Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/357

ALCIDAMAS. contemporary of Alcidamas, has been published by Blass in his second edition of Antiphon (p. 193). Consult Bahlen, Der Rhetor Alcidamas (1861).

ALCIDE, fil'sed', Baron de M. A pseudonym of Alfred de Musset, used about 1834 and in 1864.

ALCI'DES. A patronymic of Hercules, from the name of his grandfather, Alcæus.

AL'CIMUS. A high priest of the Zadokite family, born about 200 B.C., and raised to power by Demetrius Soter (162 B.C.). He was a leader in the Hellenistic party which opposed the Maccabees, and is said on the occasion of the defeat of the latter (April, 100 B.C.) to have torn down the wall of the court of the inner temple at Jerusalem, probably for the purpose of rebuilding it on a more magnificent scale. See the discussions of his career in Wellhausen, Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte (third edition, Berlin, 1897), and Büchler, Tobiaden und die Oniaden im H. Makkabäerbuche (Vienna, 1899).

ALCIN'OÜS (Gk. Ἀλκίνοος, Alkinoos). A mythical king of the mythical Phæacians, grand- son of Poseidon. His daughter, Nausicaa, res- cued the shipwrecked Odysseus, who was enter- tained and sent home by Alcinoüs and his queen, Arete. His people are skilled seamen, but luxu- rious, and his domain, Scheria, a Grecian fairy- land. Later tradition identified Scheria with the island of Corcyra (Corfu).

AL'CIPHRON (Gk. Ἀλκίφρων, Alkiphron). A Greek rhetorician who flourished probably about the close of the second century a.d. He was the author of 118 letters in three books, which profess to be epistles written by common people — peasants, fishermen, courtesans, and parasites. Their style is pure and their form excellent; they are valuable as character sketches, which picture clearly Athenian life of his time; and the letters of the courtesans, being based on the new comedy, especially on lost plays of Menander, assist us to recreate that literature. Edited by Meineke (Leipzig, 1853); Wagner (Paris, 1873), and Hercher, in his Epistolographi Græci (Paris, 1873). There is an English translation by Beloe (London, 1890).

ALCIPHRON. The hero of Thomas Moore's novel, The Epicurean, published in 1827, to which was appended, in 1839, the poem entitled Alciphron, in which the author had first taken up the theme.

ALCIPHRON, or THE MINUTE' PHILOS'OPHER. A work by Bishop Berkeley, written at his home in Rhode Island, and published in 1732, after his return to England. It is a dialogue, in which Alciphron, a skeptic, is made the chief speaker for the sake of showing the weakness of the infidel's position.

ALCIRA, al-the'ra. A town of Spain, in the province of Valencia, 20 miles south by west of Valencia, on an island in the river Júcar, here crossed by fine stone bridges (Map: Spain, E 3). It is surrounded by old walls with strong towers. The principal streets are wide, but the town is ill built. The main buildings are three churches, six monasteries, and a theatre. The surrounding country is fertile, and abounds in the orange and the palm, but rice swamps fill the air with malaria. The many canals admirably illustrate the system of irrigation introduced by the Moors. Pop., 1900, 19,906 Alcira was known in Roman times as Sætabicula, and was the chief seat of the tribe of the Contestani. The district about Alcira is sometimes called the garden of the kingdom of Valencia.

ALCM.Æ'ON (Gk. Ἀλκμαίων, Alkmaiōn). In Greek legend, the son of Amphiaraüs (q.v.) and Eriphyle, and brother or father of Amphilochus. He was the leader of the Epigoni (q.v.), who captured Thebes to revenge the death of their fathers in the War of the Seven. As Eriphyle had betrayed her husband to his death, Amphiaraüs ordered his son to kill her. For this act, madness came upon Alcmæon, and he was pursued by the Furies. In his flight he came to Psophis, in Arcadia, whose king, Phegeus, purified him and gave him his daughter Arsinoë. Alcmæon gave her the necklace and peplus of Harmonia, the bribe of Eriphyle. Driven by the Furies, Alcmæon then went to the river-god Acheloüs, who also purified him and gave him his daughter, Callirrhoë. For her he took his gifts from his former wife under pretense of dedicating them at Delphi. When his father-in-law heard of this deceit, he sent his sons, who killed Alcmæon, but Alcmæon's sons by Callirhoë took bloody vengeance at her instigation. There are indications of a cult of Alcmæon at Psophis, where his tomb was shown, and at Thebes. Later stories told of Alcmæon's conquest of Acarnania, apparently as a mythical prototype of the Corinthian civilization of that region.

ALCMÆON (Gk. Ἀλκμαίων, Alkmaiōn). A Greek physician and naturalist, who lived in the last half of the sixth century B.C. He was a native of Croton, in Italy, and is said to have been a pupil of Pythagoras. He made important discoveries in anatomy, and was the first to practice dissection. He wrote a book On Nature, of which we have fragments.

ALC'MÆON'IDÆ (Gk. Ἀλκμαιωνίδαι, Alkmaiōnidai, descendants of Alcæeon). A distinguished family in ancient Athens, whose founder, Alcmæon, according to tradition, came from Pylos, Messenia. One of them was the Archon Megacles, who, about 612 B.C., slew the conspirator Cylon and his followers at the altars where they had fled, in spite of his promise to spare them. For this sacrilege the whole family was banished, about 596 B.C. They maintained a conflict for many years with Pisistratus and his sons, however, and in 510 were finally brought back to Athens by the help of the Spartans, who were led to aid them by the partiality of the Delphic oracle. Clisthenes (q.v.), then the head of the family, was the noted legislator. Even more famous members of it were Pericles and Alcibiades.

ALC'MAN (Ἀλκμάν, Alkman). A poet of the second half of the seventh century B.C., who is considered the founder of Dorian lyric poetry. He was born at Sardis, the capital of Lydia, in Asia Minor, but was probably of Greek extraction. A doubtful tradition said that he was a slave; in any case, he attained to a high position at Sparta, where he made his home, and became teacher of the State choruses. In the Hellenistic period six books of his poems were current, comprising partheneia, hymns, hyporchemes, pæans, erotica, and hymenaia. He was counted the founder of erotic poetry, and reached great perfection in his partheneia. His dialect was the Dorian, but his verses show many Æolian characteristics. Alcman occupied the first place in the Alexandrian Canon. The bucolic poets re-