IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (part 4 of 15)

IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (part 4 of 15)

When Julian's successor, Jovian, "who did not reign long enough to lead back to Constantinople the army which he had marched from the banks of the Tigris, made public profession of Christianity, he, at the same time, displaced a great number of brave officers and able functionaries, whom Julian had promoted in proportion to their zeal for paganism. From that period, up to the fall of the empire, a hostile sect, which regarded itself as unjustly stripped of its ancient honours, invoked the vengeance of the gods on the heads of the government, exulted in the public calamities, and probably hastened them by its intrigues, though inextricably involved in the common ruin. The pagan faith, which was not attached to a body of doctrine, nor supported by a corporation of priests, nor heightened by the fervour of novelty, scarcely ever displayed itself in open revolt, or dared the perils of martyrdom; but pagans still occupied the foremost rank in letters:—the orators, the philosophers (or, as they were otherwise called, sophists), the historians, belonged, almost without an exception, to the ancient religion. It still kept possession of the most illustrious schools, especially those of Athens and Alexandria; the majority of the Roman senate were still attached to it; and in the breasts of the common people, particularly the rural population, it maintained its power for several centuries, branded, however, with the name of magic. … Less than eight months after his elevation to the throne, on the 17th of February, 364, Jovian died in a small town of Galatia. After the expiration of ten days, the army which he was leading home from Persia, at a solemn assembly held at Nice, in Bithynia, chose as his successor the son of a captain from a little village of Pannonia, the count Valentinian, whom his valour and bodily prowess had raised to one of the highest posts of the army. … Spite of his savage rudeness, and the furious violence of his temper, the Roman empire found in him an able chief at the moment of its greatest need. Unhappily, the extent of the empire required, at least, two rulers. The army felt this, and demanded a second. … Valentinian … chose his brother. Valens, with whom he shared his power, had the weak, timid, and cruel character which ordinarily distinguishes cowards. Valentinian, born in the West, … reserved the government of it to himself. He ceded to his brother a part of Illyricum on the Danube, and the whole of the East. He established universal toleration by law, and took no part in the sectarian controversies which divided Christendom. Valens adopted the Arian faith, and persecuted the orthodox party. The finances of the empire demanded a reform, which neither of the emperors was in a condition to undertake. They wanted money, and they were ignorant where to seek the long exhausted sources of public wealth. … Vast provinces in the interior were deserted; enlistments daily became more scanty and difficult; the magistrates of the 'curiæ' or municipalities, who were responsible both for the contributions and the levies of their respective towns, sought by a thousand subterfuges to escape the perilous honour of the magistrature. …

See CURIA, MUNICIPAL, OF THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE.

During the twelve years that Valentinian reigned over the West (A. D. 364-376), he redeemed his cruelties by several brilliant victories. …

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 365-367.

Valentinian had undertaken the defence of Gaul in person, and generally resided at Treves, then the capital of that vast prefecture; but at the time he was thus occupied, invasions not less formidable had devastated the other provinces of the West. …

See BRITAIN. A. D. 367-370.

At this period Valens reigned over the Greeks, whose language he did not understand (A. D. 364-378). His eastern frontier was menaced by the Persians, his northern by the Goths. … Armenia and Iberia became subject to Persia; but as the people of both these countries were Christian, they remained faithful to the interests of Rome, though conquered by her enemy. … The dominion of the Goths extended along the shores of the Danube and the Black Sea, and thirty years had elapsed since they had made any incursion into the Roman territory. But during that period they had gone on increasing in greatness and in power. … Spite of the formidable neighbourhood of the Goths and the Persians—spite of the cowardice and the incapacity of Valens—the East had remained at peace, protected by the mere name of Valentinian, whose military talents, promptitude, and severity were known to all the barbarian tribes. But the career of this remarkable man, so dreaded by his enemies and by his subjects, had now reached its term." He died in a fit of rage, from the bursting of a blood-vessel in his chest, November 17, A. D. 375. "His two sons,—Gratian, who was scarcely come to manhood, and Valentinian, still a child,—shared the West between them. … {2725} Never, however, was the empire in greater need of an able and vigorous head. The entire nation of the Huns, abandoning to the Sienpi its ancient pastures bordering on China, had traversed the whole north of Asia by a march of 1,300 leagues." The Goths, overwhelmed and flying before them, begged permission to cross the Danube and take refuge in Mœsia and Thrace. They were permitted to do so; but such extortions and outrages were practiced on them, at the same time, that they were exasperated to a passionate hatred. This bore fruit in a general rising in 377. Two years of war ensued, marked by two great battles, that of Ad Salices, or The Willows, which neither side could fully claim, and that of Adrianople, August 9, 378, in which Valens perished, and more than 60,000 of his soldiers fell.

See GOTHS: A. D. 376, and 378.

"The forces of the East were nearly annihilated at the terrible battle of Adrianople. … The Goths … advanced, ravaging all around them, to the foot of the walls of Constantinople; and, after some unimportant skirmishes, returned westward through Macedonia, Epirus, and Dalmatia. From the Danube to the Adriatic, their passage was marked by conflagration and blood. … No general in the East attempted to take advantage of the anarchy in favour of his own ambition; no army offered the purple to its chief; all dreaded the responsibility of command at so tremendous a crisis. All eyes were turned on the court of Treves, the only point whence help was hoped for. But Gratian, eldest son of Valentinian, and emperor of the West, was only 19. He … marched upon Illyricum with his army, when he learned the event of the battle of Adrianople, and the death of Valens, who had been so eager to secure the undivided honours of victory, that he would not wait for his arrival. Incapable of confronting such a tempest, he retreated to Sirmium. The news of an invasion of the Allemans into Gaul recalled him to the defence of his own territory. Danger started up on every hand at once. The empire stood in need of a new chief, and one of approved valour. Gratian had the singular generosity to choose from among his enemies, and from a sense of merit alone. Theodosius, the Spaniard, his father's general, who had successively vanquished the Scots and afterwards the Moors, and who had been unjustly condemned to the scaffold at the beginning of Gratian's reign, had left a son 33 years of age, who bore his name. The younger Theodosius had distinguished himself in the command he held in Mœsia, but was living in retirement and disgrace on his estates in Spain, when, with, the confidence of a noble mind, Gratian chose him out, presented him to the army on the 19th of January, 379, and declared him his colleague, and emperor of the East."

J. C. L. de Sismondi, The Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 5 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, introduction, and book 1, chapter 1.

ROME: A. D. 378. Gratian's overthrow of the Alemanni in Gaul.

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 378.

ROME: A. D. 379-395. Theodosius and the Goths. His Trinitarian Edict. Revolt of Maximus. Death of Gratian. Overthrow of Maximus by Theodosius. Usurpation of Eugenius, and his fall. Death of Theodosius.

"The first duty that Theodosius had to undertake was to restore the self-confidence and trust in victory of the Roman army, terribly shaken as these qualities had been by the disastrous rout of Hadrianople. This he accomplished by waging a successful guerilla war with the Gothic marauders. Valens had played into the hands of the barbarians by risking everything on one great pitched battle. Theodosius adopted the very opposite policy. He outmanoeuvred the isolated and straggling bands of the Goths, defeated them in one skirmish after another that did not deserve the name of a battle, and thus restored the courage and confidence of the Imperial troops. By the end of 379 he seems to have succeeded in clearing the territory south of the Balkan range of the harassing swarms of the barbarians. In February, 380, he fell sick at Thessalonica (which was his chief basis of operations throughout this period), and this sickness, from which he did not fully recover for some months, was productive of two important results, (1) his baptism as a Trinitarian Christian, (2) a renewal of the war against fresh swarms of barbarians. (1) Theodosius appears up to this point of his career not to have definitively ranged himself on either side of the great Arian controversy, though he had a hereditary inclination towards the Creed of Nicaea. Like his father, however, he had postponed baptism in accordance with the prevalent usage of his day: but now upon a bed of sickness which seemed likely to be one of death, he delayed no longer, but received the rite at the hands of Ascholius, the Catholic Bishop of Thessalonica. Before he was able to resume his post at the head of the legions, he published his celebrated Edict: 'To the people of Constantinople.—We desire that all the nations who are governed by the rule of our Clemency shall practise that religion which the Apostle Peter himself delivered to the Romans, and which it is manifest that the pontiff Damasus, and Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of Apostolic sanctity, do now follow: that according to the discipline of the Apostles and the teaching of the Evangelists they believe in the one Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in equal Majesty, and in the holy Trinity. We order all who follow this law to assume the name of Catholic Christians, decreeing that all others, being mad and foolish persons, shall bear the infamy of their heretical dogmas, and that their Conventicles shall not receive the name of Churches: to be punished first by Divine vengeance, and afterwards by that exertion of our power to chastise which we have received from the decree of heaven.' Thus then at length the Caesar of the East was ranged on the side of Trinitarian orthodoxy. Constantine in the latter part of his reign, Constantius, Valens, had all been Arians or semi-Arians, some of them bitter in their heterodoxy. Julian had been a worshipper of the gods of Olympus. Thus for nearly two generations the influence of the Court of Constantinople had been thrown into the scale against the teaching of Athanasius, which was generally accepted throughout the Western realm. Now by the accession of Theodosius to the Trinitarian side, religious unity was restored to the Empire: but at the same time a chasm, an impassable chasm, was opened between the Empire itself and its new Teutonic guests, nearly all of whom held fast to the Arian teaching of their great Apostle Ulfilas. (2) The other consequence of the sickness of Theodosius was, as I have said, a fresh incursion of barbarian hordes, swarming across the Danube and climbing all the high passes of the Balkans. {2726} The work of clearing the country of these marauders had to be all done over again. … At length, in the closing months of 380, the provinces south of the Balkans (Macedonia and Thrace) were once more cleared of their barbarian intruders. Peace, in which Gratian concurred, was concluded with the Goths who still doubtless abounded in Moesia. …

See GOTHS: A. D. 379-382.

The insurrection at Antioch [A. D. 387] displayed the character of Theodosius in a favourable light, as a strong but merciful and magnanimous ruler of men. Very different was the effect on his fame of the insurrection which broke out three years later (390) in the Macedonian city of Thessalonica. …

See THESSALONICA: A. D. 390.

In the year 383 a military revolt broke out in Britain against the young Emperor Gratian. … The army revolted and proclaimed Magnus Clemens Maximus, Emperor. He was, like Theodosius, a native of Spain, and though harsh and perhaps rapacious, a man of ability and experience, not unworthy of the purple if he had come to it by lawful means. Gratian on his side had evidently given some real cause for dissatisfaction to his subjects. … Hence it was that when Maximus with the army of Britain landed in Gaul, he shook down the fabric of his power without difficulty. Gratian, finding himself deserted by his troops, escaped from the battle-field, but was overtaken and killed at Lyons. For more than four years, Maximus, satisfied with ruling over the three great Western provinces which had fallen to the share of Gratian, maintained at any rate the appearance of harmony with his two colleagues. … At length, in the autumn of 387, Maximus deemed that the time had come for grasping the whole Empire of the West. Lulling to sleep the suspicions of Valentinian and his mother by embassies and protestations of friendship, he crossed the Alps with an army and marched towards Aquileia, where the young Emperor was then dwelling in order to be as near as possible to the dominions of his friendly colleague and protector. Valentinian did not await the approach of his rival, but going down to the port of Grado, took ship and sailed for Thessalonica, his mother and sisters accompanying him. The Emperor and the Senate of Constantinople met the Imperial fugitives at Thessalonica, and discussed the present position of affairs. … What the entreaties of the mother might have failed to effect, the tears of the daughter [Galla] accomplished. Theodosius, whose wife Flaccilla had died two years before (385), took Galla for his second wife, and vowed to avenge her wrongs and replace her brother on the throne. He was some time in preparing for the campaign, but, when it was opened, he conducted it with vigour and decision. His troops pressed up the Save valley, defeated those of Maximus in two engagements, entered Aemona (Laybach) in triumph, and soon stood before the walls of Aquileia [July, 388], behind which Maximus was sheltering himself. … A mutiny among the troops of Maximus did away with the necessity for a siege," and the usurper, betrayed and delivered to Theodosius, was speedily put to death. Theodosius "handed over to Valentinian II. the whole of the Western Empire, both his own especial share and that which had formerly been held by his brother Gratian. The young Emperor was now 17 years of age; his mother, Justina, had died apparently on the eve of Theodosius's victory, and he governed, or tried to govern alone." But one of his Frankish generals, named Arbogast, gathered all the power of the government into his hands, reduced Valentinian to helpless insignificance, and finally, in May, 392, caused him to be strangled. "The Frankish general, who durst not shock the prejudices of the Roman world by himself assuming the purple, hung that dishonoured robe upon the shoulders of a rhetorician, a confidant, and almost a dependent of his own, named Eugenius. This man, like most of the scholars and rhetoricians of the day, had not abjured the old faith of Hellas. As Arbogast also was a heathen, though worshipping Teutonic rather than Olympian gods, this last revolution looked like a recurrence to the days of Julian, and threatened the hardly-won supremacy of Christianity." Again Theodosius was summoned to the rescue of the West, and, after two years of careful preparation, marched against Eugenius by the same route that he had taken before. The two armies met at a place "half-way between Aemona and Aquileia, where the Julian Alps are crossed, and where a little stream called the Frigidus (now the Wipbach) burst suddenly from a limestone hill." The battle was won by Theodosius after a terrible struggle, lasting two days (September 5-6, A. D. 394). Eugenius was taken prisoner and put to death; Arbogast fell by his own hand. "Theodosius, who was still in the prime of life, had now indeed 'the rule of the world,' without a rival or a colleague except his own boyish sons. … Had his life been prolonged, as it well might have been for twenty or thirty years longer, many things might have gone differently in the history of the world. But, little more than four months after the victory of the Frigidus, Theodosius died [January 17, A. D. 395] of dropsy, at Milan."

T. Hodgkin, The Dynasty of Theodosius, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: F. W. Farrar, Lives of the Fathers, chapter 15: Ambrose and Theodosius (volume 2).

R. Thornton, St. Ambrose, chapters 6-14.

ROME: A. D. 388. Formal establishment of Christianity.

Until the year 384, "paganism was still the constitutional religion of the [Roman] senate. The hall or temple in which they assembled was adorned by the statue and altar of Victory. … The senators were sworn on the altar of the goddess to observe the laws of the emperor and of the empire; and a solemn offering of wine and incense was the ordinary prelude of their public deliberations. The removal of this ancient monument was the only injury which Constantius had offered to the superstition of the Romans. The altar of Victory was again restored by Julian, tolerated by Valentinian, and once more banished from the senate by the zeal of Gratian. But the emperor yet spared the statues of the gods which were exposed to the public veneration: four hundred and twenty-four temples or chapels still remained to satisfy the devotion of the people, and in every quarter of Rome the delicacy of the Christians was offended by the fumes of idolatrous sacrifice. But the Christians formed the least numerous party in the senate of Rome." The senate addressed several petitions to Gratian, to the young Valentinian, and to Theodosius for the restoration of the altar of Victory. {2727} They were supported by the eloquence of the orator Symmachus, and opposed by the energy of Ambrose, the powerful Archbishop of Milan. The question is said to have been, in the end, submitted to the senate, itself, by the Emperor Theodosius (A. D. 388)—he being present in person—"Whether the worship of Jupiter or that of Christ should be the religion of the Romans? The liberty of suffrages, which he affected to allow, was destroyed by the hopes and fears that his presence inspired. … On a regular division of the senate, Jupiter was condemned and degraded by the sense of a very large majority."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 28.

ROME: A. D. 391-395. Suppression of Paganism.

"The religious liberty of the Pagans, though considerably abridged by Gratian, was yet greater than had been allowed by the laws of Constantine and his immediate successors. The priests and vestals were deprived of their immunities; the revenues of the temples were confiscated for the service of the State; but the heathen rites of their forefathers were still allowed to those who were conscientiously attached to them, provided they abstained from nocturnal sacrifices and magical incantations. But when Theodosius, in the early part of his reign, prohibited the immolation of victims, their superstition was attacked in its most vital part, and, in the course of a few years, the success of his measures against heresy, and his triumph over Maximus, emboldened him to proceed to steps of a still more decisive kind, and to attempt the entire subversion of the already tottering fabric of paganism. A commission was issued to the præfect of the East, directing him to close all heathen temples within his jurisdiction; and while the imperial officers were engaged in this task, assisted by the clergy, and especially by the monks, with a vigour not always strictly legal, Theodosius gradually increased the rigour of his legislative prohibitions. A law was passed in the year 391, declaring that to enter a heathen temple, with a religious purpose, was an offence liable to a fine of fifteen pounds of gold; and in the following year, not only all public, but even all private and domestic, exercise of heathen rites was interdicted under the severest penalties. In some few instances, the intemperate and tumultous proceedings of the monks in destroying the temples, excited the opposition of the fanatical heathen peasantry, and at Alexandria a serious commotion, fatal to many Christians, was occasioned by the injudicious measures of the patriarch Theophilus. But, generally speaking, the pagans showed little disposition to incur the rigorous penalties of the laws, still less to become martyrs for a religion so little calculated to inspire real faith or fortitude. Some show of zeal in the cause of paganism was made at Rome, where the votaries of the ancient superstition still had a strong party, both among the senate and populace. But the eloquent exertions of Symmachus, the champion of heathenism, were easily baffled by Ambrose, who encountered him with equal ability, better argument, and a confident reliance on the support of his sovereign; and not long after, a more important victory was gained, in an enactment by the senate, carried, through the influence of Theodosius, by an overwhelming majority, that Christianity should for the future be the sole religion of the Roman State. This decisive measure sealed the ruin of paganism in Rome and its dependencies. The senators and nobles hastened to conform, nominally at least, to the dominant religion; the inferior citizens followed their example, and St. Jerome was in a little while able to boast that every heathen altar in Rome was forsaken, and every temple had become a place of desolation."

J. B. S. Carwithen and A. Lyall, History of the Christian Church, page 63-65.

ALSO IN: P. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, period 3, chapter 1, section 7 (volume 2).

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 28.

ROME: A. D. 394-395. Final division of the Empire between the sons of Theodosius. Arcadius in the East, Honorius in the West. Ministries of Rufinus and Stilicho. Advent of Alaric the Visigoth.

