Part 8

Acragas, or Agrigentum, one of the youngest of the Greek colonies in Sicily, founded about B. C. 582 by the older colony of Gela, became one of the largest and most splendid cities of the age, in the fifth century B. C., as is testified by its ruins to this day. It was the scene of the notorious tyranny of Phalaris, as well as that of Theron. Agrigentum was destroyed by the Carthagenians, B. C. 405, and rebuilt by Timoleon, but never recovered its former importance and grandeur.

_E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 4, chapter 3._

See, also, PHALARIS, BRAZEN BULL OF.

Agrigentum was destroyed by the Carthagenians in 406 B. C.

See SICILY: B. C. 409-405.

Rebuilt by Timoleon, it was the scene of a great defeat of the Carthagenians by the Romans, in 262 B. C.

See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.

AGRIPPINA AND HER SON NERO.

See ROME: A. D. 47-54, and 54-64.

AHMED KHEL, Battle of (1880).

See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1869-1881.

AIGINA.

See ÆGINA.

AIGOSPOTAMOI, Battle of.

See GREECE: B. C. 405.

AIGUILLON, Siege of.

A notable siege in the "Hundred Years' War," A. D. 1346. An English garrison under the famous knight, Sir Walter Manny, held the great fortress of Aiguillon, near the confluence of the Garonne and the Lot, against a formidable French army.

_J. Froissart, Chronicles, volume 1, book 1, chapter 120._

AIX, Origin of.

See SALYES.

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: The Capital of Charlemagne.

The favorite residence and one of the two capitals of Charlemagne was the city which the Germans call Aachen and the French have named Aix-la-Chapelle. "He ravished the ruins of the ancient world to restore the monumental arts. A new Rome arose in the depths of the forests of Austrasia—palaces, gates, bridges, baths, galleries, theatres, churches,—for the erection of which the mosaics and marbles of Italy were laid under tribute, and workmen summoned from all parts of Europe. It was there that an extensive library was gathered, there that the school of the palace was made permanent, there that foreign envoys were pompously welcomed, there that the monarch perfected his plans for the introduction of Roman letters and the improvement of music."

_P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, book 4, chapter 17._

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, Treaty of (A. D. 803).

See VENICE: A. D. 697-810.

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, Treaty of (A. D. 1668).

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1668.

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, The Congress and Treaty which ended the War of the Austrian Succession (1748).

The War of the Austrian Succession, which raged in Europe, and on the ocean, and in India and America, from 1740 to 1748 (see AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738, 1740-1741, and after), was brought to an end in the latter year by a Congress of all the belligerents which met at Aix-la-Chapelle, in April, and which concluded its labors on the 18th of October following. "The influence of England and Holland … forced the peace upon Austria and Sardinia, though both were bitterly aggrieved by its conditions. France agreed to restore every conquest she had made during the war, to abandon the cause of the Stuarts, and expel the Pretender from her soil; to demolish, in accordance with earlier treaties, the fortifications of Dunkirk on the side of the sea, while retaining those on the side of the land, and to retire from the conquest without acquiring any fresh territory or any pecuniary compensation. England in like manner restored the few conquests she had made, and submitted to the somewhat humiliating condition of sending hostages to Paris as a security for the restoration of Cape Breton. … The disputed boundary between Canada and Nova Scotia, which had been a source of constant difficulty with France, was left altogether undefined. The Assiento treaty for trade with the Spanish colonies was confirmed for the four years it had still to run; but no real compensation was obtained for a war expenditure which is said to have exceeded sixty-four millions, and which had raised the funded and unfunded debt to more than seventy-eight millions. Of the other Powers, Holland, Genoa, and the little state of Modena retained their territory as before the war, and Genoa remained mistress of the Duchy of Finale, which had been ceded to the king of Sardinia by the Treaty of Worms, and which it had been a main object of his later policy to secure. Austria obtained a recognition of the election of the Emperor, a general guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction, and the restoration of everything she had lost in the Netherlands, but she gained no additional territory. She was compelled to confirm the cession of Silesia and Glatz to Prussia, to abandon her Italian conquests, and even to cede a considerable part of her former Italian dominions. To the bitter indignation of Maria Theresa, the Duchies of Parma, Placentia and Guastella passed to Don Philip of Spain, to revert, however, to their former possessors if Don Philip mounted the Spanish throne, or died without male issue. The King of Sardinia also obtained from Austria the territorial cessions enumerated In the Treaty of Worms [see ITALY: A. D. 1743], with the important exceptions of Placentia, which passed to Don Philip, and of Finale, which remained with the Genoese. {22} For the loss of these he obtained no compensation. Frederick [the Great, of Prussia] obtained a general guarantee for the possession of his newly acquired territory, and a long list of old treaties was formally confirmed. Thus small were the changes effected in Europe by so much bloodshed and treachery, by nearly nine years of wasteful and desolating war. The design of the dismemberment of Austria had failed, but no vexed questions had been set at rest. … Of all the ambitious projects that had been conceived during the war, that of Frederick alone was substantially realized."

