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 Achilles is a typical Greek hero; handsome, brave, celebrated for his fleetness of foot, prone to excess of wrath and grief, at the same time he is compassionate, hospitable, full of affection for his mother and respect for the gods. In works of art he is represented, like Ares, as a young man of splendid physical proportions, with bristling hair like a horse’s mane and a slender neck. Although the figure of the hero frequently occurs in groups—such as the work of Scopas showing his removal to the island of Leuke by Poseidon and Thetis, escorted by Nereïds and Tritons, and the combat over his dead body in the Aeginetan sculptures—no isolated statue or bust can with certainty be identified with him; the statue in the Louvre (from the Villa Borghese), which was thought to have the best claim, is generally taken for Ares or possibly Alexander. There are many vase and wall paintings and bas-reliefs illustrative of incidents in his life. Various etymologies of the name have been suggested: “without a lip” ( ), Achilles being regarded as a river-god, a stream which overflows its banks, or, referring to the story that, when Thetis laid him in the fire, one of his lips, which he had licked, was consumed (Tzetzes on Lycophron, 178); “restrainer of the people,” ( ); “healer of sorrow” ( ); “the obscure” (connected with , “mist”); “snakeborn” ( ), the snake being one of the chief forms taken by Thetis. The most generally received view makes him a god of light, especially of the sun or of the lightning.

ACHILLES TATIUS, of Alexandria, Greek rhetorician, author of the erotic romance, the Adventures of Leucippe and Cleitophon, flourished about 450, perhaps later. Suidas, who alone calls him Statius, says that he became a Christian and eventually a bishop—like Heliodorus, whom he imitated—but there is no evidence of this. Photius, while severely criticizing his lapses into indecency, highly praises the conciseness and clearness of his style, which, however, is artificial and laboured. Many of the incidents of the romance are highly improbable, and the characters, except the heroine, fail to enlist sympathy. The descriptive passages and digressions, although tedious and introduced without adequate reasons, are the best part of the work. The large number of existing MSS. attests its popularity. (Editio princeps, 1601; first important critical edition by Jacobs, 1821; later editions by Hirschig, 1856; Hercher, 1858. There are translations in many languages; in English by Anthony H[odges], 1638, and R. Smith, 1855. See also .)

Suidas also ascribes to this author an Etymology, a Miscellaneous History of Famous Men, and a treatise On the Sphere. Part of the last is extant under the title of An Introduction to the Phaenomena of Aratus. But if the writer is the prudentissimus Achilles referred to by Firmicus Maternus (about 336) in his Matheseos libri, iv. 10, 17 (ed. Kroll), he must have lived long before the author of Leucippe. The fragment was first published in 1567, then in the Uranologion of Petavius, with a Latin translation, 1630. Nothing definite is known as to the authorship of the other works, which are lost.

ACHILLINI, ALESSANDRO (1463–1512), Italian philosopher, born on the 29th of October 1463 at Bologna, was celebrated as a lecturer both in medicine and in philosophy at Bologna and Padua, and was styled the second Aristotle. His philosophical works were printed in one volume folio, at Venice, in 1508, and reprinted with considerable additions in 1545, 1551 and 1568. He was also distinguished as an anatomist (see ), among his writings being Corporis humani Anatomia (Venice, 1516–1524), and Anatomicae Annotationes (Bologna, 1520). He died at Bologna on the 2nd of August 1512.

His brother, (1466–1533), was the author of Il Viridario and other writings, verse and prose, and his grand-nephew,  (1574–1640), was a lawyer who achieved some notoriety as a versifier of the school of the Secentisti.

ACHIMENES (perhaps from the Gr. , an Indian plant used in magic), a genus of plants, natural order Gesneraceae (to which belong also Gloxinia and Streptocarpus), natives of tropical America, and well known in cultivation as stove or warm greenhouse plants. They are herbaceous perennials, generally with hairy serrated leaves and handsome flowers. The corolla is tubular with a spreading limb, and varies widely in colour, being white, yellow, orange, crimson, scarlet, blue or purple. A large number of hybrids exist in cultivation. The plants are grown in the stove till the flowering period, when they may be removed to the greenhouse. They are propagated by cuttings, or from the leaves, which are cut off and pricked in well-drained pots of sandy soil, or by the scales from the underground tubes, which are rubbed off and sown like seeds, or by the seeds, which are very small.

ACHIN (Dutch Atjeh), a Dutch government forming the northern extremity of the island of Sumatra, having an estimated area of 20,544 sq. m. The government is divided into three assistant-residencies—the east coast, the west coast and Great Achin. The physical geography (see ) is imperfectly understood. Ranges of mountains, roughly parallel to the long axis of the island, and characteristic of the whole of it, appear to occupy the interior, and reach an extreme height of about 12,000 ft. in the south-west of the government. The coasts are low and the rivers insignificant, rising in the coast ranges and flowing through the coast states (the chief of which are Pedir, Gighen and Samalanga on the N.; Edi, Perlak and Langsar on the E.; Kluwah, Rigas and Melabuh on the W.). The chief ports are Olehleh, the port of Kotaraja or Achin (formerly Kraton, now the seat of the Dutch government), Segli on the N., Edi on the E., and Analabu or Melabuh on the W. Kotaraja lies near the northern extremity of the island, and consists of detached houses of timber and thatch, clustered in enclosed groups called kampongs, and buried in a forest of fruit-trees. It is situated nearly 3 m. from the sea, in the valley of the Achin river, which in its upper part, near Selimun, is 3 m. broad, the river having a breadth of 99 ft. and a depth of 1 ft.; but in its lower course, north of its junction with the Krung Daru, the valley broadens to 12 m. The marshy soil is covered by rice-fields, and on higher ground by kampongs full of trees. The river at its mouth is 327 ft. broad and 20–33 ft. deep, but before it lies a sandbank covered at low water by a depth of only 4 ft. The Dutch garrison in Kotaraja occupies the old Achinese citadel. The town is connected by rail with Olehleh, and the line also extends up the valley. The construction of another railway has been undertaken along the east coast. The following industries are of some importance—gold-working, weapon-making, silk-weaving, the making of pottery, fishing and coasting trade. The annual value of the exports (chiefly pepper) is about £58,000; of the imports, from £165,000 to £250,000. The population of Achin in 1898 was estimated at 535,432, of whom 328 were Europeans, 3933 Chinese, 30 Arabs, and 372 other foreign Asiatics.

The Achinese, a people of Malayan stock but darker, somewhat taller and not so pleasant-featured as the true Malays, regard themselves as distinct from the other Sumatrans. Their nobles claim Arab descent. They were at one time Hinduized, as is evident from their traditions, the many Sanskrit words in their language, and their general appearance, which suggests Hindu as well as Arab blood. They are Mahommedans, and although Arab influence has declined, their nobles still wear the Moslem flowing robe and turban (though the women go unveiled), and they use Arabic script. The chief characteristic is their love of fighting; every man is a soldier and every village has its army. They are industrious and skilful agriculturists, metal-workers and weavers. They build excellent ships. Their chief amusements are gambling and opium-smoking. Their social organization is communal. They live in kampongs, which combine to form mukims, districts or hundreds (to use the nearest English term), which again combine to form sagis, of which