"The division of the Empire between East and West on the accession of the sons of Theodosius [A. D. 395], though it was possibly meant to be less complete than some preceding partitions, proved to be the final one. It is worth while to indicate the line of division, which is sufficiently accurately traced for us in the Notitia. In Africa it was the well-known frontier marked by 'the Altars of the Philaeni,'. which separated Libya (or Cyrenaica) on the East from Africa Tripolitana on the West. Modern geographers draw exactly the same line (about 19° E. of Greenwich) as the boundary of Barca and Tripoli. On the Northern shore of the Mediterranean the matter is a little more complicated. Noricum, Pannonia, Savia, and Dalmatia belonged to the West, and Dacia—not the original but the later province of Dacia—to the East. This gives us for the frontier of the Western Empire the Danube as far as Belgrade, and on the Adriatic the modern town of Lissa. The inland frontier is traced by geographers some 60 miles up the Save from Belgrade, then southwards by the Drina to its source, and so across the mountains to Lissa. Thus Sclavonia, Croatia, and Dalmatia in the Austrian Empire, and Croatia, most of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro in the state which was lately called Turkey in Europe, belonged to the Western Empire. The later province of Dacia, which fell to the Eastern share, included Servia (Old and New), the south-east corner of Bosnia, the north of Albania, and the west of Bulgaria. By this partition the Prefecture of Illyricum, as constituted by Diocletian, was divided into two nearly equal parts. … What makes the subject somewhat perplexing to the student is the tendency to confuse Illyricum the 'province' and Illyricum the 'prefecture,'" the latter of which embraced, in modern geographical terms, Servia, Western Bulgaria, Macedon, Epirus and Greece.

T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 1, chapter 4, note C, and chapter 3 (volume 1).

"This decree for a partition, published by Theodosius shortly before his death, appears to have been generally expected and approved. The incapacity of Arcadius and Honorius, of whom the former had only attained his 18th and the latter his 11th year, had not then been discovered. These princes showed more and more clearly, as time went on, that they inherited no share of their father's abilities, their weakness being such as to render their sovereignty little more than nominal. … It was never intended that the two jurisdictions should be independent of each other, but rather that the Emperors should be colleagues and coadjutors, the defenders of one commonwealth. … {2728} At the time of the decree, belief in the unity and immortality of the 'Sancta Respublica Romana' was universal. … Enactments were invariably made in the names of both Emperors; and, so often as a vacancy of either throne occurred, the title of the Caesar elect remained incomplete until his elevation had been approved and confirmed by the occupant of the other. … Theodosius left the Roman world in peace, and provided with a disciplined army sufficient, if rightly directed, for its defence; but his choice of the men to whom he confided the guidance of his sons was unfortunate. Rufinus, to whom the guardianship of Arcadius was entrusted, by birth a Gascon, owed his advancement to his eloquence as an advocate, and his plausible duplicity had so far imposed on the confiding nature of Theodosius as to obtain for him the prefecture of the East. Stilicho, the guardian of Honorius, was by descent a Vandal, and is styled by St. Jerome a semi-barbarian. … His military abilities, combined with a prepossessing exterior, induced Theodosius to confer upon him the chief command of the imperial forces, and the hand of his niece, Serena."

R. H. Wrightson, The Sancta Respublica Romana, chapter 1.

"Stilicho … was popular with the army, and for the present the great bulk of the forces of the Empire was at his disposal; for the regiments united to suppress Eugenius had not yet been sent back to their various stations. Thus a struggle was imminent between the ambitious minister who had the ear of Arcadius, and the strong general who held the command and enjoyed the favour of the army. … It was the cherished project of Rufinus to unite Arcadius with his only daughter. … But he imprudently made a journey to Antioch, in order to execute vengeance personally on the count of the East, who had offended him; and during his absence from Byzantium an adversary stole a march on him. This adversary was the eunuch Eutropius, the lord chamberlain. … Determining that the future Empress should be bound to himself and not to Rufinus, he chose Eudoxia, a girl of singular beauty, the daughter of a distinguished Frank, but herself of Roman education. … Eutropius showed a picture of the Frank maiden to the Emperor, and engaged his affections for her; the nuptials were arranged by the time Rufinus returned to Constantinople, and were speedily celebrated (27th April 395). This was a blow to Rufinus, but he was still the most powerful man in the East. The event which at length brought him into contact with Stilicho was the rising of the Visigoths, who had been settled by Theodosius in Moesia and Thrace. … Under the leadership of Alaric they raised the ensign of revolt, and spread desolation in the fields and homesteads of Macedonia, Moesia, and Thrace, even advancing close to the walls of Constantinople. …

See GOTHS: A. D. 395.

It was impossible to take the field against the Goths, because there were no forces available, as the eastern armies were still with Stilicho in the West. Arcadius therefore was obliged to summon Stilicho to send or bring them back immediately, to protect his throne. This summons gave that general the desired opportunity to interfere in the politics of Constantinople; and having, with energetic celerity, arranged matters on the Gallic frontier, he marched overland through Illyricum, and confronted Alaric in Thessaly, whither the Goth had traced his devastating path from the Propontis. … It seems that before Stilicho arrived, Alaric had experienced a defeat at the hands of garrison soldiers in Thessaly; at all events he shut himself up in a fortified camp and declined to engage with the Roman general. In the meantime Rufinus induced Arcadius to send a peremptory order to Stilicho to despatch the eastern troops to Constantinople and depart himself whence he had come; the Emperor resented, or pretended to resent, the presence of his cousin as an officious interference. Stilicho yielded so readily that his willingness seems almost suspicious. … He consigned the eastern soldiers to the command of a Gothic captain, Gainas, and himself departed to Salona, allowing Alaric to proceed on his wasting way into the lands of Hellas." When Gainas and his army arrived at the gates of Constantinople, the Emperor came out to meet them, with Rufinus by his side. The troops suddenly closed round the latter and murdered him. "We can hardly suppose that the lynching of Rufinus was the fatal inspiration of a moment, but whether it was proposed or approved of by Stilicho, or was a plan hatched among the soldiers on their way to Constantinople, is uncertain."

J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).

ROME: A. D. 396-398. Commission of Alaric under the Eastern Empire. Suppression of the revolt of Gildo in Africa. Commanding position of Stilicho.

"For the next five or six years the chief power over the feeble soul of Arcadius was divided between three persons, his fair Frankish Empress Eudoxia, Eutropius, the haggard old eunuch who had placed her on the throne, and Gainas the Goth, commander of the Eastern army. Again, in the year 306, did Stilicho, now commanding only the Western forces, volunteer to deliver Greece from the Visigoths. The outset of the campaign was successful. The greater part of Peloponnesus was cleared of the invader, who was shut up in the rugged mountain country on the confines of Elis and Arcadia. The Roman army was expecting soon to behold him forced by famine to an ignominious surrender, when they discovered that he had pierced the lines of circumvallation at an unguarded point, and marched with all his plunder northwards to Epirus. What was the cause of this unlooked-for issue of the struggle? … The most probable explanation … is that Fabian caution co-operated with the instinct of the Condottiere against pushing his foe too hard. There was always danger for Rome in driving Alaric to desperation: there was danger privately for Stilicho if the dead Alaric should render him no longer indispensable. Whatever might be the cause, by the end of 396 Alaric was back again in his Illyrian eyrie, and thenceforward whatever threats might be directed towards the East the actual weight of his arms was felt only by the West. Partly, at least, this is to be accounted for by the almost sublime cowardice of the ministers of Arcadius, who rewarded his Grecian raids by clothing him with the sacred character of an officer of the Empire in their portion of Illyricum.

See GOTHS: A. D. 395.

{2729}

The precise title under which he exercised jurisdiction is not stated. … During an interval of quiescence, which lasted apparently about four years, the Visigothic King was using the forms of Roman law, the machinery of Roman taxation, the almost unbounded authority of a Roman provincial governor, to prepare the weapon which was one day to pierce the heart of Rome herself. The Imperial City, during the first portion of this interval, was suffering the pang's of famine. … Since the foundation of Constantinople … Egypt had ceased to nourish the elder Rome. … Rome was thus reduced to an almost exclusive dependence on the harvests of Africa proper (that province of which Carthage was the capital), of Numidia, and of Mauretania. … But this supply … in the year 397 was entirely stopped by the orders of Gildo, who had made himself virtual master of these three provinces." The elder Theodosius had suppressed in 374 a revolt in Mauretania headed by one Firmus. "The son of a great sheep-farmer, Nabal, he [Firmus] had left behind him several brothers, one of whom, Gildo, had in the year 386 gathered up again some portion of his brother's broken power. We find him, seven years later (in 393), holding the rank of Count of Africa in the Roman official hierarchy. … He turned to his own account the perennial jealousy existing between the ministers of the Eastern and Western Courts, renounced his allegiance to Rome, and preferred to transfer it to Constantinople. What brought matters to a crisis was his refusal to allow the grain crops of 397 to be conveyed to Rome. … The Roman Senate declared war in the early winter months of 398 against Gildo. Stilicho, who, of course, undertook the fitting out of the expedition, found a suitable instrument for Rome's chastisement in one who had had cruel wrongs of his own to avenge upon Gildo. This was yet another son of Nabal, Mascezel." Mascezel, at the head of nearly 40,000 men, accomplished the overthrow of his brother, who slew himself, or was slain, when he fell into Roman hands. "Thus the provinces of Africa were for the time won back again for the Empire of the West, and Rome had her corn again. … The glory and power of Stilicho were now nearly at their highest point. Shortly before the expedition against Gildo he had given his daughter Maria in marriage to Honorius, and the father-in-law of the Emperor might rightly be deemed to hold power with a securer grasp than his mere chief minister."

T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, book 1, chapter 4 (volume 1).

ROME: A. D. 400-403. First Gothic invasion of Italy under Alaric. Stilicho's repulse of the invaders.

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 400-403.

ROME: A. D. 400-518. The Eastern Empire. Expulsion of Gothic soldiery from Constantinople. Conflict of John Chrysostom and the Empress Eudoxia. Reigns of Theodosius II., Pulcheria, Marcianus, Leo I., Zeno, and Anastasius. Persistent vitality of the Byzantine government.

"While Alaric's eyes were turned on Italy, but before he had actually come into conflict with Stilicho, the Court of Constantinople had been the seat of grave troubles. Gainas, the Gothic 'Magister militum' of the East, and his creature, the eunuch Eutropius, had fallen out, and the man of war had no difficulty in disposing of the wretched harem-bred Grand Chamberlain. … The Magister militum now brought his army over to Constantinople, and quartered it there to overawe the emperor. It appeared quite likely that ere long the Germans would sack the city; but the fate that befell Rome ten years later was not destined for Constantinople. A mere chance brawl put the domination of Gainas to a sudden end [July, A. D. 400]. … The whole population turned out with extemporized arms and attacked the German soldiery. … Isolated bodies of the Germans were cut off one by one, and at last their barracks were surrounded and set on fire. The rioters had the upper hand; 7,000 soldiers fell, and the remnant thought themselves lucky to escape. Gainas at once declared open war on the empire, but … he was beaten in the field and forced to fly across the Danube, where he was caught and beheaded by Uldes, king of the Huns. … The departure of Alaric and the death of Gainas freed the Eastern Romans from the double danger that [had] impended over them. … The weak Arcadius was enabled to spend the remaining seven years of his life in comparative peace and quiet. His court was only troubled by an open war between his spouse, the Empress Ælia Eudoxia, and John Chrysostom, the Patriarch of Constantinople. John was a man of saintly life and apostolic fervour, but rash and inconsiderate alike in speech and action. … The patriarch's enemies were secretly supported by the empress, who had taken offence at the outspoken way in which John habitually denounced the luxury and insolence of her court. She favoured the intrigues of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, against his brother prelate, backed the Asiatic clergy in their complaints about John's oppression of them, and at last induced the Emperor to allow the saintly patriarch to be deposed by a hastily-summoned council, the 'Synod of the Oak,' held outside the city. The populace rose at once to defend their pastor; riots broke out, Theodosius was chased back to Egypt, and the Emperor, terrified by an earthquake which seemed to manifest the wrath of heaven, restored John to his place. Next year, however, the war between the empress and the patriarch broke out again. … The Emperor, at his wife's demand, summoned another council, which condemned Chrysostom, and on Easter Day, A. D. 404, seized the patriarch in his cathedral by armed force, and banished him to Asia. That night a fire, probably kindled by the angry adherents of Chrysostom, broke out in St. Sophia, which was burnt to the ground. From thence it spread to the neighbouring buildings, and finally to the Senate-house, which was consumed with all the treasures of ancient Greek art of which Constantine had made it the repository. Meanwhile the exiled John was banished to a dreary mountain fastness in Cappadocia, and afterwards condemned to a still more remote prison at Pityus on the Euxine. He died on his way thither. … The feeble and inert Arcadius died in A. D. 408, at the early age of thirty-one; his imperious consort had preceded him to the grave, and the empire of the East was left to Theodosius II., a child of seven years, their only son. … The little emperor was duly crowned, and the administration of the East undertaken in his name by the able Anthemius, who held the office of Praetorian Praefect. History relates nothing but good of this minister; he made a wise commercial treaty with the king of Persia; he repelled with ease a Hunnish invasion of Moesia; he built a flotilla on the Danube, where Roman war-ships had not been seen since the death of Valens, forty years before; he reorganized the corn supply of Constantinople; and did much to get back into order and cultivation the desolated north-western lands of the Balkan Peninsula. … {2730} The empire was still more indebted to him for bringing up the young Theodosius as an honest and god-fearing man. The palace under Anthemius' rule was the school of the virtues; the lives of the emperor and his three sisters, Pulcheria, Arcadia, and Marina, were the model and the marvel of their subjects. Theodosius inherited the piety and honesty of his grandfather and namesake, but was a youth of slender capacity, though he took some interest in literature, and was renowned for his beautiful penmanship. His eldest sister, Pulcheria, was the ruling spirit of the family, and possessed unlimited influence over him, though she was but two years his senior. When Anthemius died in A. D. 414, she took the title of Augusta, and assumed the regency of the East. Pulcheria was an extraordinary woman: on gathering up the reins of power she took a vow of chastity, and lived as a crowned nun for thirty-six years; her fear had been that, if she married, her husband might cherish ambitious schemes against her brother's crown; she therefore kept single herself and persuaded her sisters to make a similar vow. Austere, indefatigable, and unselfish, she proved equal to ruling the realms of the East with success, though no woman had ever made the attempt before. When Theodosius came of age he refused to remove his sister from power, and treated her as his colleague and equal. By her advice he married in A. D. 421, the year that he came of age, the beautiful and accomplished Athenaïs, daughter of the philosopher Leontius. … Theodosius' long reign passed by in comparative quiet. Its only serious troubles were a short war with the Persians, and a longer one with Attila, the great king of the Huns, whose empire now stretched over all the lands north of the Black Sea and Danube, where the Goths had once dwelt. In this struggle the Roman armies were almost invariably unfortunate. The Huns ravaged the country as far as Adrianople and Philippopolis, and had to be bought off by the annual payment of 700 lbs. of gold [£31,000]. … The reconstruction of the Roman military forces was reserved for the successors of Theodosius II. He himself was killed by a fall from his horse in 450 A. D., leaving an only daughter, who was married to her cousin Valentinian III., Emperor of the West. Theodosius, with great wisdom, had designated as his successor, not his young son-in-law, a cruel and profligate prince, but his sister Pulcheria, who at the same time ended her vow of celibacy and married Marcianus, a veteran soldier and a prominent member of the Senate. The marriage was but formal, for both were now well advanced in years: as a political expedient it was all that could be desired. The empire had peace and prosperity under their rule, and freed itself from the ignominious tribute to the Huns. Before Attila died in 452, he had met and been checked by the succours which Marcianus sent to the distressed Romans of the West. When Marcianus and Pulcheria passed away, the empire came into the hands of a series of three men of ability. They were all bred as high civil officials, not as generals; all ascended the throne at a ripe age; not one of them won his crown by arms, all were peaceably designated either by their predecessors, or by the Senate and army. These princes were Leo I. (457-474), Zeno (474-491), Anastasius (491-(18). Their chief merit was that they guided the Roman Empire in the East safely through the stormy times which saw its extinction in the West. While, beyond the Adriatic, province after province was being lopped off and formed into a new Germanic kingdom, the emperors who reigned at Constantinople kept a tight grip on the Balkan Peninsula and on Asia, and succeeded in maintaining their realm absolutely intact. Both East and West were equally exposed to the barbarian in the fifth century, and the difference of their fate came from the character of their rulers, not from the diversity of their political conditions."

C. W. C. Oman, Story of the Byzantine Empire, chapters 4-5.

"In spite of the dissimilarity of their personal conduct, the general policy of their government [i. e. of the six emperors between Arcadius and Justinian] is characterised by strong features of resemblance. … The Western Empire crumbled into ruins, while the Eastern was saved, in consequence of these emperors having organised the system of administration which has been most unjustly calumniated, under the name of Byzantine. The highest officers, and the proudest military commanders, were rendered completely dependent on ministerial departments and were no longer able to conspire or rebel with impunity. The sovereign was no longer exposed to personal danger, nor the treasury to open peculation. But, unfortunately, the central executive power could not protect the people from fraud with the same ease as it guarded the treasury; and the emperors never perceived the necessity of intrusting the people with the power of defending themselves from the financial oppression of the subaltern administration."

G. Finlay, Greece under the Romans, chapter 2, section 11.

ROME: A. D. 404-408. The Western Empire: The last gladiatorial show. Retreat of Honorius and the imperial court to Ravenna. Invasion of Radagaisus. Alliance with Alaric the Goth. Fall and death of Stilicho.

"After the retreat of the barbarians, Honorius was directed to accept the dutiful invitation of the senate, and to celebrate in the imperial city the auspicious era of the Gothic victory and of his sixth consulship. The suburbs and the streets, from the Milvian bridge to the Palatine mount, were filled by the Roman people, who, in the space of a hundred years, had only thrice been honoured with the presence of their sovereigns [whose residence had been at Constantinople, at Treves, or at Milan]. … The emperor resided several months in the capital. … The people were repeatedly gratified by the attention and courtesy of Honorius in the public games. … In these games of Honorius, the inhuman combats of gladiators polluted for the last time the amphitheatre of Rome. … The recent danger to which the person of the emperor had been exposed in the defenceless palace of Milan urged him to seek a retreat in some inaccessible fortress of Italy, where he might securely remain, while the open country was covered by a deluge of barbarians; … and in the 20th year of his age the Emperor of the West, anxious only for his personal safety, retired to the perpetual confinement of the walls and morasses of Ravenna. {2731} The example of Honorius was imitated by his feeble successors, the Gothic kings, and afterwards the exarchs, who occupied the throne and palace of the emperors; and till the middle of the 8th century Ravenna was considered as the seat of government and the capital of Italy. The fears of Honorius were not without foundation, nor were his precautions without effect. While Italy rejoiced in her deliverance from the Goths, a furious tempest was excited among the nations of Germany, who yielded to the irresistible impulse that appears to have been gradually communicated from the eastern extremity of the continent of Asia [by the invasion of the Huns, which Gibbon considers to have been the impelling cause of the great avalanche of barbarians from the north that swept down upon Italy under Radagaisus in 406. …

See RADAGAISUS.

