22 



ACHILLES ACIDS. 



heel, liy which she held him. It had been foretold 

 u> Thetis that A. would acquire immortal glory, but, 

 lit the same time, meet an early death, if 'he went to 

 tin- siege of Troy; while, on the oilier hand, if lie 

 remained at home, lie would enjoy a happy old age. 

 To prevent him from taking part in the war against 

 Troy, Thetis disguised him,.wnVn nine years old, in 

 11 female dress, and sent him, Snider the name of 

 Pyrr/ia, to the court of Lycomews, king of Scyros, 

 with whose ilaughters he was educated. The prophet 

 Calchas however, announced to the Grecians that 

 Troy could not be taken without the aid of A. He 

 was consequently sought for every where, and finally 

 discovered by the crafty Ulysses, who came to the 

 court of Lycomedes disguised as a merchant, and 

 i>tfered to the daughters of the king various female 

 ornaments, among which arms were interspersed. 

 The princesses seized the ornaments, but A. took the 

 inns. It was now an easy task to persuade the fiery 

 and ambitious hero to join the other princes of Greece 

 in the expedition against Troy. Phoenix and the 

 Centaur Chiron liad been his instructors. The latter 

 had taught him medicine, music, and riding ; the 

 former, more especially his tutor, followed nim to 

 Troy, to render him an eloquent speaker, and a brave 

 warrior. A. appears in the Iliad, of which he is the 

 hero, not only as the bravest, but also as the most 

 beautiful, of the Grecians. He sailed to Troy with 

 50 ships filled with the Myrmidons, Achaians, and 

 Hellenians, and destroyed 12 cities on the islands and 

 1 1 on the main land. Juno and Minerva took him 

 under their special protection. On account of a 

 quarrel with Agamemnon, whom the princes had 

 chosen their leader, he withdrew from the field, and 

 permitted Hector, at the head of the Trojans, to de- 

 stroy the ranks of the Grecians. He remained im- 

 placable against the king, on account of Briseis, 

 daughter ot Brises, and wife of Mines, king of Lyr- 

 nessus, who had fallen to his share, in the division of 

 the booty, but whom Agamemnon had taken from 

 him, because he was obliged to restore to her father. 

 Chryseis, daughter of Chryses, priest of Apollo, who' 

 had fallen to his own share, in order to avert from 

 the Grecians the plague sent by Apollo, in answer 

 to the prayers of the old man hts priest. Neither 

 the defeats of the Grecians, nor the offers of Aga- 

 memnon, appeased the wrath of the ]Sycf. He, how- 

 ever, permitted his friend Patroclus, in his own ar- 

 mour, and at the head of his own warriors, to mingle 

 again in the combat. Patroclus fell by the arm of 

 Hector; and, to revenge his death, A. resolved to 

 return to the field. Thetis herself brought him new 

 and costly arms, made by Vulcan, among which the 

 shield was particularly beautiful. He became recon- 

 ciled to Agamemnon, received the presents which 

 were offered, and, refreshed by Minerva with nectar 

 and ambrosia, hastened to the battle. The Trojans 

 fled, and a part of them rushed into the river Xan- 

 thus and perished. The bodies obstructed the course 

 of the stream, and the river-god, disgusted with the 

 carnage, commanded A. to desist Not being obeyed, 

 he overflowed his banks, and rushed against the he- 

 ro. Encouraged by Neptune and Minerva, A. op- 

 posed Xanthus, who called to his aid the waters of 

 Simois. Juno then sent Vulcan, and the west and 

 south winds, who drove the river-god back to his 

 proper limits. But A. pursued the Trojans to their 

 city, which only the interference of Apollo prevented 

 him from taking. Hector alone remained before the 

 Scaean gate, and, having fled three times round the 

 city, pursued by A., finally offered himself for combat. 

