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ACH

Volume 8 · 325 words · 1810 Edition

ACHÆMENES, according to Herodotus, was grandfather of Cambyses, and great-grandfather of Cyrus the first, king of Persia. Most of the commentators of Horace are of opinion, that the Achæmenes whom that poet mentions, ode xii. of his 2d book, was one of the Persian monarchs; but, if that were true, he must have reigned before the Medes subdued the Perians; for we do not hear of any king of that name from the time that the Perians founded that great monarchy, which is looked upon as the second universal one. However this be, the epithet Achæmenians is frequently given to the Perians, in the old Latin poets.

ACHÆMENES, son of Darius I. king of Persia, and brother of Xerxes, had the government of Egypt bestowed on him, after Xerxes had forced the Egyptians to return to their allegiance. He some time after commanded the Egyptian fleet in the celebrated expedition which proved so fatal to all Greece. The Egyptians having again taken up arms after the death of Xerxes, Achæmenes was sent into Egypt to suppress the rebellion; but was vanquished by Inarus, chief of the rebels, succoured by the Athenians.

ACHÆUS, cousin-german to Seleucus Ceraunus and Antiochus the Great, kings of Syria, became a very powerful monarch, and enjoyed the dominions he had usurped for many years; but at last he was punished for his usurpations in a dreadful manner, in the 140th year of Rome, as related by Polybius*. Lib. viii.

ACHALIA, a name taken for that part of Greece cap. 56, which Ptolemy calls Hellas; the younger Pliny, Graecia; now called Livadia; bounded on the north by Thelaly, the river Sperchius, the Sinus Maliacus, and Mount Oeta; on the west by the river Achelous; on the east, turning a little to the north, it is washed by the Archipelago, down to the promontory of Sounion; on the south, joined to Peloponnesus, or the Morea, by the isthmus of Corinth, five miles broad.