Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/40

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22
ABACIDES.
AEACUS.

ridicule. The visit of M. Antoninus to Athens made him acquainted with Adrianus, whom he invited to Rome and honoured with his friendship : the emperor even condescended to set the thesis of a declamation for him. After the death of Antoninus he became the private secretary of Commodus. His death took place at Rome in the eightieth year of his age, not later than A. D. 192, if it be true that Commodus (who was assassinated at the end of this year) sent him a letter on his death-bed, which he is represented as kissing with devout earnestness in his last moments. (Philostr. Vit. Adrian.; Suidas, s. v. Ἀδριανός.) Of the works attributed to him by Suidas three declamations only are extant. These have been edited by Leo Allatius in the Excerpta Varia Graecorum Sophistarum ac Rhetoricorum, Romae, 1641, and by Walz in the first volume of the Rhetores Graeci, 1832. [B. J.]

ADRIA'NUS(Ἀδριανός), a Greek poet, who wrote an epic poem on the history of Alexander the Great, which was called Ἀλεξανδριάς. Of this poem the seventh book is mentioned (Steph. Byz. s. v. Ἐάνεια), but we possess only a fragment consisting of one line. (Steph. Byz. s. v. Ἀστραία.) Suidas (s. v. Ἀρριανός) mentins among other poems of Arrianus one called Ἀλεξανδριάς, and there can be no doubt that this is the work of Adrianus, which he by mistake attributes to his Arrianus. (Meineke, in the Abhandl. der Belin. Akademie, 1832, p. 124.) [L. S.]


ADRIA'NUS (Ἀδριανός) flourished, according to Archbishop Usher, A. D. 433. There is extant of his, in Greek, Isagoge Sacrarum Literarum, recommended by Photius (No. 2) to beginners, edited by Dav. Hoeschel, 4to. Aug. Vindel. 1602, and among the Critici Sacri. fol. Lond. 1660. Template:DGRBM/A.J.S.


ADU'SIUS (Ἀδούσιος), according to the account of Xenophon in the Cyropaedeia, was sent by Cyrus with an army into Caria, to put an end to the feuds which existed in the country. He afterwards assisted Hystaspes in subduing Phrygia, and was made satrap of Caria, as the inhabitants had requested. (7.4.1,&c., 8.6.7.)

AEA. [GAEA.]

AEA, a huntress who was metamorphosed by the gods into the fabulous island bearing the same name, in order to rescue her from the pursuit of Phasis, the river-god. (V. Fl. 1.742, 5.426.) [L. S.]


AE'ACES (Αἰάκης). 1. The father of Syloson and Polycrates. (Hdt. 3.39, 139, 6.13.)

2. The son of Syloson, and the grandson of the preceding, was tyrant of Samos, but was deprived of his tyranny by Aristagoras, when the Ionians revolted from the Persians, B. C. 500. He then fled to the Persians, and induced the Samians to abandon the other Ionians in the sea-fight between the Persians and Ionians. After this battle, in which the latter were defeated, he was restored to the tyranny of Samos by the Persians, B. C. 494. (Hdt. 4.138, 6.13, 14, 25.)

AEA'CIDES(Αἰακίδης), a patronymic from Aeacus, and given to various of his descendants, as Peleus (Ov. Met. 11.227, &c., 12.365; Hom. Il. 16.15), Telamon (Ov. Met. 8.4; Apollon. 1.1330), Phocus (Ov. Met. 7.668, 798), the sons of Aeacus; Achilles, the grandson of Acacus (Hom. Il. 11.805; Verg. A. 1.99); and Pyrrhus, the great-grandson of Aeacus. (Verg. A. 3.296.) [L. S.]


AEACIDES(Αἰακίδης), the son of Arymbas, king of Epirus, succeeded to the throne on the death of his cousin Alexander, who was slain in Italy. (Liv. 8.24.) Aeacides married Phthia, the daughter of Menon of Pharsalus, by whom he had the celebrated Pyrrhus and two daughters, Deidameia and Troias. In B. C. 317 he assisted Polysperchon in restoring Olympias and the young Alexander, who was then only five years old, to Macedonia. In the following year he marched to the assistance of Olympias, who was hard pressed by Cassander; but the Epirots disliked the service, rose against Aeacides, and drove him from the kingdom. Pyrrhus, who was then only two years old, was with difficulty saved from destruction by some faithful servants. But becoming tired of the Macedonian rule, the Epirots recalled Aeacides in B. C. 313; Cassander immediately sent an army against him under Philip, who conquered him the same year in two battles, in the last of which he was killed. (Paus. 1.11; Diod. 19.11, 36, 74; Plut. Pyrrh. 1.2.)

AE'ACUS (Αἴακος), a son of Zeus and Aegina, a daughter of the river-god Asopus. He was born in the island of Oenone or Oenopia, whither Aegina had been carried by Zeus to secure her from the anger of her parents, and whence this island was afterwards called Aegina. (Apollod. 3.12.6; Hyg. Fab. 52; Paus. 2.29.2; comp. Nonn. Dionys. 6.212; Ov. Met. 6.113, 7.472, &c.) According to some accounts Aeacus was a son of Zeus and Europa. Some traditions related that at the time when Aeacus was born, Aegina was not yet inhabited, and that Zeus changed the ants (μύρμηκες) of the island into men (Myrmidones) over whom Aeacus ruled, or that he made men grow up out of the earth. (Hes. Fragm. 67, ed. Göttling; Apollod. 3.12.6; Paus. l.c.) Ovid (Ov. Met. 7.520; comp. Hyg. Fab. 52; Strab. viii. p.375), on the other hand, supposes that the island was not uninhabited at the time of the birth of Aeacus, and states that, in the reign of Aeacus, Hera, jealous of Aegina, ravaged the island bearing the name of the latter by sending a plague or a fearful dragon into it, by which nearly all its inhabitants were carried off, and that Zeus restored the population by changing the ants into men. These legends, as Müller justly remarks (Aeginctica), are nothing but a mythical account of the colonisation of Aegina, which seems to have been originally inhabited by Pelasgians, and afterwards received colonists from Phthiotis, the seat of the Myrmidones, and from Phlius on the Asopus. Aeacus while he reigned in Aegina was renowned in all Greece for his justice and piety, and was frequently called upon to settle disputes not only among men, but even among the gods themselves. (Pind. I. 8.48, &c.; Paus. 1.39.5.) He was such a favourite with the latter, that, when Greece was visited by a drought in consequence of a murder which had been committed (Diod. 4.60, 61; Apollod. 3.12.6), the oracle of Delphi declared that the calamity would not cease unless Aeacus prayed to the gods that it might; which lie accordingly did, and it ceased in consequence. Aeacus himself shewed his gratitude by erecting a temple to Zeus Panhellenius on mount Panhellenion (Paus. 2.30.4), and the Aeginetans afterwards built a sanctuary in their island called Aeaccum, which was a square place enclosed by