Many cities of Italy were pillaged or destroyed; and the siege of Florence by Radagaisus is one of the earliest events in the history of that celebrated republic, whose firmness checked and delayed the unskilful fury of the barbarians." Stilicho came to the relief of the distressed city, "and the famished host of Radagaisus was in its turn besieged." The barbarians, surrounded by well guarded entrenchments, were forced to surrender, after many had perished from want of food. The chief was beheaded; his surviving followers were sold as slaves. Meantime, Alaric, the Gothic king, had been taken into the pay of the Empire. "Renouncing the service of the Emperor of the East, Alaric concluded with the Court of Ravenna a treaty of peace and alliance, by which he was declared master-general of the Roman armies throughout the præfecture of Illyricum; as it was claimed, according to the true and ancient limits, by the minister of Honorius." This arrangement with Alaric caused great dissatisfaction in the army and among the people, and was a potent cause of the fall and death of Stilicho, which occurred A. D. 408. He was arrested and summarily executed, at Ravenna, on the mandate of his ungrateful and worthless young master, whose trembling throne he had upheld for thirteen years.

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 30 (volume 3).

ROME: A. D. 406-500. The breaking of the Rhine barrier. The great Teutonic invasion and occupation of the Western Empire.

"Up to the year 406 the Rhine was maintained as the frontier of the Roman Empire against the numerous barbarian races and tribes that swarmed uneasily in central Europe. From the Flavian Emperors until the time of Probus (282), the great military line from Coblenz to Kehlheim on the Danube had been really defended, though often overstepped and always a strain on the Romans, and thus a tract of territory (including Baden and Würtemberg) on the east shore of the Upper Rhine, the titheland as it was called, belonged to the Empire. But in the fourth century it was as much as could be done to keep off the Alemanni and Franks who were threatening the provinces of Gaul. The victories of Julian and Valentinian produced only temporary effects. On the last day of December 406 a vast company of Vandals, Suevians, and Alans crossed the Rhine. The frontier was not really defended; a handful of Franks who professed to guard it for the Romans were easily swept aside, and the invaders desolated Gaul at pleasure for the three following years. Such is the bare fact which the chroniclers tell us, but this migration seems to have been preceded by considerable movements on a large scale along the whole Rhine frontier, and these movements may have agitated the inhabitants of Britain and excited apprehensions there of approaching danger. Three tyrants had been recently elected by the legions in rapid succession; the first two, Marcus and Gratian, were slain, but the third Augustus, who bore the auspicious name of Constantine, was destined to play a considerable part for a year or two on the stage of the western world.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 407.

It seems almost certain that these two movements, the passage of the Germans across the Rhine and the rise of the tyrants in Britain, were not without causal connection; and it also seems certain that both events were connected with the general Stilicho. The tyrants were elevated in the course of the year 406, and it was at the end of the same year that the Vandals crossed the Rhine. Now the revolt of the legions in Britain was evidently aimed against Stilicho. … There is direct contemporary evidence … that it was by Stilicho's invitation that the barbarians invaded Gaul; he thought that when they had done the work for which he designed them he would find no difficulty in crushing them or otherwise disposing of them. We can hardly avoid supposing that the work which he wished them to perform was to oppose the tyrant of Britain—Constantine, or Gratian, or Marcus, whoever was tyrant then; for it is quite certain that, like Maximus, he would pass into Gaul, where numerous Gallo-Roman adherents would flock to his standards. Stilicho died before Constantine was crushed, and the barbarians whom he had so lightly summoned were still in the land, harrying Gaul, destined soon to harry and occupy Spain and seize Africa. From a Roman point of view Stilicho had much to answer for in the dismemberment of the Empire; from a Teutonic point of view, he contributed largely to preparing the way for the foundation of the German kingdoms."

J. B. Bury, A History of the Later Roman Empire, book 2, chapter 6 (volume 1).

"If modern history must have a definite beginning, the most convenient beginning for it is the great Teutonic invasion of Gaul in the year 407. Yet the nations of modern Europe do not spring from the nations which then crossed the Rhine, or from any intermixture between them and the Romans into whose land they made their way. The nations which then crossed the Rhine were the Vandals, Suevians, and Alans. … None of these nations made any real settlements in Gaul; Gaul was to them simply the high road to Spain. There they did settle, though the Vandals soon forsook their settlement, and the Alans were soon rooted out of theirs. The Suevian kept his ground for a far longer time; we may, if we please, look on him as the Teutonic forefather of Leon, while we look on the Goth as the Teutonic forefather of Castile. Here we have touched one of the great national names of history; the Goth, like the Frank, plays quite another part in Western Europe from the Alan, the Suevian, and the Vandal. … Now both Franks and Goths had passed into the Empire long before the invasion of 407. One branch of the Franks … was actually settled on Roman lands, and, as Roman subjects, did their best to withstand the great invasion. {2732} What then makes that invasion so marked an epoch? … The answer is that the invasion of 407 not only brought in new elements, but put the existing elements into new relations to one another. Franks and Goths put on a new character and begin a new life. The Burgundians pass into Gaul, not as a road to Spain, but as a land in which to find many homes. They press down to the south-eastern corner of the land, while the Frank no longer keeps himself in his north-eastern corner, while in the south-west the Goth is settled as for a while the liegeman of Cæsar, and in the north-west a continental Britain springs into being. Here in truth are some of the chiefest elements of the modern world, and though none of them are among the nations that crossed the Rhine in 407, yet the new position taken by all of them is the direct consequence of that crossing. In this way, in Gaul and Spain at least, the joint Vandal, Alan, and Suevian invasion is the beginning of the formation of the modern nations, though the invading nations themselves form no element in the later life of Gaul and only a secondary element in the later life of Spain. The later life of these lands, and that of Italy also, has sprung of the settlement of Teutonic nations in a Roman land, and of the mutual influences which Roman and Teuton have had on one another. Roman and Teuton lived side by side, and out of their living side by side has gradually sprung up a third thing different from either, a thing which we cannot call either Roman or Teutonic, or more truly a thing which we may call Roman and Teutonic and some other things as well, according to the side of it which we look at. This third thing is the Romance element in modern Europe, the Romance nations and their Romance tongues."

E. A. Freeman, The Chief Periods of European History, pages 87-90.

"The true Germanic people who occupied Gaul were the Burgundians, the Visigoths, and the Franks. Many other people, many other single bands of Vandals, Alani, Suevi, Saxons, &c., wandered over its territory; but of these, some only passed over it, and the others were rapidly absorbed by it; these are partial incursions which are without any historical importance. The Burgundians, the Visigoths, and the Franks, alone deserve to be counted among our ancestors. The Burgundians definitively established themselves in Gaul between the years 406 and 413; they occupied the country between the Jura, the Saone, and the Duranee; Lyons was the centre of their dominion. The Visigoths, between the years 412 and 450, spread themselves over the provinces bounded by the Rhone, and even over the left bank of the Rhone to the south of the Durance, the Loire, and the Pyrenees: their king resided at Toulouse. The Franks, between the years 481 and 500, advanced in the north of Gaul, and established themselves between the Rhine, the Scheldt, and the Loire, without including Brittany and the western portions of Normandy; Clovis had Soissons and Paris for his capitals. Thus, at the end of the fifth century, was accomplished the definitive occupation of the territory of Gaul by the three great German tribes. The condition of Gaul was not exactly the same in its various parts, and under the dominion of these three nations. There were remarkable differences between them. The Franks were far more foreign, German, and barbarous, than the Burgundians and the Goths. Before their entrance into Gaul, these last had had ancient relations with the Romans; they had lived in the eastern empire, in Italy; they were familiar with the Roman manners and population. We may say almost as much for the Burgundians. Moreover, the two nations had long been Christians. The Franks, on the contrary, arrived from Germany in the condition of pagans and enemies. Those portions of Gaul which they occupied became deeply sensible of this difference, which is described with truth and vivacity in the seventh of the 'Lectures upon the History of France,' of M. Augustin Thierry. I am inclined, however, to believe that it was less important than has been commonly supposed. If I do not err, the Roman provinces differed more among themselves than did the nations which had conquered them. You have already seen how much more civilized was southern than northern Gaul, how much more thickly covered with population, towns, monuments, and roads. Had the Visigoths arrived in as barbarous a condition as that of the Franks, their barbarism would yet have been far less visible and less powerful in Gallia Narbonensis and in Aquitania; Roman civilization would much sooner have absorbed and altered them. This, I believe, is what happened; and the different effects which accompanied the three conquests resulted rather from the differences of the conquered than from that of the conquerors."

F. Guizot, History of Civilization, volume 2, lecture 8.

"The invasion of the barbarians was not like the torrent which overwhelms, but rather like a slow, persistent force which undermines, disintegrates, and crumbles. The Germans were not strangers to the Roman Empire when they began their conquests. … It is well known that many of the Roman Emperors were barbarians who had been successful soldiers in the Imperial army; that military colonies were established on the frontiers composed of men of various races under the control of Roman discipline; that the Goths, before they revolted against the authority of the Emperor, were his chosen troops; that the great Alaric was a Roman general; that the shores of the Danube and the Rhine, which marked the limits of the Empire, were lined with cities which were at the same time Roman colonies and peopled with men of the Teutonic races. When the barbarians did actually occupy the territory their movement seems at first to have been characterized by a strange mixture of force with a sentiment of awe and reverence for the Roman name. In Italy and in Gaul they appropriated to themselves two-thirds of the lands, but they sought to govern their conquests by means of the Roman law and administration, a machine which proved in their hands, by the way, a rather clumsy means of government. They robbed the provincials of all the movable property they possessed, but the suffering they inflicted is said not to have been as great as that caused by the exactions of the Roman taxgatherer. The number of armed invaders has doubtless been exaggerated. The whole force of the Burgundian tribe, whose territory, in the southeast of modern France, extended to the Rhone at Avignon, did not, it is said, exceed sixty thousand in all, while the armed bands of Clovis, who changed the destinies not only of Gaul but of Europe, were not greater than one-tenth of that number. {2733} The great change in their life was, as I have said, that they ceased to be wanderers; they became, in a measure at least, fixed to the soil; and in contrast with the Romans, they preferred to live in the country and not in the towns. In this they followed their Teutonic habits, little knowing what a mighty change this new distribution of population was to cause in the social condition of Europe. They retained, too, their old military organization, and, after attempts more or less successful to use the Roman administration for the ordinary purposes of government, they abandoned it, and ruled the countries they conquered by simple military force, under their Dukes and Counts, the Romans generally being allowed in their private relations to govern themselves by the forms of the Roman law."

C. J. Stillé, Studies in Mediæval History, chapter 2.

"The coming in of the Germans brought face to face the four chief elements of our civilization: the Greek with its art and science, much of it for the time forgotten; the Roman with its political institutions and legal ideas, and furnishing the empire as the common ground upon which all stood; the Christian with its religious and moral ideas; and the German with other political and legal ideas, and with a reinforcement of fresh blood and life. By the end of the sixth century these all existed side by side in the nominal Roman empire. It was the work of the remaining centuries of the middle ages to unite them into a single organic whole—the groundwork of modern civilization. But the introduction of the last element, the Germans, was a conquest—a conquest rendered possible by the inability of the old civilization any longer to defend itself against their attack. It is one of the miracles of history that such a conquest should have occurred, the violent occupation of the empire by the invasion of an inferior race, with so little destruction of civilization, with so complete an absorption, in the end, of the conqueror by the conquered. It must be possible to point out some reasons why the conquest of the ancient world by the Germans was so little what was to be expected. In a single word, the reason is to be found in the impression which the world they had conquered made upon the Germans. They conquered it, and they treated it as a conquered world. They destroyed and plundered what they pleased, and it was not a little. They took possession of the land and they set up their own tribal governments in place of the Roman. And yet they recognized, in a way, even the worst of them, their inferiority to the people they had overcome. They found upon every side of them evidences of a command over nature such as they had never acquired: cities, buildings, roads, bridges, and ships; wealth and art, skill in mechanics and skill in government, the like of which they had never known; ideas firmly held that the Roman system of things was divinely ordained and eternal; a church strongly organized and with an imposing ceremonial, officered by venerable and saintly men, and speaking with an overpowering positiveness and an awful authority that did not yield before the strongest barbarian king. The impression which these things made upon the mind of the German must have been profound. In no other way can the result be accounted for. Their conquest was a physical conquest, and as a physical conquest it was complete, but it scarcely went farther. In government and law there was little change for the Roman; in religion and language, none at all. Other things, schools and commercial arrangements for instance, the Germans would have been glad to maintain at the Roman level if they had known how. Half unconsciously they adopted the belief in the divinely founded and eternal empire, and in a vague way recognized its continuance after they had overthrown it."

G. B. Adams, Civilization During the Middle Ages, chapter 5.

See, also, GAUL: A. D. 406-409, 5-8TH CENTURIES, and 5-10TH CENTURIES.

ROME: A. D. 408-410. The three sieges and the sacking of the Imperial city by Alaric. Death of the Gothic chieftain.

Having rid himself of the great minister and general whose brain and arm were the only hope of his dissolving empire, Honorius proceeded to purge his army and the state of barbarians and heretics. He "removed all who professed religious opinions different from his own, from every public office; … and, to complete the purification of his army, ordered a general massacre of all the women and children of the barbarians, whom the soldiers in his service had delivered up as hostages. In one day and hour these innocent victims were given up to slaughter and their property to pillage. These hostages had been left in all the Italian cities by the barbarian confederates, as a guarantee for their fidelity to Rome; when they learned that the whole had perished, in the midst of peace, in contempt of all oaths, one furious and terrific cry of vengeance arose, and 30,000 soldiers, who had been the faithful servants of the empire, at once passed over to the camp of Alaric [then in Illyria], and urged him to lead them on to Rome. Alaric, in language the moderation of which Honorius and his ministers ascribed to fear, demanded reparation for the insults offered him, and strict observance of the treaties concluded with him. The only answer he obtained was couched in terms of fresh insult, and contained an order to evacuate all the provinces of the empire." On this provocation, Alaric crossed the Alps, in October, A. D. 408, meeting no resistance till he reached Ravenna. He threatened that city, at first, but the contemptible Emperor of the West was safe in his fen-fastness, and the Goth marched on to Rome. He "arrived before Rome [in the autumn of A. D. 408] 619 years after that city had been threatened by Hannibal. During that long interval her citizens had never looked down from her walls upon the banner of an enemy [a foreign invader] waving in their plains. … Alaric did not attempt to take Rome by assault: he blockaded the gates, stopped the navigation of the Tiber, and soon famine took possession of a city which was eighteen miles in circumference and contained above a million of inhabitants. … At length, the Romans had recourse to the clemency of Alaric; and, by means of a ransom of five thousand pounds of gold and a great quantity of precious effects, the army was induced to retire into Tuscany." The standard of Alaric was now joined by 40,000 barbarian slaves, who escaped from their Italian masters, and by a large reinforcement of Goths from the Danube, led by the brother-in-law of Alaric, Ataulphus, or Athaulphus (Adolphus, in its modern form) by name. The Visigothic king offered peace to the empire if it would relinquish to him a kingdom in Noricum, Dalmatia and Venetia, with a yearly payment of gold; in the end his demands fell until they extended to Noricum, only. {2734} But the fatuous court at Ravenna refused all terms, and Alaric marched back to Rome. Once more, however, he spared the venerable capital, and sought to attain his ends by requiring the senate to renounce allegiance to Honorius and to choose a new emperor. He was obeyed and Priscus Attalus, the præfect of the city, was formally invested with the purple. This new Augustus made Alaric and Ataulphus his chief military officers, and there was peace for a little time. But Attalus, unhappily, took his elevation with seriousness and did not recognize the commands that were hidden in the advice which he got from his Gothic patron. Alaric found him to be a fool and stripped his purple robe from his shoulders within less than a year. Then, failing once more to negotiate terms of peace with the worthless emperor shut up in Ravenna, he laid siege to Rome for the third time—and the last. "On the 24th of April, 410, the year 1163 from the foundation of the august city, the Salarian gate was opened to him in the night, and the capital of the world, the queen of nations, was abandoned to the fury of the Goths. Yet this fury was not without some tinge of pity; Alaric granted a peculiar protection to the churches, which were preserved from all insult, together with their sacred treasures, and all those who had sought refuge within their walls. While he abandoned the property of the Romans to pillage, he took their lives under his protection; and it is affirmed that only a single senator perished by the sword of the barbarians. The number of plebeians who were sacrificed appears not to have been thought a matter of sufficient importance even to be mentioned. At the entrance of the Goths, a small part of the city was given up to the flames; but Alaric soon took precautions for the preservation of the rest of the edifices. Above all, he had the generosity to withdraw his army from Rome on the sixth day, and to march it into Campania, loaded, however, with an immense booty. Eleven centuries later, the army of the Constable de Bourbon showed less veneration." Alaric survived the sack of Rome but a few months, dying suddenly in the midst of preparations that he made for invading Sicily. He was buried in the bed of the little river Bisentium, which flows past the town of Cozenza, the stream being diverted for the purpose and then turned back to its course.

J. C. L. de Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 31.

T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 1, chapter 7.

ROME: A. D. 409-414. Invasion of Spain by the Vandals, Sueves and Alans.

See SPAIN: A. D. 409-414.

ROME: A. D. 410. Abandonment of Britain.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 410.

ROME: A. D. 410-419. Treaty with the Visigoths. Their settlement in Aquitaine. Founding of their kingdom of Toulouse.

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 410-419.

ROME: A. D. 410-420. The barbarian attack on Gaul joined by the Franks.

See FRANKS: A. D. 410-420.

ROME: A. D. 412-453. Mixed Roman and barbarian administration in Gaul.

See GAUL: A. D. 412-453.

ROME: A. D. 423-450. Death of Honorius. Reign of Valentinian III. and his mother Placidia. Legal separation of the Eastern and Western Empires.

The disastrous reign of Honorius, emperor of the West, was ended by his death in 423. The nearest heir to the throne was his infant nephew, Valentinian, son of his sister Placidia. The latter, after being a captive in the hands of the Goths and after sharing the Visigothic throne for some months, as wife of king Ataulphus, had been restored to her brother on her Gothic husband's death. Honorius forced her, then, to marry his favorite, the successful general, Constantius, whom he raised to the rank of Augustus and associated with himself on the throne of the West. But Constantius soon died, leaving his widow with two children—a daughter and a son. Presently, on some quarrel with Honorius, Placidia withdrew from Ravenna and took refuge at Constantinople, where her nephew Theodosius occupied the Eastern throne. She and her children were there when Honorius died, and in their absence the Western throne was usurped by a rebel named John, or Joannes, the Notary, who reigned nearly two years. With the aid of forces from the Eastern Empire he was unseated and beheaded and the child Valentinian was invested with the imperial purple, A. D. 425. For the succeeding twenty-five years his mother, Placidia, reigned in his name. As compensation to the court at Constantinople for the material aid received from it, the rich province of Dalmatia and the troubled provinces of Pannonia and Noricum, were now severed from the West and ceded to the Empire of the East. At the same time, the unity of the Roman government was formally and finally dissolved. "By a positive declaration, the validity of all future laws was limited to the dominions of their peculiar author; unless he should think proper to communicate them, subscribed with his own hand, for the approbation of his independent colleague."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 33.

ALSO IN: J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, chapters 6-8.

ROME: A. D. 428-439. Conquests of the Vandals in Spain and Africa.

See VANDALS: A. D. 428; and 429-439.

ROME: A. D. 441-446. Destructive invasion of the Eastern Empire by the Huns. Cession of territory and payment of tribute to Attila.