_W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, 18th Century, chapter 3._

"Thus ended the War of the Austrian succession. In its origin and its motives one of the most wicked of all the many conflicts which ambition and perfidy have provoked in Europe, it excites a peculiarly mournful interest by the gross inequality in the rewards and penalties which fortune assigned to the leading actors. Prussia, Spain and Sardinia were all endowed out of the estates of the house of Hapsburg. But the electoral house of Bavaria, the most sincere and the most deserving of all the claimants to that vast inheritance, not only received no increase of territory, but even nearly lost its own patrimonial possessions. … The most trying problem is still that offered by the misfortunes of the Queen of Hungary [Maria Theresa]. … The verdict of history, as expressed by the public opinion, and by the vast majority of writers, in every country except Prussia, upholds the justice of the queen's cause and condemns the coalition that was formed against her."

_H. Tuttle, History of Prussia, 1745-1756, chapter 2._

ALSO IN _W. Russell, History of Modern Europe, part 2, letter 30._

_W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 108 (volume 3)._

See, also, NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1748.

AIZNADIN, Battle of (A. D. 634).

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-639.

AKARNANIAN LEAGUE, The.

"Of the Akarnanian League, formed by one of the least important, but at the same time one of the most estimable peoples in Greece … our knowledge is only fragmentary. The boundaries of Akarnania fluctuated, but we always find the people spoken of as a political whole. … Thucydides speaks, by implication at least, of the Akarnanian League as an institution of old standing in his time. The Akarnanians had, in early times, occupied the hill of Olpai as a place for judicial proceedings common to the whole nation. Thus the supreme court of the Akarnanian Union held its sittings, not in a town, but in a mountain fortress. But in Thucydides' own time Stratos had attained its position as the greatest city of Akarnania, and probably the federal assemblies were already held there. … Of the constitution of the League we know but little. Ambassadors were sent by the federal body, and probably, just as in the Achaian League, it would have been held to be a breach of the federal tie if any single city had entered on diplomatic intercourse with other powers. As in Achaia, too, there stood at the head of the League a General with high authority. … The existence of coins bearing the name of the whole Akarnanian nation shows that there was unity enough to admit of a federal coinage, though coins of particular cities also occur."

_E. A. Freeman, History of Federal Government, chapter 4, section 1._

AKARNANIANS (Acarnanians).

