACHELOCS, also ASPROPOTAMUS, a river running 

 between lEtolia. and Acaniania, lias its source on 

 mount Pindus, flows tli rough the first settlements of 

 the Grecians around Dodoria, and falls into the Ionian 

 sea. The banks of this river are the only places in 

 Europe, which formerly afforded habitation to lions. 

 Hesiod calls A. the son of Ocranus and Thetis. 

 Others say differently. He wrestled with Hercules 

 for Dejanira, and, when thrown to the ground, as- 

 sumed the shape of a terrible serpent, then that of an 

 ox, and after he had lost a horn, he fled, ashamed, 

 to his waters. From the broken horn, it is said, Hie 

 nymphs made the horn of plenty. He was the father 

 of the sirens. 



ACHKNWALL, Godfrey, born at Klbing, in Prussia, 



Oct. 20, 1719, first gave a distinct character to the 

 science of statistics. He studied in Jena, Halle, and 

 Leipsic. In 1746, he settled at Marpurg, and lec- 

 tured on history, the law of nature and of nations, 

 and afterwards, also, on statistics. In 1748, he was 

 appointed professor at Gottingen, where he remained 

 until his death, May, 1772. A. travelled through 

 Switzerland, France, Holland, and England, and 

 published several books on the history of the Eu- 

 ropean states, the law of nations, political economy, 

 &c. Most of them have gone through several edi- 

 tions. His principal endeavour, in his lectures and 

 historical works, was to distinguish, in the long series 

 of occurrences which are recorded in the annals of 

 nations, every thing which might have contributed to 

 form their character, and fix their political condition, 

 His chief merit consists in the settled character which 

 he has given to, and the new light which he has 

 thrown on the science, which explains systematically 

 the nature and amount of the active powers of a state, 

 and hence deduces the sources of its physical and 

 moral prosperity. He gave it the name of statistics. 

 His most distinguished pupil, who succeeded him at 

 the university of Gottingen, was Schloezer. 



ACHERI, Luke d', a Benedictine monk of St Maur, 

 born in 1609 ; died in 1685. He distinguished him- 

 self by his taste for antique research and the publica- 

 tion of scarce MSS., of which "The Spicelegium," 

 a collection published in 1653-57 and 1725, forms a 

 prominent example. 



ACHERON ; the name given by the ancients to a 

 river of the infernal regions, over which Charon con- 

 ducted th$ souls of the dead in a boat, for which he 

 received an obolus, placed under the tongue of the 

 deceased. Only the shades of those who had obtained 

 a burial in this world, or had, at least, some earth 

 thrown upon their bodies, were carried over the river, 

 others were obliged to wander on its banks a whole 

 century. In ancient geography, there are five diffe- 

 rent rivers, named Acheron. The one in Epirus 

 (now a province of Janiuna) flows first through the 

 lake Acherusia, then, for a short distance, through 

 the rocks of the Cassiopeian mountains, and falls, 

 near Prevesa, into the Ionian sea, It is now called 

 Vdchi. A branch of the Nile, in the neighbourhood 

 of Memphis, is also called Acheron, and a lake, 

 Acherusia. Over this the Egyptians ferried their 

 dead, to bury them on an island in the lake, or on 

 the opposite shore ; or, if the judge of the dead con- 

 demned them, to throw them into the water : hence 

 the Greek fable. The cave of Cerberus, called 

 Acherusias, is found on the banks of the river Ache- 

 ron, in Bithynia, near Heraclea. There is also a 

 swamp in Campania, between Cumae and the pro- 

 montory of Misenum, called by the ancients Acheru- 

 sia. At present there are salt works on this spot. 



ACHERUSIA, in ancient geography,!. A lake in 

 Egypt, near Memphis, over which, according to Dio- 

 dorus, the bodies of the dead were conveyed for 

 judgment. The boat was called oaris, the boatman 

 Charon. Hence came the Grecian fable of Charon 

 and the Styx. 2. A river in Calabria. 3. A lake 

 in Epirus, through which runs the river Acheron. 4. 

 A lake between Cumae and the promontory of Mise- 

 num. 5. A peninsula of Bithynia, on the Euxine, 

 near Heraclea. 



ACHILL, an Irish island, divided from Connaught by 

 a narrow channel. It is 30 miles in circumferenco, 

 and from its situation and height is the resort of 

 eagles, whence it is called Eagle Island. 



ACHILLES ; according to the poets, son of Peleus, 

 king of the Myrmidons, in Thessaly, and of Thetis, 

 daughter of Nereus, grandson of jEacus. His mo- 

 ther dipped him, when an infant, in the waters of the 

 Styx, which made him invulnerable, except in the 



