Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/131

ACT. trates, and the Ministers from all parts, with all sorts of Schollars, and others in great numbers were present, and did heare their Exercises."

ACTA or  (acts daily, popular, municipal, or public). A sort of daily chronicle of events published in ancient Rome giving summaries of the principal legal and political orations, the decisions of the courts, news from the army, and the latest gossip of the town. They seem also to have contained accounts of the transactions of the assemblies of the people, also of births, deaths, marriages, and divorces, accidents, prodigies, and the like, all of which were preserved as sources of future history. When Antony offered Cæsar a crown on the feast of the Luperealia. Cæsar ordered it to be noted in the Acta Diurna. The Acta are frequently said to have been introduced by Julius Cæsar, but others believe them to have existed long before Cæsar's time, and to have supplanted the Annales, which fell into disuse about the year 131 B.C. The Latin scholar Hübner has advanced strong arguments in support of the former view, although it was the practice before Cæsar's time for scribes to compile a manuscript chronicle of public events in the city of Rome, which was often forwarded with private letters to absent friends. The Annales took note only of the most important events, whereas matters of far less importance were included in the Acta Diurna. The material for the Acta was gathered by reporters called actuarii, and the Acta were exposed in public places to be read or copied by any who chose to do so. After a reasonable period of time they were taken down and preserved with other public documents. Persons in Rome were accustomed to keep their friends who were sojourning out of town informed of the progress of events and of the news generally, as gathered from the Acta Diurna. A passage in Petronius (cap. 53) gives an imitation of the Acta. From this it would appear that the style was very simple and that only the bare facts were stated. Consult: Le Clerc, Des journaux chez les Romains (Paris, 1838), a treatise to be read with caution; and Hübner, De Senatus Populique Romani Actis (Leipzig, 1860).

ACTÆ'A (Gk. ακτέα, aktea, elder tree). A genus of plants of the natural order Ranunculaceæ. Actæa spicata, the Baneberry or Herb Christopher, is a native of the north of Europe, found in bushy places in some parts of England. It is a perennial herbaceous plant, about 1 to 2 feet high, with triternate leaves, and the leaflets deeply cut and serrated, the flowers in racemes, the berries black and poisonous. A variety of Actæa spicata var. rubra with red berries, and Actæa alba with white berries are common in the United States, where they are known as Red and White Baneberry.

ACTÆ'ON (Gk. Ἀκταίων, Aktaiōn). A mythical personage, a grandson of Cadmus. He was trained as a hunter by Chiron. Having offended Artemis, he was changed by her into a stag and torn in pieces by his own dogs. The sin of Actæon is variously stated. According to Euripides, Artemis was jealous because Actæon had boasted that he excelled her in hunting. The most popular version in later times was that he had come upon the goddess while bathing.

ACTA E'RUDITO'RUM (Lat. Proceedings of the Learned). A Latin monthly and the first German literary serial (117 volumes, 1682-1782). It was founded by Professor Otto Mencke of Leipzig, and was owned by his family till 1754, after which it rapidly deteriorated. The series contains a record of the progress of science to 1776.

ACTA MAR'TYRUM (Lat. Acts of the Martyrs). A name given by the ancient Church to the records of the trials and deaths of the martyrs which were kept for the edification of the faithful. The oldest extant refer to the death of St. Ignatius of Antioch, who died about the year 107. St. Augustine (fifth century) speaks of these records as being read to the people on their festival days. Eusebius, the church historian (died about 340), collected the Acta Martyrum in his two works, De Martyribus Palæstinæ and Synagoge Martyrum, the latter of which has perished, but the former is the appendix to the eighth book of his Church History. See McGiffert's translation (New York, 1890).

ACTA PILA'TI (Lat. Acts of Pilate). An account of the trial and death of Jesus Christ, purporting to have been written by Pontius Pilate or under his direction. Although Justin Martyr (Apol. i,. 76-86), Tertullian (Apol. v., 21), and Eusebius (ii., 2) allude to some account rendered by Pilate to the Emperor Tiberius, the Acta now extant in the Vatican library, as well as the so-called Report of Pilate to the emperor and the alleged Epistolæ Pilati describing the resurrection, are admittedly spurious. Consult: Lipsius, Die Pilatusacten (Kiel, 1871). Various English translations have been published, e.g., Acta Pilati (Shelbyville. Ind., 1879), and also one in the Ante-Nicene library.

ACTA SANCTO'RUM, or MAR'TYRUM (Lat. Acts of the Saints or Martyrs). The collective title given to several old writings respecting saints and martyrs in the Greek and Roman Catholic churches, but now applied especially to one extensive collection begun by the Jesuits in the seventeenth century, and intended to serve as a better arrangement of the materials found in ancient works. This great undertaking, which was commenced by the Jesuit Heribert Rosweyde, of Antwerp, has considerable importance, not only in a religious and ecclesiastical point of view, but also with regard to history and archæology. After Rosweyde's death in 1629, Johannes Bolland was commissioned by the order of the Jesuits to continue the work, and with the assistance of Godfried Henschen he prepared two volumes, which appeared in 1643. After the death of this editor (1665) the work was carried on by a society of learned Jesuits, who were styled "Bollandists," until 1794, when its further progress was prevented through the invasion of Holland by the French. In recent times the undertaking has been resumed, and in 1845 the fifty-fourth volume was published at Brussels. Several additional volumes have appeared since. The lives are arranged in the order of the calendar. A new edition of the first fifty-four volumes appeared in 1863-69. The sixty-fifth volume appeared in 1892. For notices of other and similar collections, see ; and.

ACTIAN (ak'shnn) GAMES. See.

AC'TINIA'RIA (Gk. ἀκτίς, aktis, ray). A group of anthozoan cœlenterates comprising the sea-anemones. They differ from all other anthozoans in the complete absence of a skeleton and