democracy. Superficial and opportunist to the last, he
owed the successes of his meteoric career purely to personal
magnetism and an almost incredible capacity for deception.
There are lives of Alcibiades by Plutarch and Cornelius
Nepos, and monographs by Hertzberg, A. der Staatsmann
und Feldherr (1833), and Houssaye, Histoire d'Alcibiade
(1873); but the best accounts will be found in the histories
of Greece by G. Grote (also notes in abridged ed., 1907),
Ed. Meyer, and works quoted under GREECE, Ancient
History, sect. ``Authorities''; also PELOPONNESIAN WAR.
ALCIDAMAS, of Elaea, in Aeolis, Greek sophist and rhetorician,
flourished in the 4th century B.C. He was the pupil and
successor of Gorgias and taught at Athens at the same time
as Isocrates, whose rival and opponent he was. We possess
two declamations under his name: Peri Sofiston, directed
against Isocrates and setting forth the superiority of extempore
over written speeches (a recently discovered fragment of
another speech against Isocrates is probably of later date);
'Odusseus, in which Odysseus accuses Palamedes of treachery
during the siege of Troy (this is generally considered
spurious). According to Alcidamas, the highest aim of the
orator was the power of speaking extempore on every conceivable
subject. Aristotle (Rhet. iii. 3) criticizes his writings
as characterized by pomposity of style and an extravagant use
of poetical epithets and compounds and far-fetched metaphors.
Of other works only fragments and the titles have survived:
Messeniakos, advocating the freedom of the Messenians and
containing the sentiment that ``all are by nature free'';
a Eulogy of Death, in consideration of the wide extent of
human sufferings; a Techne or instruction-book in the art
of rhetoric; and a Fusikos lolos. Lastly, his Mouseion
(a word of doubtful meaning) contained the narrative of the
contest between Homer and Hesiod, two fragments of which are
found in the 'Agon `Omerou kai `Esiodou, the work of
a grammarian in the time of Hadrian. A 3rd-century papyrus
(Flinders Petrie, Papyri, ed. Mahaffy, 1891, pl. xxv.) probably
contains the actual remains of a description by Alcidamas.
See the edition by Blass, 1881; fragments in Muller,
Oratores Attici, ii. (1858); Vahlen, Der Rhetor
Alkidamas (1864); Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit.
ALCINOUS (ALKINOOS), in ancient Greek legend, king of
the fabulous Phaeacians, in the island of Scheria, was the
son of Nausithous and grandson of Poseidon. His reception
and entertainment of Odysseus, who when cast by a storm on
the shore of the island was relieved by the king's daughter,
Nausicaa, is described in the Odyssey (vi.-xiii.). The
gardens and palace of Alcinous and the wonderful ships of
the Phaeacian mariners were famous in antiquity. Scheria was
identified in very early times with Corcyra, where Alcinous
was reverenced as a hero; In the Argonautic legend, his
abode was the island of Drepane (Apoll. Rhodius iv. 990).
ALCINOUS, the Platonic philosopher, lived probably in the
time of the Caesars. He was the author of an 'Epitome
ton Platonos dogmaton, an analysis of Plato's philosophy
according to later writers. It is rather in the manner of
Aristotle, and freely attributes to Plato any ideas of other
philosophers which appeared to contribute to the system. He
produced in the end a synthesis of Plato and Aristotle with an
admixture of Pythagorean or Oriental mysticism, and is closely
allied to the Alexandrian school of thought. He recognized
a God who is unknowable, and a series of beings (daimones)
who hold intercourse with men. He recognized also Ideas and
Matter, and borrowed largely from Aristotle and the Stoics.
The 'Epitome has been translated by Pierre Balbi
(Rome, 1469) and by Marsilio Ficino; into French by J. I.
Combes-Dounous (Paris, 1800), and into English by Thomas
Stanley in his History of Philosophy. Editions: Heinsius
(Leiden, 1630); Fischer (Leipzig, 1783); in Aldine Edition
of Apuleius (Venice, 1521; Paris, 1532); Fell (Oxford,
1667). See Ritter, Geschichte der Philosophie, iv. 249.
ALCIONIO, PIETRO, or PETRUS ALCYONIUS (c. 1487-1527),
Italian classical scholar, was born at Venice. After having
studied Greek under Marcus Musurus of Candia, he was employed
for some time by Aldus Manutius as a corrector of the press,
and in 1522 was appointed professor of Greek at Florence
through the influence of Giulio de' Medici. When his patron
became pope in 1523 under the title of Clement VII., Alcionio
followed him to Rome and remained there until his death.
Alcionio published at Venice, in 1521, a Latin translation
of several of the works of Aristotle, which was shown by the
Spanish scholar Sepulveda to be very incorrect. He wrote a
dialogue entitled Medices Legatus, sive de Exilio (1522),
in connexion with which he was charged with plagiarism by
his personal enemy, Paulus Manutius. The accusation, which
Tiraboschi has shown to be groundless, was that he had taken
the finest passages in the work from Cicero's lost treatise
De Gloria, and had then destroyed the only existing copy of
the original in order to escape detection. His contemporaries
speak very unfavourably of Alcionio, and accuse him of
haughtiness, uncouth manners, vanity and licentiousness.
ALCIPHRON, Greek rhetorician, was probably a contemporary of
Lucian (2nd century A.D..) He was the author of a collection
of fictitious letters, of which 124 (118 complete and 6
fragments) have been published; they are written in the purest
Attic dialect and are considered models of style. The scene
is throughout at Athens; the imaginary writers are country
people, fishermen, parasites and courtesans, who express
their sentiments and opinions on familiar subjects in elegant
language. The ``courtesan'' letters are especially valuable,
the information contained in them being chiefly derived
from the writers of the New Comedy, especially Menander.