The Akarnanians formed "a link of transition" between the ancient Greeks and their barbarous or non-Hellenic neighbours in the Epirus and beyond. "They occupied the territory between the river Acheloûs, the Ionian sea and the Ambrakian gulf: they were Greeks and admitted as such to contend at the Pan-Hellenic games, yet they were also closely connected with the Amphilochi and Agræi, who were not Greeks. In manners, sentiments and intelligence, they were half-Hellenic and half-Epirotic,—like the Ætolians and the Ozolian Lokrians. Even down to the time of Thucydides, these nations were subdivided into numerous petty communities, lived in unfortified villages, were frequently in the habit of plundering each other, and never permitted themselves to be unarmed. … Notwithstanding this state of disunion and insecurity, however, the Akarnanians maintained a loose political league among themselves. … The Akarnanians appear to have produced many prophets. They traced up their mythical ancestry, as well as that of their neighbours the Amphilochians, to the most renowned prophetic family among the Grecian heroes,—Amphiaraus, with his sons Alkmæôn and Ampilochus: Akarnan, the eponymous hero of the nation, and other eponymous heroes of the separate towns, were supposed to be the sons of Alkmæôn. They are spoken of, together with the Ætolians, as mere rude shepherds, by the lyric poet Alkman, and so they seem to have continued with little alteration until the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, when we hear of them, for the first time, as allies of Athens and as bitter enemies of the Corinthian colonies on their coast. The contact of those colonies, however, and the large spread of Akarnanian accessible coast, could not fail to produce some effect in socializing and improving the people. And it is probable that this effect would have been more sensibly felt, had not the Akarnanians been kept back by the fatal neighbourhood of the Ætolians, with whom they were in perpetual feud,—a people the most unprincipled and unimprovable of all who bore the Hellenic name, and whose habitual faithlessness stood in marked contrast with the rectitude and steadfastness of the Akarnanian character."

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 24._

AKBAR (called The Great), Moghul Emperor or Padischah of India, A. D. 1556-1605.

AKHALZIKH, Siege and capture of (1828).

See TURKS: A. D. 1826-1829.

AKKAD. AKKADIANS.

See BABYLONIA, PRIMITIVE.

AKKARON.

See PHILISTINES.

AKROKERAUNIAN PROMONTORY.

See KORKYRA.

ALABAMA: The Aboriginal Inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: APALACHES: MUSKHOGEE FAMILY; CHEROKEES.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1539-1542. Traversed by Hernando de Soto.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1528-1542.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1629. Embraced in the Carolina grant to Sir Robert Heath.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1629.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1663. Embraced in the Carolina grant to Monk, Shaftesbury, and others.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1663-1670.

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ALABAMA: A. D. 1702-1711. French occupation and first settlement. The founding of Mobile.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1732. Mostly embraced in the new province of Georgia.

See GEORGIA: A. D. 1732-1739.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1763. Cession and delivery to Great Britain. Partly embraced in West Florida.

See SEVEN YEARS' WAR; and FLORIDA: A. D. 1763: and NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1763.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1779-1781. Reconquest of West Florida by the Spaniards.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1779-1781.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1783. Mostly covered by the English cession to the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783 (SEPTEMBER).

ALABAMA: A. D. 1783-1787. Partly in dispute with Spain.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1783-1787.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1798-1804. All but the West Florida District embraced in Mississippi Territory.

See MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1798-1804.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1803. Portion acquired by the Louisiana purchase.

See LOUISIANA: A.D. 1798-1803.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1813. Possession of Mobile and West Florida taken from the Spaniards.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1810-1813.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1813-1814. The Creek War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813-1814 (AUGUST-APRIL).

ALABAMA: A. D. 1817-1819. Organized as a Territory. Constituted a State, and admitted to the Union.

"By an act of Congress dated March 1, 1817, Mississippi Territory was divided. Another act, bearing the date March 3, thereafter, organized the western [? eastern] portion into a Territory, to be known as Alabama, and with the boundaries as they now exist. … By an act approved March 2, 1819, congress authorized the inhabitants of the Territory of Alabama to form a state constitution, 'and that said Territory, when formed into a State, shall be admitted into the Union upon the same footing as the original States.' … The joint resolution of congress admitting Alabama into the Union was approved by President Monroe, December 14, 1819."

_W. Brewer, Alabama, chapter 5._

ALABAMA: A. D. 1861 (January). Secession from the Union.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).

ALABAMA: A. D. 1862. General Mitchell's Expedition.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (APRIL-MAY: ALABAMA).