 A. slew him, and, after dragging his body round the 

 City, resigned it, for a ransom, to Priam. Here the 

 narration of Homer ends. A., as represented by this 

 sublime poet, is of a fiery and impetuous character, 



and has little of tlmt firmness and rational valour 

 which constitute the true hero. In this reject, the 

 heroes of the German ]>onn " Das N ilieiungenlied" 

 arc far greater and nobler than those of Homer. The 

 further history of A. is told as follows : Falling in 

 love with Polyxena, lie sought her hand, and ob- 

 tained it; for which he promised to defend Troy, 

 But Paris slew him with an arrow, which pierced his 

 heel, in the temple of Apollo, where he was cele- 

 brating his nuptials. Others say it was Apollo who 

 killed him, or directed the arrow of 1'aris. A bloody 

 contest ensued about his body. The Greeks sacri- 

 ficed Polyxena on his tomb, in obedience to his re- 

 quest, that he might enjoy her company in the Kly- 

 sian fields, where he is also said to have married 

 Medea. When Alexander saw his tomb, it is said 

 that he placed a crown upon it, exclaiming, " that 

 A. was happy in having, during his life-time, a 

 friend like Patroclus, and, after his death, a poet like 

 Homer." 



ACHILLES T.ATIUS ; a Greek novelist, or Erode 

 writer, so called, born at Alexandria, lived, probably, 

 at the end of the third and the beginning of the 

 fourth century, and taught rhetoric in his native city. 

 In his old age, he became a convert to Christianity, 

 and rose to the dignity of a bishop. Besides a trea- 

 tise on the sphere, which we know only from an ab- 

 ridgment still extant, we possess a romance of his, in 

 8 books, styled, The Loves ofClitophon and Leucippe, 

 which, as regards the subject and composition, is not 

 without merit, and in some parts shows much ability. 

 The language, though rich in rhetorical ornaments, 

 is not free from sophistical subtilty. The charge of 

 obscenity, which has occasionally been brought 

 against the work, is very properly met by a Greek 

 Epigram, which remarks, that the scope of the work 

 is to be considered, namely, to teach temperance, to 

 show the punishment of unrestrained passions, and 

 tlie reward of chastity. Tlfe best editions are the 

 following : that published atT.eyden, 1640, one pub- 

 lished at Leipsic, by Bode, with the notes of Salma- 

 sius, 1776, and that of Mitscherlich, 1792, (Bipont.) 



ACHMET III., a Turkish emperor, son of Mahomet 

 IV., reigned from 1703 to 1730. Many remarkable 

 events took place during his reign, of which we shall 

 here only mention, that Charles XII., after the bat- 

 tle of Pultowa, found protection at his court. Charles 

 succeeded in involving A. in a war with the czar, 

 Peter tiie Gre^t, which would have had a very un- 

 forMtote issue* for him, if the prudence of Catharine, 

 his rmstresj, whom he afterwards married, had not 

 averted the impending danger. (See Peter J.) A. 

 established the first printing press at Constantinople, 

 in 1727. Towards the end pf his reign, the janiza- 

 ries revolted against him, pipd he was thrown into 

 the same prison in which' nils' successor, Mahomet V., 

 had been confined, before he took A.'s place on the 

 throne. He died in 1736. 



ACHMIM or ECHMIM ; a considerable town of Up- 

 per Egypt, on the eastern bank of the Nile, called 

 by the ancients Chcmnis and Panopolis, by the Copts 

 Smin. Though reduced from -its former magnifi- 

 cence, it is still one of thelmest towns of Upper 

 Egypt. It has some manufactories. Abulfeda speaks 

 ofa superb temple here. The immense stones which 

 composed it, scidptured with innumerable hierogly- 

 phics, are now scattered about, and some are trans- 

 ferred into a mosque. A. contains also a triumphal 

 arch, built by the emperor Nero. This place is fa- 

 rnous also for the worship of the serpent Haridi. 



ACIDS (acida) ; a class of compound bodies, which 

 have the following characteristic properties: the 

 greater part of them a sour taste, and most of them 

 are very corrosive -, they change the vegetable blues 

 to red, are soluble in water, and have great affinity 