EDITIONS.--Editio princeps (44 letters), 1499;
Bergler (1715); Seiler (1856); Hercher (1873); Schepers
(1905). English translation by Monro and Beloe (1791).
ALCIRA, a town of eastern Spain, in the province of Valencia;
on the left bank of the river Jucar, and on the Valencia-
Alicante railway. Pop. (1900) 20,572. Alcira is a walled
town, surrounded by palm, orange and mulberry groves, and by
low-lying rice-swamps, which render its neighbourhood somewhat
unhealthy. Silk, fruit and rice are its chief products.
It is sometimes identified w;th the Roman Saetabicula. In
the middle ages it was a prosperous Moorish trading-station.
ALCMAEON, of Argos, in Greek legend, was the son of Amphiaraus
and Eriphyle. When his father set out with the expedition
of the Seven against Thebes, which he knew would be fatal
to him, he enjoined upon his sons to avenge his death by
slaying Eriphyle and undertaking a second expedition against
Thebes. After the destruction of Thebes by the Epigoni,
Alcmaeon carried out his father's injunctions by killing
his mother, as a punishment for which he was driven mad
and pursued by the Erinyes from place to place. On his
arrival at Psophis in Arcadia, he was purified by its king
Phegeus, whose daughter Arsinoe (or Alphesiboea) he married,
making her a present of the fatal necklace and the peplus of
Harmonia. But the land was cursed with barrenness, and the
oracle declared that Alcmaeon would never find rest until he
reached a spot on which the sun had never shone at the time
he slew his mother. Such a spot he found at the mouth of
the river Achelous, where an island had recently been formed
by the alluvial deposit; here he settled and, forgetting
his wife Arsinoe, married Callirrhoe, the daughter of the
river-god. His new wife longed for the necklace and peplus,
and Alcmaeon, returning to Psophis, obtained possession of
them, on the pretence that he desired to dedicate them at
Delphi. When the truth became known he was pursued and
slain by Phegeus and his sons. After his death Alcmaeon was
worshipped at Thebes; his tomb was at Psophis in a grove of
cypresses. His story was the subject of an old epic and
of several tragedies, but none of these has been preserved.
Homer, Odyssey xv. 248; Apollodorus iii. 7; Thucydides ii, 68,
102; Pausanias viii. 24, x. 10; Ovid, Metam. ix. 400 et seq.
ALCMAEONIDAE, a noble Athenian family, claiming descent
from Alcmaeon, the great-grandson of Nestor, who emigrated
from Pylos to Athens at the time of the Dorian invasion of
Peloponnesus. During the archonship of an Alcmaeonid Megacles
(? 632 B.C.), Cylon, who had unsuccessfully attempted to
make himself ``tyrant''' was treacherously murdered with his
followers. The curse or pollution thus incurred was frequently
in later years raked up for political reasons; the Spartans
even demanded that Pericles should be expelled as accursed at
the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. All the members of
the family went into banishment, and having returned in the
time of Solon (594) were again expelled (538) by Peisistratus
(q.v..) Their great wealth enabled them during their exile
to enhance their reputation and secure the favour of the
Delphian Apollo by rebuilding the temple after its destruction
by fire in 548. Their importance is shown by the fact that
Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, gave his daughter Agariste
in marriage to the Alcmaeonid Megacles in preference to all
the assembled suitors after the undignified behaviour of
Hippocleides. Under the statesman Cleisthenes (q.v.), the
issue of this union, the Alcmaeonids became supreme in Athens
about 510 B.C. To them was generally attributed (though
Herodotus disbelieves the story--see GREECE, Ancient
History, sect. ``Authorities,'' II.) the treacherous raising
of the shield as a signal to the Persians at Marathon,
but, whatever the truth of this may be, there can be little
doubt that they were not the only one of the great Athenian
families to make treasonable overtures to Persia. Pericles
and Alcibiades were both connected with the Alcmaeonidae.
Nothing is heard of them after the Peloponnesian war.
See Herodotus vi. 121-131.
ALCMAN, or ALCMAEON (the former being the Doric form
of the name), the founder of Doric lyric poetry, to whom
was assigned the first place among the nine lyric poets
of Greece in the Alexandrian canon, flourished in the
latter half of the 7th century B.C. He was a Lydian of
Sardis, who came as a slave to Sparta, where he lived in
the family of Agesidas, by whom he was emancipated. His
mastery of Greek shows that he must have come very early to
Sparta, where, after the close of the Messenian wars, the
people were able to bestow their attention upon the arts of
peace. Alcman composed various kinds of poems in various
metres; Parthenia (maidens' songs), hymns, paeans, prosodia
(processionals), and love-songs, of which he was considered the
inventor. He was evidently fond of good living, and traces
of Asiatic sensuousness seem out of place amidst Spartan
simplicity. The fragments are scanty, the most considerable
being part of a Parthenion found in 1855 on an Egyptian
papyrus; some recently discovered hexameters are attributed
to Alcman or Erinna (Oxyrhynchus papyri, i. 1898).
For general authorities see ALCAEUS.
ALCMENE, in ancient Greek mythology, the daughter of
Electryon, king of Mycenae, and wife of Amphitryon. She
was the mother of Heracles by Zeus, who assumed the likeness
of her husband during his absence, and of Iphicles by
Amphitryon. She was regarded as the ancestress of the
Heracleidae, and worshipped at Thebes and Athens.
See Winter, Alkmene und Amphitryon (1876).