ALABAMA: A. D. 1864 (August). The Battle of Mobile Bay. Capture of Confederate forts and fleet.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864(AUGUST: ALABAMA).

ALABAMA: A. D. 1865 (March-April). The Fall of Mobile. Wilson's Raid. End of the Rebellion.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL-MAY).

ALABAMA: A. D. 1865-1868. Reconstruction.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY), to 1868-1870.

ALABAMA: End----------

ALABAMA CLAIMS, The: A. D. 1861-1862. In their Origin. The Earlier Confederate cruisers. Precursors of the Alabama.

The commissioning of privateers, and of more officially commanded cruisers, in the American civil war, by the government of the Southern Confederacy, was begun early in the progress of the movement of rebellion, pursuant to a proclamation issued by Jefferson Davis on the 17th of April, 1861. "Before the close of July, 1861, more than 20 of those depredators were afloat, and had captured millions of property belonging to American citizens. The most formidable and notorious of the sea-going ships of this character, were the Nashville, Captain R. B. Pegram, a Virginian, who had abandoned his flag, and the Sumter [a regularly commissioned war vessel], Captain Raphael Semmes. The former was a side-wheel steamer, carried a crew of eighty men, and was armed with two long 12-pounder rifled cannon. Her career was short, but quite successful. She was finally destroyed by the Montauk, Captain Worden, in the Ogeechee River. The career of the Sumter, which had been a New Orleans and Havana packet steamer named Marquis de Habana, was also short, but much more active and destructive. She had a crew of sixty-five men and twenty-five marines, and was heavily armed. She ran the blockade at the mouth of the Mississippi River on the 30th of June, and was pursued some distance by the Brooklyn. She ran among the West India islands and on the Spanish Main, and soon made prizes of many vessels bearing the American flag. She was everywhere received in British Colonial ports with great favor, and was afforded every facility for her piratical operations. She became the terror of the American merchant service, and everywhere eluded National vessels of war sent out in pursuit of her. At length she crossed the ocean, and at the close of 1861 was compelled to seek shelter under British guns at Gibraltar, where she was watched by the Tuscarora. Early in the year 1862 she was sold, and thus ended her piratical career. Encouraged by the practical friendship of the British evinced for these corsairs, and the substantial aid they were receiving from British subjects in various ways, especially through blockade-runners, the conspirators determined to procure from those friends some powerful piratical craft, and made arrangements for the purchase and construction of vessels for that purpose. Mr. Laird, a ship-builder at Liverpool and member of the British Parliament, was the largest contractor in the business, and, in defiance of every obstacle, succeeded in getting pirate ships to sea. The first of these ships that went to sea was the Oreto, ostensibly built for a house in Palermo, Sicily. Mr. Adams, the American minister in London, was so well satisfied from information received that she was designed for the Confederates, that he called the attention of the British government to the matter so early as the 18th of February, 1862. But nothing effective was done, and she was completed and allowed to depart from British waters. She went first to Nassau, and on the 4th of September suddenly appeared off Mobile harbor, flying the British flag and pennants. The blockading squadron there was in charge of Commander George H. Preble, who had been specially instructed not to give offense to foreign nations while enforcing the blockade. He believed the Oreto to be a British vessel, and while deliberating a few minutes as to what he should do, she passed out of range of his guns, and entered the harbor with a rich freight. For his seeming remissness Commander Preble was summarily dismissed from the service without a hearing—an act which subsequent events seemed to show was cruel injustice. Late in December the Oreto escaped from Mobile, fully armed for a piratical cruise, under the command of John Newland Maffit. … The name of the Oreto was changed to that of Florida."

_B. J. Lossing, Field Book of the Civil War, volume 2, chapter 21._

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The fate of the Florida is related below—A. D. 1862-1865.

_R. Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat, chapters 9-26._

ALSO IN _J. Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, chapters 30-31 (volume 2)._

ALABAMA CLAIMS, The: A. D. 1862-1864. The Alabama, her career and her fate.