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ACRA

Volume 8 · 208 words · 1810 Edition

a town of Africa, on the coast of Guinea, where the English, Dutch, and Danes, have strong forts, and each fort has its particular village. W. Long. 0. 2. N. Lat. 5. 0.

in Ancient Geography, one of the hills of Jerusalem, on which stood the lower town, which was the old Jerusalem; to which was afterwards added Zion, or the city of David. Probably called Acra, from the fortresses which Antiochus built there in order to annoy the temple, and which Simon Maccabaeus took and razed to the ground.

ACRA Japigia, in Ancient Geography, called Salentia by Ptolemy; now Capo di San Maria di Leuca: A promontory in the kingdom of Naples, to the south-east of Otranto, where formerly was a town, now lying in ruins, on the Ionian sea, over against the Montes Acroceramii of Epirus.

ACRE, in Ancient Geography, a town of Sicily, whose inhabitants were called Acrenes. It stood to the south of Syracuse, at the distance of 24 miles, near the place now called the monastery of Santa Maria d'Arcia, on an eminence, as appears from Silius Italicus. The Syracusans were the founders of it, according to Thucydides, 70 years after the building of Syracuse, or 665 before Christ. Hence the epithet Acreas.