ACROPOLIS 



20 



ACTIUM 



measure in the United States, Canada and 

 England. 



STREET 



In terms that a city child will grasp quickly, 

 an acre of land is contained in nearly fourteen 

 city lots each 25x125 feet. 



ACROP ' OLIS , in ancient Greece, the fortified 

 or religious center of a city. The word is a 

 compound of akros, meaning highest, and polls, 

 meaning city. Originally the acropolis was the 

 highest point in a district. Some hill or other 

 easily fortified height was selected as a place of 

 refuge and fortifications were usually added; 

 here the chief of a tribe lived. In time it 

 reached the importance of small settlements, 

 and finally cities appeared at the foot of the 

 acropolis. When people began to fortify the 

 city, it was no longer necessary to preserve the 

 acropolis as a fortress, and it became cus- 

 tomary to erect there the temples of the most 

 sacred cults. The acropolis at Athens, which 

 is the best example of this change, contained 

 some of the most beautiful buildings in the 

 world. Among them were the Parthenon, 

 Erechtheum, Temple of Nike Apteros, Prop- 

 ylaea and Theseum, all described in these vol- 

 umes. For further details, see ATHENS. 



ACROS'TIC, as generally used, means a 

 poem of which the first letters of the lines, 

 taken in order, spell some name or other com- 

 mon word, or even a motto or a sentence. 

 Strictly speaking, the content of the verse 

 should deal with the subject given in these 

 initial letters; if it does not the acrostic is 

 faulty and loses its chief charm. The follow- 

 ing is a simple example : 



Vying with the arbutus for modesty and grace, 



Innocent as gleeful smiles on happy childhood's 

 face 



Other flowers demand our love and entrance to 

 our thought 



Love seeks her in her hiding place and spends it- 

 self unsought. 



Early springtime blossom in your modest garb of 

 blue, 



Think not that summer's gorgeous bloom can 

 steal our love from you. 



Many acrostics are far more elaborate than 

 this, for some form words with their last as 

 well as their first letters, or have some name 

 "running down like a seam through the mid- 

 dle." Formerly the making of these was a 

 popular pastime, and poets of note did not 

 hesitate to try their hand at it, but acrostics 

 have never stood high in the poetic scale and 

 to-day no real poet wastes his time upon them. 

 For the most part they have been banished 

 to the puzzle department of magazines. In 

 Hebrew poetry the name acrostic was given to 

 a poem of which the initial letters of the lines 

 or stanza gave the names of letters of the 

 alphabet in their order. The most noted of 

 such poems is Psalm CXIX, of which the 

 verses of the first division all begin with the 

 first letter of the alphabet, those of the second 

 with the second letter, and so on until all the 

 letters have been used. 



ACT AEON, ok' tee on, according to Greek 

 mythology a great hunter and a worshiper of 

 the goddess Di- 

 ana. Having by 

 chance come 

 upon the virgin 

 goddess while 

 she was bathing, 

 for his boldness 

 he was changed 

 by her into a 

 stag, despite his 

 protests of in- 

 nocence. His 

 dogs, not recog- 

 nizing him, set' 

 upon him and 

 tore him to 

 pieces. 



ACTIUM, 

 ak' shium, (now 

 AKRI),aprom- ACTAEON AND HIS DOGS 

 ontory on the From a statue standing in 

 coast of Greece, the British Musfmm ' London ' 

 dividing the Gulf of Arta from the Ionian Sea. 

 It is famed in history as the scene of a great 

 naval battle, in 31 B.C., in which Octavian, later 

 known as Augustus Caesar, gained a vic- 

 tory over Antony and Cleopatra. Cleo- 

 patra's fleet was being held in reserve and 

 had not been engaged in battle, when an unex- 

 pected manceuver of Octavian made his vic- 

 tory probable. The queen, instead of coming 

 to Antony's aid, ordered her ships to flee. 

 Thereupon Antony himself deserted his fleet 

 and followed her. The leaderless fleet fought 