See HUNS: A. D. 441-446.

ROME: A. D. 446. The last appeal from Britain.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 446.

ROME: A. D. 451. Great invasion of Gaul by the Huns. Their defeat at Chalons.

See HUNS: A. D. 451.

ROME: A. D. 452. Attila's invasion of Italy. The frightful devastation of his hordes. Origin of Venice.

See HUNS: A. D. 452; and VENICE: A. D. 452.

ROME: A. D. 455. Pillage of the city by the Vandals.

"The sufferings and the ignominy of the Roman empire were increased by a new calamity which happened in the year of Valentinian's death [murdered by an usurper, Petronius Maximus A. D. 455]. Eudoxia, the widow of that emperor, who had afterwards become [through compulsion] the wife of Maximus, avenged the murder of her first husband by plotting against her second; reckless how far she involved her country in the ruin. She invited to Rome Genseric, king of the Vandals, who, not content with having conquered and devastated Africa, made every effort to give a new direction to the rapacity of his subjects, by accustoming them to maritime warfare, or, more properly speaking, piracy. {2735} His armed bands, who, issuing from the shores of the Baltic, had marched over the half of Europe, conquering wherever they went, embarked in vessels which they procured at Carthage, and spread desolation over the coasts of Sicily and Italy. On the 12th of June, 455, they landed at Ostia. Maximus was killed in a seditious tumult excited by his wife. Defence was impossible; and, from the 15th to the 29th of June, the ancient capital of the world was pillaged by the Vandals with a degree of rapacity and cruelty to which Alaric and the Goths had made no approach. The ships of the pirates were moored along the quays of the Tiber, and were loaded with a booty which it would have been impossible for the soldiers to carry off by land."

J. C. L. de Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 8 (volume 1).

"On the whole, it is clear from the accounts of all the chroniclers that Gaiseric's [or Genseric's] pillage of Rome, though insulting and impoverishing to the last degree, was in no sense destructive to the Queen of cities. Whatever he may have done in Africa, in Rome he waged no war on architecture, being far too well employed in storing away gold and silver and precious stones, and all manner of costly merchandise in those insatiable hulks which were riding at anchor by Ostia. Therefore, when you stand in the Forum of Rome or look upon the grass-grown hill which was once the glorious Palatine, blame if you like the Ostrogoth, the Byzantine, the Lombard, above all, the Norman, and the Roman baron of the Middle Ages, for the heart-breaking ruin that you see there, but leave the Vandal uncensured, for, notwithstanding the stigma conveyed in the word 'vandalism,' he is not guilty here."

T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 3, chapter 2 (volume 2).

ROME: A. D. 455-476. Barbarian masters and imperial puppets. From Count Ricimer to Odoacer. The ending of the line of Roman Emperors in the West, called commonly the Fall of the Western Empire.

"After the death of Valentinian III., the unworthy grandson of the great Theodosius [March 16, A. D. 455], the first thought of the barbarian chiefs was, not to destroy or usurp the Imperial name, but to secure to themselves the nomination of the emperor. Avitus, chosen in Gaul under the influence of the West Gothic King of Toulouse, Theoderic II., was accepted for a time as the western emperor, by the Roman Senate and by the Court of Constantinople. But another barbarian, Ricimer the Sueve, ambitious, successful, and popular, had succeeded to the command of the 'federated' foreign bands which formed the strength of the imperial army in Italy. Ricimer would not be a king, but he adopted as a settled policy the expedient, or the insulting jest, of Alaric. … He deposed Avitus, and probably murdered him. Under his direction, the Senate chose Majorian. Majorian was too able, too public-spirited, perhaps too independent, for the barbarian Patrician; Majorian, at a moment of ill-fortune was deposed and got rid of." After Majorian, one Severus (A. D. 461-467), and after Severus a Greek, Anthemius (A. D. 467-472), nominated at Constantinople, wore the purple at the command of Count Ricimer. When, after five years of sovereignty, Anthemius quarreled with his barbarian master, the latter chose a new emperor—the senator Olybrius—and conducted him with an army to the gates of Rome, in which the imperial court had once more settled itself. Anthemius, supported by the majority of the senate and people, resisted, and Rome sustained a siege of three months. It was taken by storm, on the 11th of July, A. D. 472, and suffered every outrage at the hands of the merciless victors. Anthemius was slain and his enemy, Ricimer, died a few weeks later. Olybrius followed the latter to the grave in October. Ricimer's place was filled by his nephew, a refugee Burgundian king, Gundobad, who chose for emperor an unfortunate officer of the imperial guard, named Glycerius. Glycerius allowed himself to be deposed the next year by Julius Nepos and accepted a bishopric in place of the throne; but later circumstances gave the emperor-bishop an opportunity to assassinate his supplanter and he did not hesitate to do so. By this time, the real power had passed to another barbarian "patrician" and general, Orestes, former secretary of Attila, and Orestes proclaimed his own son emperor. To this son "by a strange chance, as if in mockery of his fortune, had been given the names of the first king and the first emperor of Rome, Romulus Augustus, soon turned in derision into the diminutive 'Augustulus.' But Orestes failed to play the part of Ricimer. A younger and more daring barbarian adventurer, Odoacer the Herule, or Rugian, bid higher for the allegiance of the army. Orestes was slain, and the young emperor was left to the mercy of Odoacer. In singular and significant contrast to the common usage when a pretender fell, Romulus Augustulus was spared. He was made to abdicate in legal form; and the Roman Senate, at the dictation of Odoacer, officially signified to the Eastern emperor, Zeno, their resolution that the separate Western Empire should cease, and their recognition of the one emperor at Constantinople, who should be supreme over West and East. Amid the ruin of the empire and the state, the dethroned emperor passed his days, in such luxurious ease as the times allowed, at the Villa of Lucullus at Misenum; and Odoacer, taking the Teutonic title of king, sent to the emperor at Constantinople the imperial crown and robe which were to be worn no more at Rome or Ravenna for more than three hundred years. Thus in the year 476 ended the Roman empire, or rather, the line of Roman emperors, in the West."

R. W. Church, Beginning of the Middle Ages, chapter 1.

"When, at Odoacer's bidding, Romulus Augustulus, the boy whom a whim of fate had chosen to be the last native Cæsar of Rome, had formally announced his resignation to the senate, a deputation from that body proceeded to the Eastern court to lay the insignia of royalty at the feet of the Eastern Emperor Zeno. The West, they declared, no longer required an Emperor of its own; one monarch sufficed for the world; Odoacer was qualified by his wisdom and courage to be the protector of their state, and upon him Zeno was entreated to confer the title of patrician and the administration of the Italian provinces. The Emperor granted what he could not refuse, and Odoacer, taking the title of King ['not king of Italy, as is often said'—foot-note], continued the consular office, respected the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of his subjects, and ruled for fourteen years as the nominal vicar of the Eastern Emperor. {2736} There was thus legally no extinction of the Western Empire at all, but only a reunion of East and West. In form, and to some extent also in the belief of men, things now reverted to their state during the first two centuries of the Empire, save that Byzantium instead of Rome was the centre of the civil government. The joint tenancy which had been conceived by Diocletian, carried further by Constantine, renewed under Valentinian I. and again at the death of Theodosius, had come to an end; once more did a single Emperor sway the sceptre of the world, and head an undivided Catholic Church."

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 3, chapters 4-8.

J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, preface and book 3, chapter 5 (volume 1).

ROME: A. D. 476. Causes of the decay of the Empire and the significance of its fall in the West.

"Thus in the year 476 ended the Roman empire, or rather, the line of Roman emperors, in the West. Thus it had become clear that the foundations of human life and society, which had seemed under the first emperors eternal, had given way. The Roman empire was not the 'last word' in the history of the world; but either the world was in danger of falling into chaos, or else new forms of life were yet to appear, new ideas of government and national existence were to struggle with the old for the mastery. The world was not falling into chaos. Europe, which seemed to have lost its guidance and its hope of civilization in losing the empire, was on the threshold of a history far grander than that of Rome, and was about to start in a career of civilization to which that of Rome was rude and unprogressive. In the great break-up of the empire in the West, some parts of its system lasted, others disappeared. What lasted was the idea of municipal government, the Christian Church, the obstinate evil of slavery. What disappeared was the central power, the imperial and universal Roman citizenship, the exclusive rule of the Roman law, the old Roman paganism, the Roman administration, the Roman schools of literature. Part of these revived; the idea of central power under Charles the Great, and Otto his great successor; the appreciation of law, though not exclusively Roman law; the schools of learning. And under these conditions the new nations—some of mixed races, as in France, Spain, and Italy; others simple and homogeneous, as in Germany, England, and the Scandinavian peninsula —begin their apprenticeship of civilization."

R. W. Church, The Beginning of the Middle Ages, chapter 1.

"The simple facts of the fall of the Empire are these. The Imperial system had been established … to protect the frontier. This it did for two centuries with eminent success. But in the reign of Marcus Aurelius … there occurred an invasion of the Marcomanni, which was not repulsed without great difficulty, and which excited a deep alarm and foreboding throughout the Empire. In the third century the hostile powers on every frontier began to appear more formidable. The German tribes, in whose discord Tacitus saw the safety of the Empire, present themselves now no longer in separate feebleness, but in powerful confederations. We hear no more the insignificant names of Chatti and Chauci; the history of the third century is full of Alemanni, Franks, and Goths. On the eastern frontier, the long decayed power of the Parthians now gives place to a revived and vigorous Persian Empire. The forces of the Empire are more and more taxed to defend it from these powerful enemies. … It is evident that the Roman world would not have steadily receded through centuries before the barbaric, had it not been decidedly inferior in force. To explain, then, the fall of the Empire, it is necessary to explain the inferiority in force of the Romans to the barbarians. This inferiority of the Romans, it is to be remembered, was a new thing. At an earlier time they had been manifestly superior. When the region of barbarism was much larger; when it included warlike and aggressive nations now lost to it, such as the Gauls; and when, on the other hand, the Romans drew their armies from a much smaller area, and organized them much less elaborately, the balance had inclined decidedly the other way. In those times the Roman world, in spite of occasional reverses, had on the whole steadily encroached on the barbaric. … Either, therefore, a vast increase of power must have taken place in the barbaric world, or a vast internal decay in the Roman. Now the barbaric world had actually received two considerable accessions of force. It had gained considerably, through what influences we can only conjecture, in the power and habit of co-operation. As I have said before, in the third century we meet with large confederations of Germans, whereas before we read only of isolated tribes. Together with this capacity of confederation we can easily believe that the Germans had acquired new intelligence, civilization, and military skill. Moreover, it is practically to be considered as a great increase of aggressive force, that in the middle of the fourth century they were threatened in their original settlements by the Huns. The impulse of desperation which drove them against the Roman frontier was felt by the Romans as a new force acquired by the enemy. But we shall soon see that other and more considerable momenta must have been required to turn the scale. … We are forced, … to the conclusion that the Roman Empire, in the midst of its greatness and civilization, must have been in a stationary and unprogressive, if not a decaying condition. Now what can have been the cause of this unproductiveness or decay? It has been common to suppose a moral degeneration in the Romans, caused by luxury and excessive good fortune. To support this it is easy to quote the satirists and cynics of the imperial time, and to refer to such accounts as Ammianus gives of the mingled effeminacy and brutality of the aristocracy of the capital in the fourth century. But the history of the wars between Rome and the barbaric world does not show us the proofs we might expect of this decay of spirit. We do not find the Romans ceasing to be victorious in the field, and beginning to show themselves inferior in valor to their enemies. The luxury of the capital could not affect the army. … Nor can it be said that luxury corrupted the generals, and through them the army. On the contrary, the Empire produced a remarkable series of capable generals. … Whatever the remote and ultimate cause may have been, the immediate cause to which the fall of the Empire can be traced is a physical, not a moral, decay. {2737} In valor, discipline, and science, the Roman armies remained what they had always been, and the peasant emperors of Illyricum were worthy successors of Cincinnatus and Caius Marius. But the problem was how to replenish those armies. Men were wanting; the Empire perished for want of men. The proof of this is in the fact that the contest with barbarism was carried on by the help of barbarian soldiers. … It must have been because the Empire could not furnish soldiers for its own defence, that it was driven to the strange expedient of turning its enemies and plunderers into its defenders. … Nor was it only in the army that the Empire was compelled to borrow men from barbarism. To cultivate the fields whole tribes were borrowed. From the time of Marcus Aurelius, it was a practice to grant lands within the Empire, sometimes to prisoners of war, sometimes to tribes applying for admission. … The want of any principle of increase in the Roman population is attested at a much earlier time. In the second century before Christ, Polybius bears witness to it; and the returns of the census from the Second Punic War to the time of Augustus show no steady increase in the number of citizens that cannot be accounted for by the extension of citizenship to new classes. … Precisely as we think of marriage, the Roman of Imperial times thought of celibacy,—that is, as the most comfortable but the most expensive condition of life. Marriage with us is a pleasure for which a man must be content to pay; with the Romans it was an excellent pecuniary investment, but an intolerably disagreeable one. Here lay, at least in the judgment of Augustus, the root of the evil. To inquire into the causes of this aversion to marriage in this place would lead me too far. We must be content to assume that, owing partly to this cause and partly to the prudential check of infanticide, the Roman population seems to have been in ordinary times almost stationary. The same phenomenon had shown itself in Greece before its conquest by the Romans. There the population had even greatly declined; and the shrewd Polybius explains that it was not owing to war or plague, but mainly to a general repugnance to marriage, and reluctance to rear large families, caused by an extravagantly high standard of comfort. … Perhaps enough has now been said to explain that great enigma, which so much bewilders the reader of Gibbon; namely, the sharp contrast between the age of the Autonines and the age which followed it. A century of unparalleled tranquillity and virtuous government is followed immediately by a period of hopeless ruin and dissolution. A century of rest is followed, not by renewed vigor, but by incurable exhaustion. Some principle of decay must clearly have been at work, but what principle? We answer: it was a period of sterility or barrenness in human beings; the human harvest was bad. And among the causes of this barrenness we find, in the more barbarous nations, the enfeeblement produced by the too-abrupt introduction of civilization, and universally the absence of industrial habits, and the disposition to listlessness which belongs to the military character."

J. R. Seeley, Roman Imperialism, pages 47-61.

"At no period within the sphere of historic records was the commonwealth of Rome anything but an oligarchy of warriors and slave-owners, who indemnified themselves for the restraint imposed on them by their equals in the forum by aggression abroad and tyranny in their households. The causes of its decline seem to have little connexion with the form of government established in the first and second centuries. They were in full operation before the fall of the Republic, though their baneful effects were disguised and perhaps retarded by outward successes, by extended conquests, and increasing supplies of tribute or plunder. The general decline of population throughout the ancient world may be dated even from the second century before our era. The last age of the Republic was perhaps the period of the most rapid exhaustion of the human race; but its dissolution was arrested under Augustus, when the population recovered for a time in some quarters of the empire, and remained at least stationary in others. The curse of slavery could not but make itself felt again, and demanded the destined catastrophe. Whatever evil we ascribe to the despotism of the Cæsars, we must remark that it was Slavery that rendered political freedom and constitutional government impossible. Slavery fostered in Rome, as previously at Athens, the spirit of selfishness and sensuality, of lawlessness and insolence, which cannot consist with political equality, with political justice, with political moderation. The tyranny of the emperors was … only the tyranny of every noble extended and intensified. The empire became no more than an ergastulum or barracoon [slave prison] on a vast scale, commensurate with the dominions of the greatest of Roman slaveholders. … We have noticed already the pestilence which befell Italy and many of the provinces in the reign of Aurelius. There is reason to believe that this scourge was no common disorder, that it was of a type new at least in the West, and that, as a new morbific agent, its ravages were more lasting, as well as more severe, than those of an ordinary sickness. … At another time, when the stamina of ancient life were healthier and stronger, such a visitation might possibly have come and gone, and, however fatal at the moment, have left no lasting traces; but periods seem to occur in national existence when there is no constitutional power of rallying under casual disorders. The sickness which in the youth of the commonwealth would have dispelled its morbid humours and fortified its system, may have proved fatal to its advancing years, and precipitated a hale old age into palsied decrepitude. The vital powers of the empire possessed no elasticity; every blow now told upon it with increasing force; the blows it slowly or impatiently returned were given by the hands of hired barbarians, not by the strength of its own right arm. Not sickness alone, but famines, earthquakes, and conflagrations, fell in rapid succession upon the capital and the provinces. Such casualties may have occurred at other periods not less frequently or disastrously; but these were observed, while the others passed unnoticed, because the courage of the nation was now broken no less than its physical vigour, and, distressed and terrified, it beheld in every natural disorder the stroke of fate, the token of its destined dissolution. Nor indeed was the alarm unfounded. These transient faintings and sicknesses were too truly the symptoms of approaching collapse. The long line of northern frontier, from Odessus to the island of the Batavi, was skirted by a fringe of fire, and through the lurid glare loomed the wrathful faces of myriads, Germans, Scythians, and Sarmatians, all armed for the onslaught in sympathy or concert."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, chapter 18 (volume 7).

{2738}

"Under the humane pretext of gratifying the world with a flattering title, an Antoninus, in one of his edicts, called by the name of Roman citizens the tributaries of the Roman empire, those men whom a proconsul might legally torture, flog with rods, or crush with labour and taxes. Thus the power of that formerly inviolable title, before which the most shameless tyranny stopped short, was contradicted; thus perished that ancient safety-cry which made the executioners fall back; I am a Roman citizen. From that period Rome no longer existed; there was a court and provinces: we do not understand by that word what it now signifies in the vulgar languages, but what it signified primitively in the Roman language, a country conquered by arms; we mean to say, that the primitive distinction between conquering Rome and those it had conquered, then became established between the men in the palace and those out of the palace; that Rome itself lived only for one family, and a handful of courtiers, as formerly the nations it had conquered had only lived by it. It was then that the name of subjugated, subjecti, which our language has corrupted into that of subjects, was transported from the conquered inhabitants of the East or Gaul, to the victorious inhabitants of Italy, attached in future to the yoke of a small number of men, as these had been attached to their yoke; the property of those men, as well as the others, had been their property, worthy, in a word, of the degrading title of subjects, subjecti, which must be taken literally. Such was the order of things which had been gradually forming since the time of Augustus; each emperor gloried in hastening the moment of its perfection; Constantine gave it the finishing stroke. He effaced the name of Rome from the Roman standards, and put in its place the symbol of the religion which the empire had just embraced. He degraded the revered name of the civil magistrature below the domestic offices of his house. An inspector of the wardrobe took precedence of the consuls. The aspect of Rome importuned him; he thought he saw the image of liberty still engraved on its old walls; fear drove him thence; he fled to the coasts of Byzantia, and there built Constantinople, placing the sea as a barrier between the new city of the Cæsars and the ancient city of the Brutus. If Rome had been the home of independence, Constantinople was the home of slavery; from thence issued the dogmas of passive obedience to the Church and throne; there was but one right—that of the empire; but one duty—that of obedience. The general name of citizen, which was equivalent, in language, to men living under the same law, was replaced by epithets graduated according to the credit of the powerful or the cowardice of the weak. The qualifications of Eminence, Royal Highness, and Reverence, were bestowed on what was lowest and most despicable in the world. The empire, like a private domain, was transmitted to children, wives, and sons-in-law; it was given, bequeathed, substituted; the universe was exhausting itself for the establishment of the family; taxes increased immoderately; Constantinople alone was exempted; that privilege of Roman liberty was the price of its infamy. The rest of the cities and nations were treated like beasts of burden, which are used without scruple, flogged when they are restive, and killed when there is cause to fear them. Witness the population of Antioch, condemned to death by the pious Theodosius; and that of Thessalonica, entirely massacred by him for a tax refused, and an unfortunate creature secured from the justice of his provosts. Meanwhile savage and free nations armed against the enslaved world, as if to chastise it for its baseness. Italy, oppressed by the empire, soon found pitiless revengers in its heart. Rome was menaced by the Goths. The people, weary of the imperial yoke, did not defend themselves. The men of the country, still imbued with the old Roman manners and religion, those men, the only ones whose arms were still robust and souls capable of pride, rejoiced to see among them free men and gods resembling the ancient gods of Italy. Stilico, the general to whom the empire entrusted its defence, appeared at the foot of the Alps; he called to arms, and no one arose; he promised liberty to the slaves, he lavished the treasures of the fisc; and out of the immense extent of the empire, he only assembled 40,000 men, the fifth part of the warriors that Hannibal had encountered at the gates of free Rome."

