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 and Amphitryon (1876) . ALCOBAcA, a town of Portugal, in the district of Leiria, formerly included in the province of Estremadura, on the Alcoa and Baca rivers, from which it derives its name . Pop . (1900) 2309 . Alcobaca is chiefly interesting for its Cistercian convent, now partly converted into schools and barracks . The monastic buildings, which form a square 725 ft. in diameter, with a huge conical chimney rising above them, were founded in 1148 and completed in 1222 . During the middle ages it rivalled the greatest European abbeys in size and wealth . It was supplied with water by an affluent of the Alcoa, which still flows through the kitchen; its abbot ranked with the highest Portuguese nobles, and, according to tradition, 999 monks continued the celebration of mass without intermission through-out the year . The convent was partly burned by the French in r8so, secularized in 1834 and afterwards gradually restored .

Portions of the library, which comprised over roo,0oo volumes,

ALCOCK including many precious MSS., were saved in 1810, and are preserved in the public libraries of Lisbon and Braga . The monastic church (1222) is a good example of early Gothic, some-what defaced by Moorish and other additions . It contains a fine cloister and the tombs of Peter I . (1357–1367) and his wife, Inez 'de Castro .