Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/34

  Aetolia, and Acarnania. Their interpretation is confirmed by a passage in Tacitus, in which Nicopolis in the south of Epeirus is called by Tacitus (Ann. ii. 53) a city of Achaia; but too much stress must not be laid upon this passage, as Tacitus may only have used Achaia in its widest signification as equivalent to Greece. If is not inclusive, Thessaly, Aetolia, and Acarnania must be assigned either wholly to Macedonia, or partly to Macedonia and partly to Epeirus. Ptolemy (iii. 2, seq.), in his division of Greece, assigns Thessaly to Macedonia, Acarnania to Epeiros, and Aetolia to Achaia; and it is probable that this represents the political division of the country at the time at which he lived (A.D. 150). Achaia continued to be a Roman province governed by proconsuls down to the time of Justinian. (Kruse, Hellas, vol. i. p. 573.)

 ACHA'RACA, a village of Lydia, on the road from Tralles to Nysa, with a Plutonium or a temple of Pluto, and a cave, named Charonium, where the sick were healed under the direction of the priests. (Strab. xiv. pp. 649, 650.)

 ACHARNAE (: Eth,, Acharnanus, Nep. Them., 1.; Adj, ), the principal demus of Attica, belon^ng to the tiibe Oeneis, was situated 60 stadia N. of Athens, and consequently not far from the foot of Mt. Parnes. It was from the woods of this mountain that the Acharnians were enabled to carry on that traffic in charcoal for which they were noted among the Athenians. (Aristoph. Acharn. 332.) Their land was fertile; their population was rough and warlike ; and they furnished at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war 3000 hoplites, or a tenth of the whole infantry of the republic. They possessed sanctuaries or altars of Apollo Aguieus, of Heracles, of Athena Hygieia, of Athena Hippia, of Dionysus Melpomenus, and of Dionysus Cissus, so called, because the Achamians said that the ivy first grew in this demus. One of the plays of Aristophanes bears the name of the Acharnians. Leake supposes that branch of the plain of Athens, which is included between the foot of the hills of Khassia and a projection of the range of Aegaleos, stretching eastward from the northern termination of that mountain, to have been the district of the demus Acharnae. The exact situation of the town has not yet been discovered. Some Hellenic remains, situated ¾ of a mile to the westward of Menidhi have generally been taken for those of Archamae; but Menidhi is more probably a oorruption of. (Thuc. ii. 13, 19 — 21; Ludan, Icaro-Menip, 18; Pind. Nem. ii. 25 ; Paus. i. 31. § 6; Athen. p. 234; Steph. B. s. v.; Leake, Demi of Attica p. 35, seq.)

 ACHARRAE, a town of Thessaly in the district Thessallotis, on the river Pamisus, mentioned only by Livy (xxxii. 13), but apparently the same place as the Achame of Pliny (iv. 9. s. 16).

 ACHATES (Axdrns), a small river in Sdly, noticed by Silius Italicus for the remarkable clear- ness of its waters {perlucent&n splendenti gurgite Achatetij xiv. 228), and by various other writers as the place whero agates were found, and from whence they derived the name of " lapis Adiates," which they have retained in all modern languages. It has been identified by Claverins (followed by most mo- dem geographers) with the river DiriUOy a small stream on the S. coast of Sicily, about 7 miles £. of Terranova, which is indeed remarkable for the clear- ness of its waters: but Pliny, the only author who affords any elue to its position, distinctiv places the Achates between Thennae and Selinus, in the SV. quarter of the island. It cannot, therefore, be the JHrillOf but its modern name is unknown. (Plin. iii. 8. 8. 14, xzzvii. 10. s. 54 ; Theophiast  ACHELO'US ('AxeA^, Ejac 'AxtkAios). 1. (^Atpropotama), tin largest and most cdebrated river in Greece, rose in Mount Pindus, and after flowing through the mountainous country of the Dolopiana and Agraeans, entered the plam of Acamania and Aetolia near Stratns, and discharged itself into the Ionian sea, near the Aramanian town of Oeniadae. It subsequently formed the boundary between Acamania xad Aet(^ bat in the time of Thucydides the tenitaiy of Oeniadae extended oast of tiie river. It is usually called a river of Acamania, but it is sometimes assigned to Aeto]i< Its general directioB is from north to sonth. Its waters are of a whitish yellow or cream cobur, whence it derives its modern name of Aqfro' potamo or the White river, and to which Dionysiiis (432) probably alludes in the epithet kfyvpoSimns. It is said to have been called more anciently Thoas, Axenus and Thestins (Thuc. iL 102; Strab. pp. 449, 450, 458; Pint de Fim. 22; Stq>h. B. 8.v.) We learn from Leake that the reputed sources of the Achelons ace at a village called KhaUkij which is probably a oormptdon of Chalcis, at which place Dionyaius Periegetes (496) places the sources of the riwr. Its waters are swelled by numeroos torrents, which it receives in its passage through the mountains, and when it emecges into the plain near Stratus its bed is not less than three^narters of a mile in width. In winter the entire bed Is often filled, but in the middle of summer the river is divided into five or six rapid streams, of which only two are of a considerable size. After leaving Stratus the river becomes narrower; and, in the lower part of its course, the plain through which it fiows was called in antiquity Pacacheloitis after Uie river. This plain was celebrated for its fiertility, though covered in great part with marshes, several of which were formed by the overfiowings of the Achelons. In this port of its course Ike river presents the most extraordinary series of wander- ings; and these deflexions, observes a recent tra- veller, are not only so sudden, but so extensive, as to render it difficult to trace tiie exact line of its bed, — and sometimes, for several miles, having its direct course towards the sea, it appears to flow back into the mountains in which it rises. The Achelons brings down from the mountains an immense quantity of evthy particles, which have formed a number of small islands at its month, which belong to the group andentiy called Kchi- nades; and part of the mamland near its mouth is only alluvial depoeitian. [Echutadbs.] (Leake, Northern Cfreeoej vol. L p. 136, seq., vol. iii. p. 513, voL iv. p. 21 1 ; Mure, Journal of a Tour in Greece^ vol. L p. 102.) The chi^ tributaries of the Achelons were: — on its left, the Camfylus (Ko^tir^Aos, Died. six. 67 : Medghova), a river of considerable size, flowing from I)olopia through the territory of the Dryopes and fiuiytanes, and the Ctathus (K^of, Pol. ap. Ath. p. 424, c.) flowing out of tiie lake Hyrie into the main stream just above Oonope: — on its right tiie Pbtitarus (Liv. xliii. 22) in Aperantia, and the Anapus ("Ayavof), which fell into the main stream in Acamania 80 stadia S. of Stratus. (Thuc ii. 82.)