A. Thierry, Narratives of the Merovingian Era and Historical Essays, essay 13.

"It was not the division into two empires, nor merely the power of external enemies, that destroyed the domination of Rome. Republican Rome had ended in monarchy by the decadence of her institutions and customs, by the very effect of her victories and conquests, by the necessity of giving to this immense dominion a dominus. But after she had begun to submit to the reality of a monarchy, she retained the worship of republican forms. The Empire was for a long time a piece of hypocrisy; for it did not dare to give to its rulers the first condition of stability, a law of succession. The death of every emperor was followed by troubles, and the choice of a master of the world was often left to chance. At length the monarchy had to be organized, but thenceforth it was absolute, without restraint or opposition. Its proposed aim was to exploit the world, an aim which in practice was carried to an extreme. Hence it exhausted the orbis romanus."

E. Lavisse, General View of the Political History of Europe, chapter 1.

ROME: A. D. 486. The last Roman sovereignty in Gaul.

See GAUL: A. D. 457-486.

ROME: A. D. 488. Theodoric the king of the Ostrogoths authorized and commissioned by the Emperor Zeno to conquer a kingdom in Italy.

See GOTHS (OSTROGOTHS): A. D. 473-488.

ROME: A. D. 488-526. The Ostrogothic kingdom of Theodoric.

It was in the autumn of the year 488 that Theodoric, commissioned by the Eastern Emperor, Zeno, to wrest Italy from Odoacer (or Odovacar), broke up his camp or settlement on the Danube, in the neighborhood of Sistova, and moved towards the west. The movement was a national migration—of wives and children as well as of warriors—and the total number is estimated at not less than 200,000. Following the course of the Danube, the Gothic host met with no opposition until it came to Singidunum, near the junction of the Save. There, on the banks of a stream called the Ulca, they fought a great battle with the Gepidæ, who held possession of Pannonia, and who disputed their advance. {2739} Victorious in this encounter, Theodoric pushed on, along the course of the Save; but the movement of his cumbrous train was so slow and the hardships of the march so great, that nearly a year passed before he had surmounted the passes of the Julian Alps and entered Italy. He found Odoacer waiting to give him battle on the Isonzo; but the forces of the latter were not courageous enough or not faithful enough for their duty, and the invading Goths forced the passage of the stream on the 28th of August, 489. Odoacer retreated to Verona, followed by Theodoric, and there, on the 30th of September, a great and terrible battle was fought, from which not many of the Rugian and Herulian troops of Odoacer escaped. Odoacer, himself, with some followers, got clear of the rout and made their way to the safe stronghold of Ravenna. For a time, Odoacer's cause seemed abandoned by all who had supported him; but it was a treacherous show of submission to the victor. Theodoric, ere long, found reactions at work which recruited the forces of his opponent and diminished his own. He was driven to retreat to Ticinum (Pavia) for the winter. But having solicited and received aid from the Visigoths of southern Gaul, he regained, in the summer of 490 (August 11) in a battle on the Adda, not far from Milan, all the ground that he had lost, and more. Odoacer was now driven again into Ravenna, and shut up within its walls by a blockade which was endured until February in the third year afterwards (493), when famine compelled a surrender. Theodoric promised life to his rival and respect to his royal dignity; but he no sooner had the old self-crowned king Odoacer in his power than he slew him with his own hand. Notwithstanding this savagery in the inauguration of it, the reign of the Ostrogothic king in Italy appears to have been, on the whole, wise and just, with more approximation to the chivalric half-civilization of later mediæval times than appears in the government of any of his Gothic or German neighbors. "Although Theoderic did not care to run the risk of offending both his Goths and the Court of Constantinople by calling himself Cæsar or Emperor, yet those titles would have exactly expressed the character of his rule—so far at least as his Roman subjects were concerned. When the Emperor Anastasius in 497 acknowledged him as ruler of Italy, he sent him the purple cloak and the diadem of the Western emperors; and the act showed that Anastasius quite understood the difference between Theodoric's government and that of Odovacar. In fact, though not in name, the Western empire had been restored with much the same institutions it had under the best of the Cæsars." The reign of Theodoric, dating it, as he did, from his first victory on Italian soil, was thirty-seven years in duration. When he died, August 30, A. D. 526, he left to his grandson, Athalaric, a kingdom which extended, beyond Italy, over Rhætia, Noricum, Pannonia and Illyricum (the modern Austrian empire south and west of the Danube), together with Provence in southern Gaul and a district north of it embracing much of modern Dauphiné. His government extended, likewise, over the Visigothic kingdom, as guardian of its young king, his grandson. But this great kingdom of the heroic Ostrogoth was not destined to endure. One who lived the common measure of life might have seen the beginning of it and the end. It vanished in one quarter of a century after he who founded it was laid away in his great tomb at Ravenna, leaving nothing to later history which can be counted as a survival of it,—not even a known remnant of the Ostrogothic race.

H. Bradley, Story of the Goths, chapters 16-20.

"Theodoric professed a great reverence for the Roman civilization. He had asked for and obtained from the Emperor Anastasius the imperial insignia that Odovakar had disdainfully sent back to Constantinople, and he gave up the dress of the barbarians for the Roman purple. Although he lived at Ravenna he was accustomed to consult the Roman senate, to whom he wrote: 'We desire, conscript fathers, that the genius of liberty may look with favor upon your assembly.' He established a consul of the West, three prætorian prefects, and three dioceses,—that of northern Italy, that of Rome, and that of Gaul. He retained the municipal government, but appointed the decurions himself. He reduced the severity of the taxes, and his palace was always open to those who wished to complain of the iniquities of the judges. … Thus a barbarian gave back to Italy the prosperity which she had lost under the emperors. The public buildings, aqueducts, theatres, and baths were repaired, and palaces and churches were built. The uncultivated lands were cleared and companies were formed to drain the Pontine marshes and the marshes of Spoleto. The iron mines of Dalmatia and a gold mine in Bruttii were worked. The coasts were protected from pirates by numerous flotillas. The population increased greatly. Theodoric, though he did not know how to write, gathered around him the best literary merit of the time,—Boethius, the bishop Ennodius, and Cassiodorus. The latter, whom he made his minister, has left us twelve books of letters. Theodoric seems in many ways like a first sketch of Charlemagne. Though himself an Arian, he respected the rights of the Catholics from the first. … When, however, the Emperor Justin I. persecuted the Arians in the East, he threatened to retaliate, and as a great commotion was observed among his Italian subjects, he believed that a conspiracy was being formed against himself. … The prefect Symmachus and his son-in-law, Boethius, were implicated. Theodoric confined them in the tower of Pavia, and it was there that Boethius wrote his great work, The Consolations of Philosophy. They were both executed in 525. Theodoric, however, finally recognized their innocence, and felt such great regret that his reason is said to have been unbalanced and that remorse hastened his end."

V. Duruy, History of the Middle Ages, book 1, chapter 3.

"The personal greatness of Theodoric overshadowed Emperor and Empire; from his palace at Ravenna, by one title or another, by direct dominion, as guardian, as elder kinsman, as representative of the Roman power, as head by natural selection of the whole Teutonic world, he ruled over all the western lands save one; and even to the conquering Frank he could say, Thus far shalt thou come and no further. In true majesty such a position was more than Imperial; moreover there was nothing in the rule of Theodoric which touched the Roman life of Italy. … As far as we can see, it was the very greatness of Theodoric which kept his power from being lasting. {2740} Like so many others of the very greatest of men, he set on foot a system which he himself could work, but which none but himself could work. He sought to set up a kingdom of Goths and Romans, under which the two nations should live side by side, distinct but friendly, each keeping its own law and doing its own work. And for one life-time the thing was done. Theodoric could keep the whole fabric of Roman life untouched, with the Goth standing by as an armed protector. He could as he said, leave to the Roman consul the honours of government and take for the Gothic king only the toils. Smaller men neither could nor would do this. … It was the necessary result of his position that he gave Italy one generation of peace and prosperity such as has no fellow for ages on either side of it, but that, when he was gone, a fabric which had no foundation but his personal qualities broke down with a crash."

E. A. Freeman, Chief Periods of European History, lecture 3.

ALSO IN: _E. A. Freeman, The Goths at Ravenna (Historical Essays, volume 3, chapter 4)._

T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 4, chapters 6-13 (volume 3).

Cassiodorus, Letters, translated and edited by T. Hodgkin.

H. F. Stewart, Boethius, chapter 2.

ROME: A. D. 527-565. The reign of Justinian.

"In the year after the great Theoderic died (526), the most famous in the time of Eastern emperors, since Constantine, began his long and eventful reign (527-567). Justinian was born a Slavonian peasant, near what was then Sardica, and is now Sofia; his original Slave name, Uprawda, was latinized into Justinian, when he became an officer in the imperial guard. Since the death of the second Theodosius (450), the Eastern emperors had been, as they were continually to be, men not of Roman or Greek, but of barbarian or half barbarian origin, whom the imperial city and service attracted, naturalized, and clothed with civilized names and Roman character. Justinian's reign, so great and so unhappy, was marked by magnificent works, the administrative organization of the empire, the great buildings at Constantinople, the last and grandest codification of Roman law.

See CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS.

But it was also marked by domestic shame, by sanguinary factions, by all the vices and crimes of a rapacious and ungrateful despotism.

See CIRCUS, FACTIONS OF THE ROMAN.

Yet it seemed for a while like the revival of the power and fortune of Rome. Justinian rose to the highest ideas of imperial ambition; and he was served by two great masters of war, foreigners in origin like himself, Belisarius the Thracian, and Narses the Armenian, who were able to turn to full account the resources, still enormous, of the empire, its immense riches, its technical and mechanical skill, its supplies of troops, its military traditions, its command of the sea. Africa was wrested from the Vandals;

See VANDALS: A. D. 533-534;

Italy from the successors of Theoderic [see below]; much of Spain from the West Goths."

R. W. Church, The Beginning of the Middle Ages, chapter 6.

"In spite of the brilliant events which have given the reign of Justinian a prominent place in the annals of mankind, it is presented to us in a series of isolated and incongruous facts. Its chief interest is derived from the biographical memorials of Belisarius, Theodora, and Justinian; and its most instructive lesson has been drawn from the influence which its legislation has exercised on foreign nations. The unerring instinct of mankind has however fixed on this period as one of the greatest eras in man's annals. The actors may have been men of ordinary merit, but the events of which they were the agents effected the mightiest revolutions in society. The frame of the ancient world was broken to pieces, and men long looked back with wonder and admiration at the fragments which remained, to prove the existence of a nobler race than their own. The Eastern Empire, though too powerful to fear any external enemy, was withering away from the rapidity with which the State devoured the resources of the people. … The life of Belisarius, either in its reality or its romantic form, has typified his age. In his early youth, the world was populous and wealthy, the empire rich and powerful. He conquered extensive realms and mighty nations and led kings captive to the footstool of Justinian, the lawgiver of civilisation. Old age arrived; Belisarius sank into the grave suspected and impoverished by his feeble and ungrateful master; and the world, from the banks of the Euphrates to those of the Tagus, presented the awful spectacle of famine and plague, of ruined cities, and of nations on the brink of extermination. The impression on the hearts of men was profound."

G. Finlay, Greece under the Romans, chapter 3, section 1.

See PLAGUE: A. D. 542-594.

ALSO IN: _Lord Mahon, Life of Belisarius._

ROME: A. D. 528-556. The Persian Wars and the Lazic War of Justinian.

See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627; also, LAZICA.

ROME: A. D. 535-553. Fall of the Gothic kingdom of Theodoric. Recovery of Italy by the Emperor Justinian. The long Gothic siege of Rome. The siege, capture and pillage by Totila. The forty days of lifeless desolation in the great city.

On the death of the great Theodoric, the Ostrogothic crown passed, not to his daughter, Amalasuntha, but to her son, Athalaric, a child of eight or ten years. The boy-king died at the age of sixteen, and Amalasuntha assumed the regal power and title, calling one of her cousins, named Theodatus, or Theodahad, to the throne, to share it with her. She had powerful enemies in the Gothic court and the ungrateful Theodatus was soon in conspiracy with them. Amalasuntha and her partisans were overcome, and the unhappy queen, after a short imprisonment on a little island in the lake of Bolsena, was put to death. These dissensions in the Gothic kingdom gave encouragement to the Eastern emperor, the ambitious Justinian, to undertake the reconquest of Italy. His great general, Belisarius, had just vanquished the Vandals and restored Carthaginian Africa to the imperial domain.

See VANDALS: A. D. 533-534.

With far smaller forces than that achievement demanded, Belisarius was now sent against the Goths. He landed, first, in Sicily (A. D. 535), and the whole island was surrendered to him, almost without a blow. The following spring (having crossed to Carthage meantime and quelled a formidable revolt), he passed the straits from Messina and landed his small army in Italy. Marching northwards, he encountered his first opposition at Neapolis—modern Naples—where he was detained for twenty days by the stout resistance of the city. {2741} It was surprised, at length, by a storming party which crept through one of the aqueducts of the town, and it suffered fearfully from the barbarians of the Roman army before Belisarius could recover control of his savage troops. Pausing for a few months to organize his easy conquest of southern Italy, he received, before he marched to Rome, the practical surrender of the capital. On the 9th of December, 536, he entered the city and the Gothic garrison marched out. The Goths, meantime, had deposed the cowardly Theodatus and raised to the throne their most trusty warrior, Witigis. They employed the winter of 537 in gathering all their available forces at Ravenna, and in the spring they returned to Rome, 150,000 strong, to expel the Byzantine invader. Belisarius had busily improved the intervening months, and the long-neglected fortifications of the city were wonderfully restored and improved. At the beginning of March, the Goths were thundering at the gates of Rome; and then began the long siege, which endured for a year and nine days, and which ended in the discomfiture of the huge army of the besiegers. Their retreat was a flight and great numbers were slain by the pursuing Romans. "The numbers and prowess of the Goths were rendered useless by the utter incapacity of their commander. Ignorant how to assault, ignorant how to blockade, he allowed even the sword of Hunger to be wrested from him and used against his army by Belisarius. He suffered the flower of the Gothic nation to perish, not so much by the weapons of the Romans as by the deadly dews of the Campagna." After the retreat of the Goths from Rome, the conquest of Italy would have been quickly completed, no doubt, if the jealousy of Justinian had not hampered Belisarius, by sending the eunuch Narses—who proved to be a remarkable soldier, in the end—to divide the command with him. As it was, the surrender to Belisarius of the Gothic capital, Ravenna, by the Gothic king, Witigis, in the spring of 540, seemed to make the conquest an accomplished fact. The unconquered Gothic warriors then held but two important cities—Verona and Pavia. Milan they had retaken after losing it, and had practically destroyed, massacring the inhabitants.

See MILAN: A. D. 539.

But now they chose a new king, Ildibad, who reigned promisingly for a year and was slain; then another, who wore the crown but five months; and, lastly, they found a true royal chief in the knightly young warrior Baduila, or Totila, by whose energy and valor the Gothic cause was revived. Belisarius had been recalled by his jealous master, and the quarrels of eleven generals who divided his authority gave every opportunity to the youthful king. Defeating the Roman armies in two battles, at Faenza and in the valley of Mugello, near Florence, he crossed the Apennines, passed by Rome, besieged and took Naples and Cumæ and overran all the southern provinces of Italy, in 542 and 543, finding everywhere much friendliness among the people, whom the tax-gatherers of Justinian had alienated by their merciless rapacity. In 544, Belisarius, restored to favor and command only because of the desperate need of his services, came back to Italy to recover what his successors had lost; but he came almost alone. Without adequate troops, he could only watch, from Ravenna, and circumscribe a little, the successes of his enterprising antagonist. The latter, having strengthened his position well, in central as well as in southern Italy, applied himself to the capture of Rome. In May, 546, the Gothic lines were drawn around the city and a blockade established which soon produced famine and despair. An attempt by Belisarius to break the leaguer came to naught, and Rome was betrayed to Totila on the 17th of December following. He stayed the swords of his followers when they began to slay, but gave them full license to plunder. When the great city had been stripped and most of its inhabitants had fled, he resolved to destroy it utterly; but he was dissuaded from that most barbarous design by a letter of remonstrance from Belisarius. Contenting himself, then, with throwing down a great part of the walls, he withdrew his whole army—having no troops to spare for an adequate garrison—and took with him every single surviving inhabitant (so the historians of the time declare), so that Rome, for the space of six weeks or more (January and February, 547), was a totally deserted and silent city. At the end of that time, Belisarius threw his army inside of the broken walls, and repaired them with such celerity that Totila was baffled when he hastened back to expel the intruders. Three times the Goths attacked and were repulsed; the best of their warriors were slain; the prestige of their leader was lost. But, once more, jealousies and enmities at Constantinople recalled Belisarius and the Goths recovered ground. In 549 they again invested Rome and it was betrayed to them, as before, by a part of the garrison. Totila now made the great city—great even in its ruins—his capital, and exerted himself to restore its former glories. His arms for a time were everywhere successful. Sicily was invaded and stripped of its portable wealth. Sardinia and Corsica were occupied; the shores of Greece were threatened. But in 552 the tide of fortune was turned once more in favor of Justinian,—this time by his second great general, the eunuch Narses. In one decisive battle fought that year, in July, at a point on the Flaminian Way where it crosses the Apennines, the army of the Goths was broken and their king was slain. The remnant which survived crowned another king, Teias; but, he, too, perished, the following March, in a battle fought at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, and the Ostrogothic kingdom was at an end. Rome was already recovered—the fifth change of masters it had undergone during the war—and one by one, all the strong places in the hands of the Goths were given up. The restoration of Italy to the Empire was complete.

