Achĕron, a river of Thesprotia, in Epirus, falling into the bay of Ambracia. Homer called it, from the dead appearance of its waters, one of the rivers of hell, and the fable has been adopted by all succeeding poets, who make the god of the stream to be the son of Ceres without a father, and say that he concealed himself in hell for fear of the Titans, and was changed into a bitter stream, over which the souls of the dead are at first conveyed. It receives, say they, the souls of the dead, because a deadly languor seizes them at the hour of dissolution. Some make him son of Titan, and suppose that he was plunged into hell by Jupiter, for supplying the Titans with water. The word Acheron is often taken for hell itself. Horace, bk. 1, ode 3, li. 36.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 2, li. 292; Æneid, bk. 2, li. 295, &c.—Strabo, bk. 7.—Lucan, bk. 3, li. 16.—Silius Italicus, bk. 2.—Sylvæ, poem 6, li. 80.—Livy, bk. 8, ch. 24.——A river of Elis in Peloponnesus.——Another on the Riphæan mountains. Orpheus.——Also a river in the country of the Brutii in Italy. Justin, bk. 12, ch. 2.
Acherontia, a town of Apulia on a mountain, thence called Nidus by Horace, bk. 3, ode 4, li. 14.
Acherūsia, a lake of Egypt near Memphis, over which, as Diodorus, bk. 1, mentions, the bodies of the dead were conveyed, and received sentence according to the actions of their life. The boat was called Baris, and the ferryman Charon. Hence arose the fable of Charon and the Styx, &c., afterwards imported into Greece by Orpheus, and adopted in the religion of the country.——There was a river of the same name in Epirus, and another in Italy in Calabria.
Acherūsias, a place or cave in Chersonesus Taurica, where Hercules, as is reported, dragged Cerberus out of hell. Xenophon, Anabasis, bk. 6.
Achetus, a river of Sicily. Silius Italicus, bk. 14.
Achillas, a general of Ptolemy, who murdered Pompey the Great. Plutarch, Pompey.—Lucan, bk. 8, li. 538.
Achillēa, a peninsula near the mouth of the Borysthenes. Mela, bk. 2, ch. 1.—Herodotus, bk. 4, chs. 55 & 76.——An island at the mouth of the Ister, where was the tomb of Achilles, over which it is said that birds never flew. Pliny, bk. 10, ch. 29.——A fountain of Miletus, whose waters rise salted from the earth, and afterwards sweeten in their course. Athenaeus, bk. 2, ch. 2.
Achilleienses, a people near Macedonia. Xenophon, Hellenica, bk. 3.
Achillēis, a poem of Statius, in which he describes the education and memorable actions of Achilles. This composition is imperfect. The poet’s premature death deprived the world of a valuable history of the life and exploits of this famous hero. See: [Statius].
Achilles, the son of Peleus and Thetis, was the bravest of all the [♦]Greeks in the Trojan war. During his infancy, Thetis plunged him in the Styx, and made every part of his body invulnerable, except the heel, by which she held him. His education was entrusted to the centaur Chiron, who taught him the art of war and made him master of music, and by feeding him with the marrow of wild beasts, rendered him vigorous and active. He was taught eloquence by Phœnix, whom he ever after loved and respected. Thetis, to prevent him from going to the Trojan war, where she knew he was to perish, privately sent him to the court of Lycomedes, where he was disguised in a female dress, and, by his familiarity with the king’s daughters, made Deidamia mother of Neoptolemus. As Troy could not be taken without the aid of Achilles, Ulysses went to the court of Lycomedes, in the habit of a merchant, and exposed jewels and arms to sale. Achilles, choosing the arms, discovered his sex, and went to the war. Vulcan, at the entreaties of Thetis, made him a strong suit of armour, which was proof against all weapons. He was deprived by Agamemnon of his favourite mistress, Briseis, who had fallen to his lot at the division of the booty of Lyrnessus, and for this affront, he refused to appear in the field till the death of his friend Patroclus recalled him to action, and to revenge. See: [Patroclus]. He slew Hector the bulwark of Troy, tied the corpse by the heels to his chariot, and dragged it three times round the walls of Troy. After thus appeasing the shades of his friend, he yielded to the tears and entreaties of Priam, and permitted the aged father to ransom and to carry away Hector’s body. In the 10th year of the war, Achilles was charmed with Polyxena; and as he solicited her hand in the temple of Minerva, it is said that Paris aimed an arrow at his vulnerable heel, of which wound he died. His body was buried at Sigæum, and divine honours were paid to him, and temples raised to his memory. It is said, that after the taking of Troy, the ghost of Achilles appeared to the Greeks, and demanded of them Polyxena, who accordingly was sacrificed on his tomb by his son Neoptolemus. Some say that this sacrifice was voluntary, and that Polyxena was so grieved at his death that she killed herself on his tomb. The Thessalians yearly sacrificed a black and a white bull on his tomb. It is reported that he married Helen after the siege of Troy; but others maintain, that this marriage happened after his death, in the island of Leuce, where many of the ancient heroes lived, as in a separate elysium. See: [Leuce]. When Achilles was young, his mother asked him, whether he preferred a long life, spent in obscurity and retirement, or a few years of military fame and glory? and that, to his honour, he made choice of the latter. Some ages after the Trojan war, Alexander going to the conquest of Persia, offered sacrifices on the tomb of Achilles, and admired the hero who had found a Homer to publish his fame to posterity. Xenophon, On Hunting.—Plutarch, Alexander; De facie in orbe Lunæ; De Musica; De amicorum multitudine; Quæstiones Græcæ.—Pausanias, bk. 3, ch. 18, &c.—Diodorus, bk. 17.—Statius, Achilleid.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 12, fable 3, &c.; Tristia, bk. 3, poem 5, li. 37, &c.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 1, lis. 472, 488; bk. 2, li. 275; bk. 6, li. 58, &c.—Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 13.—Hyginus, fables 96 & 110.—Strabo, bk. 14.—Pliny, bk. 35, ch. 15.—Maximus of Tyre, Oration 27.—Horace, bk. 1, ode 8; bk. 2, odes 4 & 16; bk. 4, ode 6; bk. 2, ltr. 2, li. 42.—Homer, Iliad & Odyssey.—Dictys Cretensis, bks. 1, 2, 3, &c.—Dares Phrygius.—Juvenal, satire 7, li. 210.—Apollonius, bk. 4, Argonautica, li. 869.——There were other persons of the same name. The most known were—a man who received Juno when she fled from Jupiter’s courtship——the preceptor of Chiron the centaur——a son of Jupiter and Lamia, declared by Pan to be fairer than Venus——a man who instituted ostracism at Athens——Tatius, a native of Alexandria, in the age of the emperor Claudius, but originally a pagan, converted to Christianity, and made a bishop. He wrote a mixed history of great men, a treatise on the sphere, tactics, a romance on the loves of Clitophon and Leucippe, &c. Some manuscripts of his works are preserved in the Vatican and Palatinate libraries. The best edition of his works is that in 12mo, Leiden, 1640.