Actium (Axtiov, now La Punta), a promontory and village in 
Acarnania, at the entrance of the Ambracian gulf, near which 
Caesar Octavius, afterwards the Emperor Augustus, and Mark 
Antony, had a naval engagement, in which the former was 
completely victorious, Sept. 2, B.C. 31. This battle decided the 
question of universal dominion. Octavius had been master of the 
West, Antony of the East.’ Both armies were encamped on 
opposite sides of the Ambracian bay. Octavius had 80,000 men on 
foot, 12,000 horsemen, and 260 ships of war. Antony had 100,000 
foot soldiers, 12,000 horsemen, and 220 ships. Antony’s ships were 
armed. with catapults, but were cumbersome. Those of Octavius 
were small, but had more speed. Cleopatra reinforced Antony 
with 60 ships, and at her instigation, and against the advice of his 
own most experienced captains, he offered a naval battle to 
Octavius. It was accepted. Agrippa, the admiral of Octavius, after 
the battle had lasted several hours without decisive effect, made a 
rapid manoeuvre, and Cleopatra took flight with her galleys. The 
voluptuous Antony could not refrain from following her with a 
few ships. His fleet, on being deserted by its leader, surrendered, 
and his army did the like after waiting seven days for his return. 
The miserable man had fled with his mistress into Egypt. The 
conqueror, to commemorate his victory, beautified the temple of 
Apollo which stood at Actium, and erected Nicopolis (city of 
victory) on the northern side of the gulf. 

Frederick Engels 

ADJUTANT 

Adjutant, an assistant officer or aide-de-camp attached to com- 
manders of larger or smaller bodies of troops. Generally every 
commander of a battalion of infantry, or of a regiment of cavalry, 
has an adjutant; the chiefs of brigades, divisions, corps d’armée, and 
the commander-in-chief, have one or more as the importance of 
the command may require. The adjutant has to make known the 
commands of his chief, and to see to their execution, as well as to 
receive or collect the reports intended for his chief. He _ has, 
therefore, in his charge, to a great extent, the internal economy of 
his body of troops. He regulates the rotation of duty among its 
component parts, and gives out the daily orders; at the same time, 
he is a sort of clerk to his chief, carries on the correspondence 
with detachments and with the superior authorities, arranges the 
daily reports and returns into tabular form, and keeps the journal 
and statistical books of his body of troops. Larger bodies of troops 
now generally have a regular staff attached—taken from the 
general staff of the army, and under a “chief of the staff,” who 
takes to himself the higher functions of adjutant, and leaves him 
merely the transmission of orders and the regulation of the 
internal routine duty of the corps. The arrangements in such 
cases, however, are so different in different armies, that it is 
impossible to give even a general view of them. In no two armies, 
for instance, are the functions of an adjutant to a general 
commanding a corps d’armée exactly alike. Beside these real 
adjutants, the requirements of monarchical institutions have 
created in almost all European states hosts of titular adjutants- 
general to the monarch, whose functions are imaginary, except 
when called upon to do duty with their master; and even then, 
these functions are of a purely formal kind. 

Frederick Engels 

AIREY 

Airey, Sir Richard, K.C.B., major-general, and, at present, 
quartermaster-general of the British army, entered the service in 
1821 as ensign, was made a captain 1825, a lieutenant-colonel 
1851, and as such took the command of a brigade in the army of 
the east in 1854. When the Crimean expedition was about to sail 
from Varna, he was made, Sept. 1854, quartermaster-general of 
the expeditionary force, and, as such, became one of the 6 or 8 
officers who, under the command of Lord Raglan, have been 
charged with destroying the English army by dint of routine, 
ostensible fulfilment of duty, and want of common sense and 
energy. To Airey’s share, fell the fixing of the proportions in 
which the different articles of camp-equipage, tents, great-coats, 
blankets, boots, should be dealt out to the various regiments. 
According to his own admission (before the Chelsea commission of 

inquiry), 

“there never was a period after the first week in Dec. 1854, when there was not 
at Balaklava a considerable supply of warm clothing, and [...] at that very time there 
were regiments engaged at the front [...] in the trenches, which were suffering 
acutely from the want of these very articles, which [...] lay in readiness for them at 
a distance of 7 or 8 miles.” 

This, he says, was not his fault; there never having been the 
slightest difficulty in getting his signature of approval to a 
requisition for such articles. On the contrary, he gives himself 

credit for having, as much as possible, abridged and simplified the 
routine process of approving, reducing, or disapproving the 
requisition sent to him by divisional and regimental officers.