T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 4, chapter 16; book 5, chapters 1-24.

"Of all ages in history the sixth is the one in which the doctrine that the Roman Empire came to an end at some time in the fifth sounds most grotesque. Again the Roman armies march to victory, to more than victory, to conquest, to conquests more precious than the conquests of Cæsar or of Trajan, to conquests which gave back Rome herself to her own Augustus. We may again be met with the argument that we have ourselves used so often; that the Empire had to win back its lost provinces does indeed prove that it had lost them; but no one seeks to prove that the provinces had not been lost; what the world is loth to understand is that there was still life enough in the Roman power to win them back again. {2742} I say the Roman power; what if I said the Roman commonwealth? It may startle some to hear that in the sixth century, nay in the seventh, the most common name for the Empire of Rome is still 'respublica.' No epithet is needed; there is no Deed to say that the 'respublica' spoken of is 'respublica Romano.' It is the Republic which wins back Italy, Africa, and Southern Spain from their Teutonic masters. … The point of the employment of the word lies in this, that it marks the unbroken being of the Roman state; in the eyes of the men of the sixth century the power which won back the African province in their own day was the same power which had first won it well-nigh seven hundred years before. The consul Belisarius was the true successor of the consul Scipio."

E. A. Freeman, The Chief Periods of European History, lecture 4.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapters 41 and 43.

J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, book 4, chapters 5-7 (volume 1).

R. H. Wrightson, The Sancta Respublica Romana, chapters 5-7.

_Lord Mahon, Life of Belisarius._

ROME: A. D. 541. Extinction of the office of Consul.

See CONSUL, ROMAN.

ROME: A. D. 554-800. The Exarchate of Ravenna.

On the final overthrow and annihilation of the Gothic monarchy in Italy by the decisive victories of the eunuch Narses, its throne at Ravenna was occupied by a line of vice-royal rulers, named exarchs, who represented the Eastern Roman emperor, being appointed by him and exercising authority in his name. "Their jurisdiction was soon reduced to the limits of a narrow province; but Narses himself, the first and most powerful of the exarchs, administered above fifteen years the entire kingdom of Italy. … A duke was stationed for the defence and military command of each of the principal cities; and the eye of Narses pervaded the ample prospect from Calabria to the Alps. The remains of the Gothic nation evacuated the country or mingled with the people. … The civil state of Italy, after the agitation of a long tempest, was fixed by a pragmatic sanction, which the emperor promulgated at the request of the pope. Justinian introduced his own jurisprudence into the schools and tribunals of the West. … Under the exarchs of Ravenna, Rome was degraded to the second rank. Yet the senators were gratified by the permission of visiting their estates in Italy, and of approaching without obstacle the throne of Constantinople: the regulation of weights and measures was delegated to the pope and senate; and the salaries of lawyers and physicians, of orators and grammarians, were destined to preserve or rekindle the light of science in the ancient capital. … During a period of 200 years Italy was unequally divided between the kingdom of the Lombards and the exarchate of Ravenna. … Eighteen successive exarchs were invested, in the decline of the empire, with the full remains of civil, of military and even of ecclesiastical power. Their immediate jurisdiction, which was afterwards consecrated as the patrimony of St. Peter, extended over the modern Romagna, the marshes or valleys of Ferrara and Commachio, five maritime cities from Rimini to Ancona, and a second inland Pentapolis, between the Adriatic coast and the hills of the Apennine. Three subordinate provinces—of Rome, of Venice, and of Naples—which were divided by hostile lands from the palace of Ravenna, acknowledged, both in peace and war, the supremacy of the exarch. The duchy of Rome appears to have included the Tuscan, Sabine, and Latin conquests of the first 400 years of the city, and the limits may be distinctly traced along the coast, from Civita Vecchio, to Terracina, and with the course of the Tiber from Ameria and Narni to the port of Ostia. The numerous islands from Grado to Chiozza composed the infant dominion of Venice; but the more accessible towns on the continent were overthrown by the Lombards, who beheld with impotent fury a new capital rising from the waves. The power of the dukes of Naples was circumscribed by the bay and the adjacent isles, by the hostile territory of Capua, and by the Roman colony of Amalphi. … The three islands of Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily still adhered to the empire. … Rome was oppressed by the iron sceptre of the exarchs, and a Greek, perhaps a eunuch, insulted with impunity the ruins of the Capitol. But Naples soon acquired the privilege of electing her own dukes; the independence of Amalphi was the fruit of commerce; and the voluntary attachment of Venice was finally ennobled by an equal alliance with the Eastern empire."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapters 43 and 45.

{2742a} {2742b}

[IMAGE: EUROPE AT THE DEATH OF THE EMPEROR JUSTINIAN 565 A. D. EAST ROMAN EMPIRE RACE DIVISIONS CELTIC PEOPLES. SLAVIC PEOPLES. LITHUANIAN PEOPLES. URAL ALTAIC PEOPLES. SCANDINAVIANS. ANGLES, SAXONS, JUTES ETC. THE GERMANIC STATES AND PEOPLES ALL APPEAR IN DIFFERENT SHADES OF PINK.]

ROME: A. D. 565-628. Decline of the Eastern Empire. Thickening calamities. Reigns of Justinus II., Tiberius Constantinus, Maurice, and Phocas. Brief brightening of events by Heraclius. His campaigns against the Persians.

"The thirty years which followed the death of Justinian are covered by three reigns, those of Justinus II. (565-578), Tiberius Constantinus (578-582), and Maurice (582-602). These three emperors were men of much the same character as the predecessors of Justinian; each of them was an experienced official of mature age, who was selected by the reigning emperor as his most worthy successor. … Yet under them the empire was steadily going down hill: the exhausting effects of the reign of Justinian were making themselves felt more and more, and at the end of the reign of Maurice a time of chaos and disaster was impending, which came to a head under his successor. … The misfortunes of the Avaric and Slavonic war [see AVARS] were the cause of the fall of the Emperor Maurice. … Maurice sealed his fate when, in 602, he issued orders for the discontented army of the Danube to winter north of the river, in the waste marshes of the Slavs. The troops refused to obey the order, and chased away their generals. Then electing as their captain an obscure centurion, named Phocas, they marched on Constantinople. Maurice armed the city factions, the 'Blues' and 'Greens,' and strove to defend himself. But when he saw that no one would fight for him, he fled across the Bosphorus with his wife and children, to seck refuge in the Asiatic provinces, where he was less unpopular than in Europe. Soon he was pursued by orders of Phocas, whom the army had now saluted as emperor, and caught at Chalcedon. The cruel usurper had him executed, along with all his five sons, the youngest a child of only three years of age. … For the first time since Constantinople had become the seat of empire the throne had been won by armed rebellion and the murder of the legitimate ruler. … {2743} Phocas was a mere brutal soldier—cruel, ignorant, suspicious, and reckless, and in his incapable hands the empire began to fall to pieces with alarming rapidity. He opened his reign with a series of cruel executions of his predecessor's friends, and from that moment his deeds of bloodshed never ceased. … The moment that Phocas had mounted the throne, Chosroës of Persia declared war on him, using the hypocritical pretext that he wished to revenge Maurice, for whom he professed a warm personal friendship. This war was far different from the indecisive contests in the reigns of Justinian and Justin II. In two successive years the Persians burst into North Syria and ravaged it as far as the sea; but in the third they turned north and swept over the hitherto untouched provinces of Asia Minor. In 608 their main army penetrated across Cappadocia and Galatia right up to the gates of Chalcedon. The inhabitants of Constantinople could see the blazing villages across the water on the Asiatic shore. … Plot after plot was formed in the capital against Phocas, but he succeeded in putting them all down, and slew the conspirators with fearful tortures. For eight years his reign continued. … Africa was the only portion of the Roman Empire which in the reign of Phocas was suffering neither from civil strife nor foreign invasion. It was well governed by the aged exarch Heraclius, who was so well liked in the province that the emperor had not dared to depose him. Urged by desperate entreaties from all parties in Constantinople to strike a blow against the tyrant, and deliver the empire from the yoke of a monster, Heraclius at last consented." He sent his son—who bore the same name, Heraclius—with a fleet, to Constantinople. Phocas was at once abandoned by his troops and was given up to Heraclius, whose sailors slew him. "Next day the patriarch and the senate hailed Heraclius [the younger] as emperor, and he was duly crowned in St. Sophia on October 5, A. D. 610. … Save Africa and Egypt and the district immediately around the capital, all the provinces were overrun by the Persian, the Avar and the Slav. The treasury was empty, and the army had almost disappeared, owing to repeated and bloody defeats in Asia Minor. Heraclius seems at first to have almost despaired. … For the first twelve years of his reign he remained at Constantinople, endeavouring to reorganize the empire, and to defend at any rate the frontiers of Thrace and Asia Minor. The more distant provinces he hardly seems to have hoped to save, and the chronicle of his early years is filled with the catalogue of the losses of the empire. … In 614 the Persian army appeared before the holy city of Jerusalem, took it after a short resistance and occupied it with a garrison. But the populace rose and slaughtered the Persian troops, when Shahrbarz had departed with his main army. This brought him back in wrath: he stormed the city and put 90,000 Christians to the sword, only sparing the Jewish inhabitants. Zacharias, Patriarch of Jerusalem, was carried into captivity, and with him went what all Christians then regarded as the most precious thing in the world—the wood of the 'True Cross'. …

See JERUSALEM: A. D. 615.

The horror and rage roused by the loss of the 'True Cross' and the blasphemies of King Chosroës brought about the first real outburst of national feeling that we meet in the history of the Eastern Empire. … Heraclius made no less than six campaigns (A. D. 622-627) in his gallant and successful attempt to save the half-ruined empire. He won great and well-deserved fame, and his name would be reckoned among the foremost of the world's warrior-kings if it had not been for the misfortunes which afterwards fell on him in his old age. His first campaign cleared Asia Minor of the Persian hosts, not by a direct attack, but by skilful strategy. … In his next campaigns Heraclius endeavoured to liberate the rest of the Roman Empire by a similar plan: he resolved to assail Chosroës at home, and force him to recall the armies he kept in Syria and Egypt to defend his own Persian provinces. In 623-4 the Emperor advanced across the Armenian mountains and threw himself into Media. … Chosroës … fought two desperate battles to cover Ctesiphon. His generals were defeated in both, but the Roman army suffered severely. Winter was at hand, and Heraclius fell back on Armenia. In his next campaign he recovered Roman Mesopotamia. … But 626 was the decisive year of the war. The obstinate Chosroës determined on one final effort to crush Heraclius, by concerting a joint plan of operations with the Chagan of the Avars. While the main Persian army watched the emperor in Armenia, a great body under Shahrbarz slipped south of him into Asia Minor and marched on the Bosphorus. At the same moment the Chagan of the Avars, with the whole force of his tribe and of his Slavonic dependents, burst over the Balkans and beset Constantinople on the European side. The two barbarian hosts could see each other across the water, and even contrived to exchange messages, but the Roman fleet, sailing incessantly up and down the strait, kept them from joining forces. … In the end of July 80,000 Avars and Slavs, with all sorts of siege implements, delivered simultaneous assaults along the land front of the city, but they were beaten back with great slaughter." They suffered even more on trying to encounter the Roman galleys with rafts. "Then the Chagan gave up the siege in disgust and retired across the Danube." Meantime Heraclius was wasting Media and Mesopotamia, and next year he ended the war by a decisive victory near Nineveh, as the result of which he took the palace of Dastagerd, "and divided among his troops such a plunder as had never been seen since Alexander the Great captured Susa. … In March, 628, a glorious peace ended the 26 years of the Persian war. Heraclius returned to Constantinople in the summer of the same year with his spoils, his victorious army, and his great trophy, the 'Holy Wood.' … The quiet for which he yearned was to be denied him, and the end of his reign was to be almost as disastrous as the commencement. The great Saracen invasion was at hand, and it was at the very moment of Heraclius' triumph that Mahomet sent out his famous circular letter to the kings of the earth, inviting them to embrace Islam."

C. W. C. Oman, The Story of the Byzantine Empire, chapters 9-10.

ALSO IN: J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, book 4, part 2, and book 5, chapters 1-3 (volume 2).

See, also, PERSIA: A. D. 226-627.

ROME: A. D. 568-573. Invasion of the Lombards. Their conquest of northern Italy. Their kingdom.

See LOMBARDS: A. D. 568-573; and 573-754.

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ROME: A. D. 590-640. Increasing influence and importance of the Bishop of Rome. Circumstances under which his temporal authority grew.

"The fall of the shadowy Empire of the West, and the union of the Imperial power in the person of the ruler of Constantinople, brought a fresh accession of dignity and importance to the Bishop of Rome. The distant Emperor could exercise no real power over the West. The Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy scarcely lasted beyond the lifetime of its great founder Theodoric. The wars of Justinian only served to show how scanty were the benefits of the Imperial rule. The invasion of the Lombards united all dwellers in Italy in an endeavour to escape the lot of servitude and save their land from barbarism. In this crisis it was found that the Imperial system had crumbled away, and that the Church alone possessed a strong organisation. In the decay of the old municipal aristocracy the people of the towns gathered round their bishops, whose sacred character inspired some respect in the barbarians, and whose active charity lightened the calamities of their flocks. In such a state of things Pope Gregory the Great raised the Papacy [A. D. 590] to a position of decisive eminence, and marked out the course of its future policy. The piety of emperors and nobles had conferred lands on the Roman Church, not only in Italy, but in Sicily, Corsica, Gaul, and even in Asia and Africa, until the Bishop of Rome had become the largest landholder in Italy. To defend his Italian lands against the incursions of the Lombards was a course suggested to Gregory by self-interest; to use the resources which came to him from abroad as a means of relieving the distress of the suffering people in Rome and Southern Italy was a natural prompting of his charity. In contrast to this, the distant Emperor was too feeble to send any effective help against the Lombards, while the fiscal oppression of his representatives added to the miseries of the starving people. The practical wisdom, administrative capacity, and Christian zeal of Gregory I. led the people of Rome and the neighbouring regions to look upon the Pope as their head in temporal as well as in spiritual matters. The Papacy became a national centre to the Italians, and the attitude of the Popes towards the Emperor showed a spirit of independence which rapidly passed into antagonism and revolt. Gregory I. was not daunted by the difficulties nor absorbed by the cares of his position at home. When he saw Christianity threatened in Italy by the heathen Lombards, he boldly pursued a system of religious colonisation. While dangers were rife at Rome, a band of Roman missionaries carried Christianity to the distant English, and in England first was founded a Church which owed its existence to the zeal of the Roman bishop. Success beyond all that he could have hoped for attended Gregory's pious enterprise. The English Church spread and flourished, a dutiful daughter of her mother-church of Rome. England sent forth missionaries in her turn, and before the preaching of Willibrod and Winifred heathenism died away in Friesland, Franconia, and Thuringia. Under the new name of Boniface, given him by Pope Gregory II., Winifred, as Archbishop of Mainz, organised a German Church, subject to the successor of S. Peter. The course of events in the East also tended to increase the importance of the See of Rome. The Mohammedan conquests destroyed the Patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem, which alone could boast of an apostolical foundation. Constantinople alone remained as a rival to Rome; but under the shadow of the Imperial despotism it was impossible for the Patriarch of Constantinople to lay claim to spiritual independence. The settlement of Islam in its eastern provinces involved the Empire in a desperate struggle for its existence. Henceforth its object no longer was to reassert its supremacy over the West, but to hold its ground against watchful foes in the East. Italy could hope for no help from the Emperor, and the Pope saw that a breach with the Empire would give greater independence to his own position, and enable him to seek new allies elsewhere."

M. Creighton, History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation, introduction, chapter 1 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: T. W. Allies, The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, chapter 5.

See, also, CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 553-800; and PAPACY: A. D. 461-604, and after.

ROME: A. D. 632-709. The Eastern Empire. Its first conflicts with Islam. Loss of Syria, Egypt, and Africa.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-639, to 647-709.

ROME: A. D. 641-717. The Eastern Empire.

The period between the death of Heraclius and the advent of Leo III. (the Isaurian) is covered, in the Eastern Empire, by the following reigns:

Constantine III. and Heracleonas (641); Constans II. (641-668); Constantine IV. (668-685); Justinian II. (685-711); Leontius and Absimarus (usurpers, who interrupted the reign of Justinian II. from 695 to 698 and from 698 to 704); Philippicus (711-713); Anastasius II. (713-716); Theodosius III. (716-717).

ROME: A. D. 717-800. The Eastern Roman Empire: should it take the name of the Byzantine Empire?—and when?

"The precise date at which the eastern Roman empire ceased to exist has been variously fixed. Gibbon remarks, 'that Tiberius [A. D. 578-582] by the Arabs, and Maurice [A. D. 582-602] by the Italians, are distinguished as the first of the Greek Cæsars, as the founders of a new dynasty and empire.' But if manners, language, and religion are to decide concerning the commencement of the Byzantine empire, the preceding pages have shown that its origin must be carried back to an earlier period; while, if the administrative peculiarities in the form of government be taken as the ground of decision, the Roman empire may be considered as indefinitely prolonged with the existence of the title of Roman emperor, which the sovereigns of Constantinople continued to retain as long as Constantinople was ruled by Christian princes. … The period … at which the Roman empire of the East terminated is decided by the events which confined the authority of the imperial government to those provinces where the Greeks formed the majority of the population; and it is marked by the adoption of Greek as the language of the government, by the prevalence of Greek civilisation, and by the identification of the nationality of the people, and the policy of the emperors with the Greek church. For, when the Saracen conquests had severed from the empire all those provinces which possessed a native population distinct from the Greeks, by language, literature, and religion, the central government of Constantinople was gradually compelled to fall back on the interests and passions of the remaining inhabitants, who were chiefly Greeks. … {2745} Yet, as it was by no means identified with the interests and feelings of the native inhabitants of Hellas, it ought correctly to be termed Byzantine, and the empire is, consequently, justly called the Byzantine empire. … Even the final loss of Egypt, Syria, and Africa only reveals the transformation of the Roman empire, when the consequences of the change begin to produce visible effects on the internal government. The Roman empire seems, therefore, really to have terminated with the anarchy which followed the murder of Justinian II. [A. D. 711], the last sovereign of the family of Heraclius; and Leo III., or the Isaurian [A. D. 717-741], who identified the imperial administration with ecclesiastical forms and questions, must be ranked as the first of the Byzantine monarchs, though neither the emperor, the clergy, nor the people perceived at the time the moral change in their position, which makes the establishment of this new era historically correct. Under the sway of the Heraclian family [A. D. 610-711], the extent of the empire was circumscribed nearly within the bounds which it continued to occupy during many subsequent centuries. … The geographical extent of the empire at the time of its transition from the Roman to the Byzantine empire affords evidence of the influence which the territorial changes produced by the Saracen conquests exercised in conferring political importance on the Greek race. The frontier towards the Saracens of Syria commenced at Mopsuestia in Cilicia, the last fortress of the Arab power. It ran along the chains of Mounts Amanus and Taurus to the mountainous district to the north of Edessa and Nisibis, called, after the time of Justinian, the Fourth Armenia, of which Martyropolis was the capital. It then followed nearly the ancient limits of the empire until it reached the Black Sea, a short distance to the east of Trebizond. … In Europe, Mount Hæmus [the Balkans] formed the barrier against the Bulgarians, while the mountainous ranges which bound Macedonia to the north-west, and encircle the territory of Dyrrachium, were regarded as the limits of the free Sclavonian states. … Istria, Venice, and the cities on the Dalmatian coast, still acknowledged the supremacy of the empire. … In the centre of Italy, the exarchate of Ravenna still held Rome in subjection, but the people of Italy were entirely alienated. … The cities of Gaëta, Naples, Amalfi, and Sorento, the district of Otranto, and the peninsula to the south of the ancient Sybaris, now called Calabria, were the only parts [of southern Italy] which remained under the Byzantine government. Sicily, though it had begun to suffer from the incursions of the Saracens, was still populous and wealthy."

