grounds. Suidas gives the titles of several medical works written by him in the Doric dialect.
ACROPOLIS (Gr. ἄκρος, top, πόλις, city), literally the upper part of a town. For purposes of defence early settlers naturally chose elevated ground, frequently a hill with precipitous sides, and these early citadels became in many parts of the world the nuclei of large cities which grew up on the surrounding lower ground. The word Acropolis, though
Greek in origin and associated primarily with Greek towns (Athens, Argos, Thebes, Corinth), may be applied generically to all such citadels (Rome, Jerusalem, many in Asia Minor, or even Castle Hill at Edinburgh). The most famous is that of Athens, which, by reason of its historical associations and the famous buildings erected upon it, is generally known without qualification as the Acropolis (see Athens).
ACROPOLĪTA (Akropolītēs), GEORGE (1217–1282), Byzantine historian and statesman, was born at Constantinople. At an early age he was sent by his father to the court of John Ducas Batatzes (Vatatzes), emperor of Nicaea, by whom and by his successors (Theodorus II. Lascaris and Michael VIII. Palaeologus) he was entrusted with important state missions. The office of “great logothete” or chancellor was bestowed upon him in 1244. As commander in the field in 1257 against Michael Angelus, despot of Epirus, he showed little military capacity. He was captured and kept for two years in prison, from which he was released by Michael Palaeologus. Acropolita’s most important political task was that of effecting a reconciliation between the Greek and Latin Churches, to which he had been formerly opposed. In 1273 he was sent to Pope Gregory X., and in the following year, at the council of Lyons, in the emperor’s name he recognized the spiritual supremacy of Rome. In 1282 he was sent on an embassy to John II., emperor of Trebizond, and died in the same year soon after his return. His historical work (Χρονικὴ Συγγραφή, Annales) embraces the period from the capture of Constantinople by the Latins (1204) to its recovery by Michael Palaeologus (1261), thus forming a continuation of the work of Nicetas Acominatus. It is valuable as written by a contemporary, whose official position as great logothete, military commander and confidential ambassador afforded him frequent opportunities of observing the course of events. Acropolita is considered a trustworthy authority as far as the statement of facts is concerned, and he is easy to understand, although he exhibits special carelessness in the construction of his sentences. He was also the author of several shorter works, amongst them being a funeral oration on John Batatzes, an epitaph on his wife Eirene and a panegyric of Theodorus II. Lascaris of Nicaea. While a prisoner at Epirus he wrote two treatises on the procession of the Holy Ghost (Ἐκπόρευσις, Processio Spiritus Sancti).
Editio princeps by Leo Allatius (1651), with the editor’s famous treatise De Georgiis eorumque Scriptis; editions in the Bonn Corpus Scriptorum Hist. Byz., by I. Bekker (1836), and Migne, Patrologia Graeca, cxl.; in the Teubner series by A. Heisenberg (1903), the second volume of which contains a full life, with bibliography; see also C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897).
ACROSTIC (Gr. ἄκρος, at the end, and στίχος, line or verse), a short verse composition, so constructed that the initial letters of the lines, taken consecutively, form words. The fancy for writing acrostics is of great antiquity, having been common among the Greeks of the Alexandrine period, as well as with the Latin writers since Ennius and Plautus, many of the arguments of whose plays were written with acrostics on their respective titles. One of the most remarkable acrostics was contained in the verses cited by Lactantius and Eusebius in the 4th century, and attributed to the Erythraean sibyl, the initial letters of which form the words Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ υἱὸς σωτήρ: “Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour.” The initials of the shorter form of this again make up the word ἰχθύς (fish), to which a mystical meaning has been attached (Augustine, De Civitate Dei, 18, 23), thus constituting another kind of acrostic.
The monks of the middle ages, who wrote in Latin, were fond of acrostics, as well as the poets of the Middle High German period, notably Gottfried of Strassburg and Rudolph of Ems. The great poets of the Italian renaissance, among them Boccaccio, indulged in them, as did also the early Slavic writers. Sir John Davies (1569–1626) wrote twenty-six elegant Hymns to Astraea, each an acrostic on “Elisabetha Regina”; and Mistress Mary Fage, in Fame’s Roule, 1637, commemorated 420 celebrities of her time in acrostic verses. The same trick of composition is often to be met with in the writings of more recent versifiers. Sometimes the lines are so combined that the final letters as well as the initials are significant. Edgar Allan Poe worked two names—one of them that of Frances Sargent Osgood—into verses in such a way that the letters of the names corresponded to the first letter of the first line, the second letter of the second, the third letter of the third, and so on.
Acrostic verse has always been held in slight estimation from a literary standpoint. Dr Samuel Butler says, in his “Character of a Small Poet,” “He uses to lay the outsides of his verses even, like a bricklayer, by a line of rhyme and acrostic, and fill the middle with rubbish.” Addison (Spectator, No. 60) found it impossible to decide whether the inventor of the anagram or the acrostic were the greater blockhead; and, in describing the latter, says, “I have seen some of them where the verses have not only been edged by a name at each extremity, but have had the same name running down like a seam through the middle of the poem.” And Dryden, in Mac Flecknoe, scornfully assigned Shadwell the rule of
Some peaceful province in acrostic land.
The name acrostic is also applied to alphabetical or “abecedarian” verses. Of these we have instances in the Hebrew psalms (e.g. Ps. xxv. and xxxiv.), where successive verses begin with the letters of the alphabet in their order. The structure of Ps. cxix. is still more elaborate, each of the verses of each of the twenty-two parts commencing with the letter which stands at the head of the part in our English translation.
At one period much religious verse was written in a form imitative of this alphabetical method, possibly as an aid to the memory. The term acrostic is also applied to the formation of words from the initial letters of other words. Ἰχθύς, referred to above, is an illustration of this. So also is the word “Cabal,” which, though it was in use before, with a similar meaning, has, from the time of Charles II., been associated with a particular ministry, from the accident of its being composed of Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington and Lauderdale. Akin to this are the names by which the Jews designated their Rabbis; thus Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (better known as Maimonides) was styled “Rambam,” from the initials R.M.B.M.; Rabbi David Kimchi (R.D.K.), “Radak,” &c.
Double acrostics are such as are so constructed, that not only initial letters of the lines, but also the middle or last letters, form words. For example:—1. By Apollo was my first made. 2. A shoemaker’s tool. 3. An Italian patriot. 4. A tropical fruit. The initials and finals, read downwards, give the name of a writer and his nom de plume. Answer: Lamb, Elia.
| 1. | L | yr | E |
| 2. | A | w | L |
| 3. | M | azzin | I |
| 4. | B | anan | A |
ACROTERIUM (Gr. ἀκρωτήριον, the summit or vertex), in architecture, a statue or ornament of any kind placed on the apex of a pediment. The term is often restricted to the plinth, which forms the podium merely for the acroterium.
ACT (Lat. actus, actum), something done, primarily a voluntary deed or performance, though any accomplished fact is often included. The signification of the word varies according to the sense in which it is employed. It is often synonymous with “statute” (see Act of Parliament). It may also refer to the result of the vote or deliberation of any legislature, the decision of a court of justice or magistrate, in which sense records, decrees, sentences, reports, certificates, &c., are called acts.
In law it means any instrument in writing, for declaring or justifying the truth of a bargain or transaction, as: “I deliver this as my act and deed.” The origin of the legal use of the word “act” is in the acta of the Roman magistrates or people, of their