G. Finlay, Greece under the Romans, chapter 5, sections 1 and 7.

Dissenting from the view presented above, Professor Freeman says: "There is no kind of visible break, such as is suggested by the change of name, between the Empire before Leo and the Empire after him. The Emperor of the Romans reigned over the land of Romania after him as well as before him. … Down to the fall of Constantinople in the East, down to the abdication of Francis II. in the West, there was no change of title; the Emperor of the Romans remained Emperor of the Romans, however shifting might be the extent of his dominions. But from 800 to 1453 there were commonly two, sometimes more, claimants of the title. The two Empires must be distinguished in some way; and, from 800 to 1204, 'Eastern' and 'Western' seem the simplest forms of distinction. But for 'Eastern' it is just as easy, and sometimes more expressive, to say 'Byzantine'; only it is well not to begin the use of either name as long as the Empire keeps even its nominal unity. With the coronation of Charles the Great [800] that nominal unity comes to an end. The Old Rome passes away from even the nominal dominion of the prince who reigns in the New."

E. A. Freeman, Historical Essays, series 3, page 244.

See BYZANTINE EMPIRE.

ROME: A. D. 728-733. Beginnings of Papal Sovereignty. The Iconoclastic controversy. Rupture with the Byzantine Emperor. Practical independence assumed by the Pope.

See PAPACY: A. D. 728-774; and ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY.

ROME: A. D. 751. Fall of the Exarchate of Ravenna.

See PAPACY: A. D. 728-774.

ROME: A. D. 754-774. Struggle of the Popes against the Lombards. Their deliverance by Pippin and Charlemagne. Fall of the Lombard kingdom.

See LOMBARDS: A. D. 754-774; also, PAPACY: A. D. 728-774, and 755-774.

ROME: A. D. 800. Coronation of Charlemagne. The Empire revived.

See FRANKS: A. D. 768-814; and GERMANY: A. D. 800.

ROME: A. D. 843-951. The breaking up of Charlemagne's Empire and founding of the Holy Roman Empire.

See ITALY: A. D. 843-951; FRANKS: A. D. 814-962; and GERMANY: A. D. 814-843, to 936-973.

ROME: A. D. 846-849. Attack by the Saracens.

"A fleet of Saracens from the African coast presumed to enter the mouth of the Tiber, and to approach a city which even yet, in her fallen state, was revered as the metropolis of the Christian world. The gates and ramparts were guarded by a trembling people; but the tombs and temples of St. Peter and St. Paul were left exposed in the suburbs of the Vatican and of the Ostian Way. Their invisible sanctity had protected them against the Goths, the Vandals, and the Lombards; but the Arabs disdained both the Gospel and the legend; and their rapacious spirit was approved and animated by the precepts of the Koran. The Christian idols were stripped of their costly offerings. … In their course along the Appian Way, they pillaged Fundi and besieged Gaeta." The diversion produced by the siege of Gaeta gave Rome a fortunate respite. In the interval, a vacancy occurred on the papal throne, and Pope Leo IV. by unanimous election, was raised to the place. His energy as a temporal prince saved the great city. He repaired its walls, constructed new towers and barred the Tiber by an iron chain. He formed an alliance with the cities of Gaeta, Naples, and Amalfi, still vassals of the Greek empire, and brought their galleys to his aid. When, therefore, in 849, the Saracens from Africa returned to the attack, they met with a terrible repulse. An opportune storm assisted the Christians in the destruction of their fleet, and most of the small number who escaped death remained captives in the hands of the Romans and their allies.

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 52.

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ROME: A. D. 903-964. The reign of the courtesans and their brood. Interference of Otho the Great. His revival of the Empire.

"During these changes [in the breaking up of the empire of Charlemagne], Rome became a sort of theocratic democracy, governed by women and priests; a state of things which, in the barbarism of the middle ages, was only possible at Rome. Theodora, a woman of patrician descent, equally celebrated for her beauty and her daring, obtained great power in Rome, which she prolonged by the charms of her two daughters. The city of Saint Peter was ruled by this trio of courtesans. The mother, Theodora, by her familiar commerce with several of the Roman barons, had obtained possession of the castle of Saint Angelo, at the entrance of Rome, on one of the principal bridges over the Tiber; and she had made it an abode of pleasure and a fortress, whence she corrupted and oppressed the Church. Her daughters, Marozia and Theodora, disposed of the pontificate by their own arts, or through their lovers, and occasionally bestowed it on the lovers themselves. Sergius III., after a contested election and seven years' exile, was recalled to the see of Rome by the interest of Marozia, by whom he had had a son, who afterwards became Pope. The younger Theodora was no less ambitious and influential than her sister. She loved a young clerk of the Roman Church, for whom she had first obtained the bishopric of Bologna, and then the archbishopric of Ravenna. Finding it irksome to be separated from him by a distance of 200 miles, she procured his nomination to the papacy, in order to have him near her; and he was elected Pope in 912, under the title of John X. … After a pontificate of fourteen years, John was displaced by the same means to which he owed his elevation." Marozia, who had married Guy, Duke of Tuscany, conspired with her husband against the Pope and he was put out of the way. That accomplished, "Marozia allowed the election of two Popes successively, whose pontificate was obscure and short; and then she raised to the papal see a natural son of hers, it is said, by Pope Sergius III., her former lover. This young man took the name of John XI., and Marozia, his mother, having soon after lost her husband, Guy, was sought in marriage by Hugh, King of Italy, and his brother by the mother's side. But it would appear that the people of Rome were growing weary of the tyranny of this shameless and cruel woman." King Hugh was driven from Rome by a revolt, in which another son of Marozia, named Alberic, took the lead. "Alberic, the leader of this popular rising, was proclaimed consul by the Romans, who still clung to the traditions of the republic; he threw his mother, Marozia, into prison, and set a guard over his brother, Pope John; and thus, invested with the popular power, he prepared to defend the independence of Rome against the pretensions of Hugh and the forces of Lombardy. Alberic, master of Rome under the title of patrice and senator, exercised, during twenty-three years, all the rights of sovereignty. The money was coined with his image, with two sceptres across; he made war and peace, appointed magistrates and disposed of the election and of the power of the Popes, who, in that interval, filled the See of Rome, John XI., Leo VII., Stephen IX., Martin III., and Agapetus II. The name of this subject and imprisoned papacy was none the less revered beyond the limits of Rome. … Alberic died lord of Rome, and had bequeathed his power to his son Octavian; who, two years afterwards, on the death of Agapetus II., caused himself, young as he was, to be named Pope by those who already acknowledged him as patrice."

A. F. Villemain, Life of Gregory VII., introduction, period 6.

"He [Octavian] was elected Pope on the 23d of March, A. D. 956. His promotion was a disgraceful calamity. He brought to the chair of St. Peter only the vices and dissolute morals of a young debauchee; and though Luitprand must have exaggerated the disorders of this Pope, yet there remains enough of truth in the account to have brought down the scandal of the pontificate through succeeding ages, like a loud blasphemy, which makes angels weep and hell exult. Octavian assumed the name of John XII. This first example of a change of name on ascending the pontifical chair has since passed into a custom with all the Sovereign Pontiffs."

Abbé J. E. Darras, General History of the Catholic Church, period 4, chapter 7.

Finding it hard to defend his independence against the king of Italy, Pope John XII. made the mistake, fatal to himself, of soliciting help from the German king Otho the Great. Otho came, made himself master of Italy, revived the empire of Charlemagne, was crowned with the imperial crown of Rome, by the Pope, and then purged the Roman See by causing the bestial young pope who crowned him to be deposed.

See ROMAN EMPIRE, THE HOLY; and GERMANY; A. D. 936-973.

John was subsequently reinstated by the Romans, but died soon after, A. D. 964.

H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 5, chapter 12.

The state of things at Rome described in the above has been fitly styled by some writers "a pornocracy."

ROME: A. D. 962-1057. Futile attempts of the German Emperors to reform the Papacy. Chronic disorganization of the city.

"It had not been within the power of the Emperor Otto I. to establish a permanent reformation in Rome. … The previous scandalous scenes were renewed, and a slight amelioration of things under the Popes Gregory V. and Silvester II., whom Otto III. placed on the papal throne [A. D. 997-1003], was but transitory. … For the third time it became necessary for an emperor, in this instance Henry III., to constitute himself the preserver and purifier of the papacy, first at Sutri and afterwards at Rome. At that period the papal chair was occupied within twelve years by five German popes [Clement II. to Victor II.—A. D. 1046-1057], since amongst the Roman clergy no fitting candidate could be found. These popes, with one exception, died almost immediately, poisoned by the unhealthy atmosphere of Rome; one only, Leo IX., under Hildebrand's guidance, left any lasting trace of his pontificate, and laid the foundation of that Gregorian system which resulted in papal supremacy. … Rome was assuming more and more the character of a sacerdotal city; the old wealthy patrician families had either disappeared or migrated to Constantinople; and as the seat of government was either at Constantinople or Ravenna, there was no class of state officials in Rome. But the clergy had become rich upon the revenues of the vast possessions of St. Peter. … Without manufactures, trade, or industry of their own, the people of Rome were induced to rely upon exactions levied upon the foreigner, and upon profits derived from ecclesiastical institutions. … Hence the unvarying sameness in the political history of Rome from the 5th to the 15th century."

J. I. von Döllinger, Studies in European History, chapter. 3.

See PAPACY: A. D. 887-1046.

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NINTH CENTURY.

CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.

A.D. 801. Conquest of Barcelona from the Moors by the Franks.

805. Charlemagne's subjugation of the Avars. Creation of the Austrian march.

806. Division of the Empire by Charlemagne between his sons formally planned.

809. Death of the Caliph Haroun al Raschid.

812. Civil war between the sons of the Caliph Haroun al Raschid; siege of Bagdad.

814. Death of Charlemagne, and accession of Louis the Pious, his only surviving son.

816. Death of Pope Leo III.; election of Stephen IV.

817. Partition of the Empire of the Franks by Louis the Pious.

826. Grant of a county between the Rhine and Moselle to Harold of Jutland, by the Emperor.

821. Beginning of Moslem conquest of Sicily.

830. First rebellion of the sons of the Emperor Louis the Pious.

833. Second rebellion of the Emperor's sons; the "Field of Lies"; deposition of the Emperor Louis the Pious. Death of the Caliph Mamun, son of Haroun al Raschid.

834. Restoration of Louis the Pious.

835. Invasion of the Netherlands and sacking of Utrecht by the Northmen.

836. Burning of Antwerp and ravaging of Flanders by the Northmen. Death of Ecgberht, the first king of all the English.

837. First expedition of the Northmen up the Rhine.

838. Asia Minor invaded by the Caliph Motassem; the Amorian War.

840. Third rebellion of the sons of the Frankish Emperor Louis the Pious; his death; civil war.

841. Expedition of the Northmen up the Seine; their capture of Rouen.

842. The Oath of Strasburg.

843. Conquest by the Mahometans of Messina in Sicily. Partition Treaty of Verdun between the sons of the Emperor Louis the Pious; formation of the realms of Louis the German and Charles the Bald, which grew into the kingdoms of Germany and France.

845. First attack of the Northmen on Paris; their destruction of Hamburg.

846. Rome attacked by the Moslems.

847. Siege and capture of Bordeaux by the Northmen.

849. Birth of Alfred the Great (d. 901).

852. Revolt against the Moslems in Armenia.

854. Ravages of the Northmen on the Loire checked at Orleans.

855. Death of Lothaire, Emperor of the Franks, and civil war between his sons. First footing of the Danes established in England.

851. Deposition of Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and elevation of Photius.

860. Discovery of Iceland by the Northmen. [Uncertain date.]

861. Formation of the Duchy of France; origin of the House of Capet. Paris surprised by the Northmen.

863. Papal decree against the Eastern Patriarch, Photius. Creation of the County of Flanders by Charles the Bald.

864. Mission of Cyril and Methodius to the Slavonians.

865. First Varangian or Russian attack on Constantinople.

866. Beginning of the permanent conquests of the Danes in England.

871. Moslem fortress of Bari, in southern Italy, surrendered to the Franks and Greeks. Accession of Alfred the Great to the throne of Wessex.

815. Death of Louis II., Emperor of the Franks and king of Italy; imperial coronation of Charles the Bald.

876. The Seine entered by the Northmen under Rollo.

817. Death of the Emperor, Charles the Bald, and accession of Louis the Stammerer. Founding of the kingdom of Provence by Count Boso.

878. Capture by the Moslems of Syracuse in Sicily.

880. Ravages of the Northmen in Germany; battles of the Ardennes and Ebbsdorf. Defeat of the Danes by the English King Alfred at Ethandun; Peace of Wedmore. [Uncertain date.]

881. Accession of Charles the Fat, king of Germany and Italy.

884. Temporary reunion of the Empire of the Franks under Charles the Fat.

885. Siege of Paris by the Northmen under Rollo.

881. Deposition of the Emperor, Charles the Fat.

888. Death of Charles the Fat and final disruption of the Empire of the Franks; founding of the kingdom of Transjurane Burgundy. The crown of France in dispute between Eudes, Count of Paris, and the Caroling heir, Charles the Simple.

889. Second siege of Paris by Rollo.

890. Third siege of Paris and siege of Bayeux by Rollo.

891. Defeat of the Danes at Louvain by King Arnulf.

894. Arnulf of Germany made Emperor.

890. Rome taken by the Emperor Arnulf.

898. Death of Eudes, leaving Charles the Simple sole king of France.

899. Death of the Emperor Arnulf; accession of Louis the Child to the German throne.

900. Italy ravaged in the north by the Hungarians.

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TENTH CENTURY.

CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.

A.D. 901. Death of the English king, Alfred the Great, and accession of his son, Edward the Elder. Founding of the Samanide dynasty in Khorassan.

904. Sergius III. made Pope; beginning of the rule of the courtesans at Rome.

909. Founding of the Fatimite caliphate in Africa.

910. Founding of the monastery of Clugny in France.

911. Death of the Emperor Louis the Child, extinguishing the Carolingian dynasty in Germany, and election of Conrad the Franconian. Defeat of the Northmen at Chartres in France; cession of Normandy to Rollo.

912. Baptism of the Norman Duke Rollo.

914. Elevation of John X. to the papal throne by the courtesan, Theodora. [Uncertain date.]

916. Imperial coronation in Italy of Berengar.

919. Election of the Saxon Duke, Henry the Fowler, to the kingship of Germany. Establishment of the Danish kingdom of Dublin.

923. The crown of France disputed with Charles the Simple by Rudolph, of Burgundy.

924. Devastation of Germany by the Hungarians; truce agreed upon for nine years. Lapse of the imperial title on the death of Berengar. Commendation of Scotland to the West Saxon King.

925. Death of the English king, Edward the Elder, and accession of his son Ethelstan.

928. Overthrow and imprisonment of Pope John X. by the courtesan Marozia. [Uncertain date.]

929. Death of Charles the Simple in France.

931. John XI., son of the courtesan Marozia, made Pope. [Uncertain date.]

932. Domination of Rome by the Pope's brother, Alberic.

936. Election of Otho, called the Great, to the throne of Germany. Death of Rudolph of Burgundy and restoration of the Carolingians to the French throne.

937. Ethelstan's defeat of Danes, Britons and Scots at the battle of Brunnaburgh. Invasion of France by the Hungarians.

940. Death of the English king, Ethelstan, and accession of his brother Edmund.

946. Death of the English king, Edmund, and accession of his brother Edred.

951. First expedition of Otho the Great into Italy; founding of the Holy Roman Empire (afterwards so called).

954. Death of Alberic, tyrant of Rome, his son, Octavian, succeeding him. Death of the Carolingian king of France, Louis IV., called "d'Outremer"; accession of Lothaire.

955. Germany invaded by the Hungarians; their decisive defeat on the Lech. Death of the English king, Edred, and accession of his nephew, Edwig.

956. Assumption of the Papal throne by Octavian, as John XII.

957. Revolt against the English king Edwig; division of the kingdom with his brother Edgar. [Uncertain date.]

959. Death of Edwig and accession of Edgar; Abbot Dunstan made Archbishop of Canterbury.

961. The crown of Italy taken by Otho the Great, of Germany.

962. Imperial coronation of Otho the Great at Rome; revival of the Western Empire.

963. Expulsion and deposition of Pope John XII.; election of Leo VIII.

964. Expulsion of Pope Leo VIII.; return and death of John XII.; siege and capture of Rome by the Emperor.

965. Death of Pope Leo VIII.; election, expulsion, and forcible restoration of John XIII.

967. Conquest of Egypt by the Fatimite caliph. [Uncertain date.]

969. Murder of the Eastern Emperor Nicephorus Phocas by John Zimisces, his successor.

972. Marriage of Otho, the Western Emperor's son, to the Byzantine princess, Theophano. Death of Pope John XIII., and election of Pope Benedict VI.

973. Death of the Emperor Otho the Great; accession of Otho II.

974. Murder of Pope Benedict VI.

975. Election of Pope Benedict VII. Death of the English king Edgar; accession of his son Edward the Martyr.

979. Death of Edward the Martyr; accession of Ethelred the Unready. [Uncertain date.]

983. Death of the Emperor Otho II.; accession of Otho III. to the German throne, under the regency of his mother, Theophano. First visit of Erik the Red to Greenland.

984. Election of Pope John XIV.

985. Murder of Pope John XIV.; election of Pope John XV.

986. Death of Lothaire, king of France; accession of his son Louis V.

987. Death of Louis V., the last of the Carolingian kings; election of Hugh Capet.

988. Death of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury. Cherson acquired by the Romans.

991. Invasion of England by Vikings from Norway; battle of Maldon.

996. Death of Hugh Capet, king of France; accession of his son, Robert II. Death of Pope John XV.; election of Gregory V. Imperial coronation of Otho III.

997. Insurrection of peasants in Normandy. Rebellion of Crescentius in Rome; expulsion of the Pope.

998. Overthrow of Crescentius at Rome. Excommunication of King Robert of France.

999. Gerbert raised by the Emperor to the Papal chair, as Sylvester II.

1000. Expectations of the end of the world. Pilgrimages of the Emperor Otho. Royal title conferred on Duke Stephen of Hungary, by the Pope. Christianity formally adopted in Iceland.

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ROME: A. D. 1077-1102. Donation of the Countess Matilda to the Holy See.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1077-1102.

ROME: A. D. 1081-1084. Surrender to Henry IV. Terrible Norman visitation.

Four years after his humiliation of himself before the pope at Canossa (see CANOSSA), Henry IV. ("King of the Romans" and claiming the imperial coronation, which the pope refused him), entered Italy with an army to enforce his demands. He had recovered his authority in Germany; the rival set up against him was slain; northern Italy was strong in his support. For three successive years Henry marched his army to the walls of Rome and made attempts to enter, by force, or intrigue, or by stress of blockade, and every year, when the heats of summer came, he found himself compelled to withdraw. At last, the Romans, who had stood firm by Gregory VII., tired of the siege, or the gold which purchased their fidelity (some say) gave out, and they opened their gates. Pope Gregory took refuge in his impregnable Castle of St. Angelo, and Henry, bringing with him the anti-pope whom his partisans had set up, was crowned by the latter in the Church of St. Peter. But the coveted imperial crown was little more than settled upon his head when news came of the rapid approach of Robert Guiscard, the Norman conqueror of southern Italy, with a large army, to defend the legitimate pope. Henry withdrew from Rome in haste and three days afterwards Robert Guiscard's army was under its walls. The Romans feared to admit these terrible champions of their pope; but the vigilance and valor of the Normans surprised a gate, and the great city was in their power. They made haste to conduct Gregory to his Lateran Palace and to receive his blessing; then they "spread through the city, treating it with an the cruelty of a captured town, pillaging, violating, murdering, wherever they met with opposition. The Romans had been surprised, not subdued. For two days and nights they brooded over their vengeance; on the third day they broke out in general insurrection. … The Romans fought at advantage, from their possession of the houses and their knowledge of the ground. They were gaining the superiority; the Normans saw their peril. The remorseless Guiscard gave the word to fire the houses. … The distracted inhabitants dashed wildly into the streets, no longer endeavouring to defend themselves, but to save their families. They were hewn down by hundreds. … Nuns were defiled, matrons forced, the rings cut from their living fingers. Gregory exerted himself, not without success, in saving the principal churches. It is probable, however, that neither Goth nor Vandal, neither Greek nor German, brought such desolation on the city as this capture by the Normans. From this period dates the desertion of the older part of the city, and its gradual extension over the site of the modern city, the Campus Martius. … Many thousand Romans were sold publicly as slaves; many carried into the remotest parts of Calabria." When Guiscard withdrew his destroying army from the ruins of Rome, Gregory went with him and never returned. He died not long after at Salerno.

H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 7, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: A. F. Villemain, Life of Gregory VII., book 9.

See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122, and PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122.

ROME: A. D. 1122-1250. Conflict of the Popes with the Hohenstaufen Emperors.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1122-1250; and GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268.

ROME: A. D. 1145-1155. The Republic of Arnold of Brescia.

Arnold of Brescia—so-called from his native city in Lombardy—was a disciple of Abelard, and not so much a religious as a political reformer. "On all the high mysterious doctrines of the Church, the orthodoxy of Arnold was unimpeachable; his personal life was that of the sternest monk; he had the most earnest sympathy with the popular religion. … He would reduce the clergy to their primitive and apostolic poverty; confiscate all their wealth, escheat all their temporal power. … His Utopia was a great Christian republic, exactly the reverse of that of Gregory VII." In 1145, Arnold was at Rome, where his doctrines had gone before him, and where the citizens had already risen in rebellion against the rule of the pope. "His eloquence brought over the larger part of the nobles to the popular side; even some of the clergy were infected by his doctrines. The re~public, under his influence, affected to resume the constitution of elder Rome. … The Capitol was rebuilt and fortified; even the church of St. Peter was sacrilegiously turned into a castle. The Patrician took possession of the Vatican, imposed taxes, and exacted tribute by violence from the pilgrims. Rome began again to speak of her sovereignty of the world." The republic maintained itself until 1155, when a bolder pope —the Englishman, Adrian or Hadrian IV.—had mounted the chair of St. Peter, and confronted Arnold with unflinching hostility. The death of one of his Cardinals, killed in a street tumult, gave the pope an opportunity to place the whole city under an interdict. "Religion triumphed over liberty. The clergy and the people compelled the senate to yield. Hadrian would admit of no lower terms than the abrogation of the republican institutions; the banishment of Arnold and his adherents. The republic was at an end, Arnold an exile; the Pope again master in Rome." A few months later, Arnold of Brescia, a prisoner in the hands of Frederick Barbarossa, then coming to Rome for the imperial crown, was given up to the Pope and was executed in some summary way, the particulars of which are in considerable dispute.

H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 8. chapters 6-7.

ALSO IN: J. Miley, History of the Papal States, book 6.

ROME: A. D. 1155. Tumult at the coronation of Frederick Barbarossa.

See ITALY: A. D. 1154-1162.

ROME: A. D. 1167. The taking of the city by Frederick Barbarossa.

See ITALY: A. D. 1166-1167.

ROME: A. D. 1198-1216. The establishing of Papal Sovereignty in the States of the Church.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1198-1216.

ROME: A. D. 1215. The beginning in Italy of the strife of the Guelphs and Ghibellines.

See ITALY: A. D. 1215.

{2748}

ROME: 13-14th Centuries. The turbulence of the Roman nobles. The strife of the Colonna and the Ursini.

"In the beginning of the 11th century Italy was exposed to the feudal tyranny, alike oppressive to the sovereign and the people. The rights of human nature were vindicated by her numerous republics, who soon extended their liberty and dominion from the city to the adjacent country. The sword of the nobles was broken; their slaves were enfranchised; their castles were demolished; they assumed the habits of society and obedience. … But the feeble and disorderly government of Rome was unequal to the task of curbing her rebellious sons, who scorned the authority of the magistrate within and without the walls. It was no longer a civil contention between the nobles and plebeians for the government of the state. The barons asserted in arms their personal independence; their palaces and castles were fortified against a siege; and their private quarrels were maintained by the numbers of their vassals and retainers. In origin and affection they were aliens to their country; and a genuine Roman, could such have been produced, might have renounced these haughty strangers, who disdained the appellation of citizens, and proudly styled themselves the princes of Rome. After a dark series of revolutions, all records of pedigree were lost; the distinction of surnames was abolished; the blood of the nations was mingled in a thousand channels; and the Goths and Lombards, the Greeks and Franks, the Germans and Normans, had obtained the fairest possessions by royal bounty or the prerogative of valour. … It is not my design to enumerate the Roman families which have failed at different periods, or those which are continued in different degrees of splendour to the present time. The old consular line of the Frangipani discover their name in the generous act of breaking or dividing bread in a time of famine; and such benevolence is more truly glorious than to have enclosed, with their allies the Corsi, a spacious quarter of the city in the chains of their fortifications. The Savelli, as it should seem a Sabine race, have maintained their original dignity; the obsolete surname of the Capizucchi is inscribed on the coins of the first senators; the Conti preserve the honour, without the estate, of the counts of Signia; and the Annibaldi must have been very ignorant, or very modest, if they had not descended from the Carthaginian hero. But among, perhaps above, the peers and princes of the city, I distinguish the rival houses of Colonna and Ursini [or Orsini]. … About the end of the thirteenth century the most powerful branch [of the Colonna] was composed of an uncle and six brothers, all conspicuous in arms or in the honours of the Church. Of these Peter was elected senator of Rome, introduced to the Capitol in a triumphant car, and hailed in some vain acclamations with the title of Cæsar; while John and Stephen were declared Marquis of Ancona and Count of Romagna by Nicholas IV., a patron so partial to their family that he has been delineated in satirical portraits, imprisoned, as it were, in a hollow pillar. After his decease their haughty behaviour provoked the displeasure of the most implacable of mankind. The two cardinals, the uncle and the nephew, denied the election of Boniface VIII.; and the Colonna were oppressed for a moment by his temporal and spiritual arms. He proclaimed a crusade against his personal enemies; their estates were confiscated; their fortresses on either side of the Tiber were besieged by the troops of St. Peter and those of the rival nobles; and after the ruin of Palestrina, or Præneste, their principal seat, the ground was marked with a ploughshare, the emblem of perpetual desolation. …

See PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348].

Some estimate may be formed of their wealth by their losses, of their losses by the damages of 100,000 gold florins which were granted them against the accomplices and heirs of the deceased pope. All the spiritual censures and disqualifications were abolished by his prudent successors; and the fortune of the house was more firmly established by this transient hurricane. … But the first of the family in fame and merit was the elder Stephen, whom Petrarch loved and esteemed as a hero superior to his own times and not unworthy of ancient Rome. … Till the ruin of his declining age, the ancestors, the character, and the children of Stephen Colonna exalted his dignity in the Roman republic and at the Court of Avignon. The Ursini migrated from Spoleto; the sons of Ursus, as they are styled in the twelfth century, from some eminent person who is only known as the father of their race. But they were soon distinguished among the nobles of Rome by the number and bravery of their kinsmen, the strength of their towers, the honours of the senate and sacred college, and the elevation of two popes, Celestin III. and Nicholas III., of their name and lineage. … The Colonna embraced the name of Ghibellines and the party of the empire; the Ursini espoused the title of Guelphs and the cause of the Church. The eagle and the keys were displayed in their adverse banners; and the two factions of Italy most furiously raged when the origin and nature of the dispute were long since forgotten. After the retreat of the popes to Avignon they disputed in arms the vacant republic; and the mischiefs of discord were perpetuated by the wretched compromise of electing each year two rival senators. By their private hostilities the city and country were desolated."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 69.

"Had things been left to take their natural course, one of these families, the Colonna, for instance, or the Orsini, would probably have ended by overcoming its rivals, and have established, as was the case in the republics of Romagna and Tuscany, a 'signoria,' or local tyranny, like those which had once prevailed in the cities of Greece. But the presence of the sacerdotal power, as it had hindered the growth of feudalism, so also it stood in the way of such a development as this, and in so far aggravated the confusion of the city."

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 16.

ROME: A. D. 1300. The Jubilee.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348.

ROME: A. D. 1305-1377. Withdrawal of the Papal court from Rome and settlement at Avignon. The "Babylonish Captivity."

See PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348, to 1352-1378.

ROME: A. D. 1312. Resistance to the entry and coronation of Henry VII.

See ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.

ROME: A. D. 1328. Imperial coronation of Louis IV. of Bavaria.

See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.

{2749}

ROME: A. D. 1347-1354. The revolution of Rienzi, the last Tribune.

"The Holy City had no government. She was no longer the Imperial Rome, nor the Pontifical Rome. The Teutonic Cæsars had abandoned her. The Popes had also fled from the sacred hill of the Vatican to the slimy Gallic city, Avignon. … The real masters of the city were the princes or barons, who dwelt in their fortified castles in the environs, or their strong palaces within. The principal among them were masters of different parts of the city. The celebrated old family of the Colonnas reigned, it may be said, over the north of the city, towards the Quirinal. … The new family of the Orsini extended their sway along the Tiber from the Campo-di-Fiore, to the Church of St. Peter, comprising the castle of St. Angelo. The Savelli, less powerful, possessed a part of the Aventine, with the theatre of Marcellus, and the Conti, the huge tower which bears their name, on Cæsar's Forum. Other members of the nobility, in the country, were possessors of small fortified cities, or castles. … Rome, subjected to such a domination, had become almost deserted. The population of the seven-hilled city had come down to about 30,000 souls. When the barons were at peace with each other, which, however, was a rare occurrence, they combined to exercise their tyranny over the citizens and the serfs, to rob and plunder the farmers, travellers, and pilgrims. Petrarch wrote to the Pope at this period, that Rome had become the abode of demons, the receptacle of all crimes, a hell for the living. … Rienzi was then 28 years old. … His function of notary (assessore) to the Roman tribunals, would seem to infer that he was considered a peaceful, rational citizen. It appears, however, that he brought in the exercise of his official duties, the excited imagination and generosity of heart which characterized his nature. He gloried in being surnamed the Consul of orphans, of widows, and of the poor. His love for the humble soon became blended with an intense hatred for the great: one of his brothers was killed accidentally by a Roman baron, without his being able to obtain any satisfaction. … Rienzi had always been noted for his literary and poetical taste; he was considered as deeply versed in the knowledge of antiquity, and as the most skilful in deciphering and explaining the numerous inscriptions with which Rome abounded. … The least remains of antiquity became for him a theme of declamatory addresses to the people, on the present state of Rome, on the iniquities that surrounded him. Followed by groups that augmented daily, and which listened to him with breathless interest, he led them from ruin to ruin, to the Forum, to the tombs of the Christian martyrs, thus associating every glory, and made the hearts of the people throb by his mystical eloquence. … No remedy being brought to the popular grievances, an insurrection broke out. The senator was expelled; thirteen good men (buoni uomini) were installed in the Capitol and invested with dictatorial powers. It was a Guelfic movement; Rienzi was mixed with it; but without any preeminent participation. This new government resolved to send an embassy to the Pope, at Avignon, and Rienzi formed part of it. Such was the first real public act in the life of Cola di Rienzi. The embassy was joined by Petrarch. … The Pope would not hear of leaving his new splendid palace, and the gentle population of Avignon, for the heap of ruins and the human turbulence of Rome." But "Cardinal Aymeric was named to represent the Pope at Rome, as Legate, and a Colonna and an Orsini invested with the senatorial dignity, in order to restore order in the Eternal City, in the name of the Pontiff. Rienzi indulged in the most extravagant exultation. He wrote a highly enthusiastic address to the Roman people. But his illusion was not of long duration. The new Legate only attended to the filling of the Papal Treasury. The nobility, protected by the new senators, continued their course of tyranny. Rienzi protested warmly against such a course of iniquities, in the council. One day he spoke with a still greater vehemence of indignation, when one of the members of the council struck him in the face, others hissed out at him sneeringly, calling him the Consul of orphans and widows. From that day he never appeared at any of its meetings; his hatred had swollen, and must explode. … He went straight to the people (popolo minuto), and prepared a revolution. To render his exhortations to the people more impressive, he made use of large allegorical pictures, hastily drawn, and which form a curious testimony of his mystical imagination, as well as of his forensic eloquence. … Finally, he convoked the people at the Capitol for the 20th of May, 1347, the day of Pentecost, namely, under the invocation of the Holy Ghost. Rienzi had heard, with fervour, thirty masses during the preceding night. On that day he came out at 12 o'clock armed, with his head uncovered, followed by 25 partisans; three unfurled standards were carried before him, bearing allegorical pictures. This time his address was very brief—merely stating, that from his love for the Pope and the salvation of the people, he was ready to encounter any danger. He then read the laws which were to insure the happiness of Rome. They were, properly speaking, a summary of reforms, destined to relieve the people from their sufferings, and intended to realize, what he proclaimed, must become the good state [or Good Estate], il buono stato. … By this outline of a new constitution, the people were invested, with the property and government of the city as well as of its environs; the Pontifical See, bereft of the power it had exercised during several centuries; and the nobility deprived of what they considered as their property, to assist the public poverty. The revolution could not be more complete; and it is needless to add, that Rienzi was clamorously applauded, and immediately invested with full powers to realize and organize the buono stato, of which he had given the programme. He declined the title of Rector, and preferred the more popular name of Tribune. Nothing was fixed as to the duration of this extraordinary popular magistracy. The new government was installed at the Capitol, the Senators expelled, and the whole revolution executed with such rapidity, that the new Tribune might well be strengthened in his belief that he was acting under the protection of the Holy Ghost. He was careful, nevertheless, not to estrange the Pontifical authority, and requested that the apostolical vicar should be offered to be adjoined to him, which the prelate accepted, however uncertain and perilous the honour appeared to be. {2750} During the popular enthusiasm, old Stephen Colonna, with the more formidable of the barons, who had been away, returned to Rome in haste; he expressed publicly his scorn, and when the order came from Rienzi for him to quit the city, he replied that he would soon come and throw that madman out of one of the windows of the Capitol. Rienzi ordered the bells to be rung, the people instantly assembled in arms, and that proudest of the barons was obliged to fly to Palestrina. The next day it was proclaimed that all the nobles were to come, to swear fealty to the Roman people, and afterwards withdraw to their castles, and protect the public roads. John, the son of old Colonna, was the first who presented himself at the Capitol, but it was with the intention of braving and insulting the Tribune. When he beheld the popular masses in close array, he felt awed, and took the oath to protect the people—protect the roads—succour the widows and orphans, and obey the summons of the Tribune. The Orsini, Savelli, Gaetani, and many others, came after him and followed his example. Rienzi, now sole master, without opponents, gave a free course to the allurements of authority. … The tolls, taxes, and imposts which pressed upon the people were abolished by Rienzi, in the first instance, and afterwards, the taxes on the bridges, wine, and bread; but he endeavoured to compensate such an enormous deficit by augmenting the tax on salt, which was not yet unpopular, besides an impost on funded property. He was thus making hasty, serious, even dangerous engagements with the people, which it might not be in his power to keep. … For the present, calmness and security were reigning in the city. … The Tribune received the congratulations of all the ambassadors; the changes he had effected appeared miraculous. … He believed implicitly that he was the founder of a new era. The homage profusely lavished upon him by all the Italian Republics, and even by despotic sovereigns confirmed him in his conviction. … One nobleman alone, the Prefect of Vico, secretly supported by the agent of the Pontifical patrimony, refused to submit and to surrender the three or four little cities in his jurisdiction. Rienzi led rapidly against him an army of 8,000 men, and attacked the rebellious Prefect so suddenly and skilfully, that the latter surrendered unconditionally. This success inflamed the head and imagination of Rienzi, and with it commenced the mystical extravagances and follies which could not fail to cause his ruin."

_Prof. De Vericour, Rienzi, the last of the Tribunes Dublin University Magazine, 1860._

_Eclectic Magazine, September, 1860._

"Rienzi's head was turned by his success. He assumed the pomp of a sovereign. He distributed titles, surrounded himself with ceremonies, and multiplied feasts and processions. … He desired to be ennobled, and to have the title of Knight, as well as Tribune. To celebrate his installation as Knight, a splendid series of ceremonies was arranged," at the end of which he "made an address, in which he cited the Pope, and Lewis of Bavaria, and Charles of Bohemia, to give reasons for any claims they had on Rome; and pointing his sword to three points of the compass, he exclaimed, 'This is mine, and this is mine, and this is mine.' … Folly had quite got the better of him now, and his vanity was leading him swiftly to ruin. … Shortly afterwards he issued a proclamation that he had discovered a conspiracy against the people and himself, and declared that he would cut off the heads of all those concerned in it. The conspirators were seized and brought forward, and among them were seen the chief of the princely families of Rome. Solemn preparations were made for their execution, when Rienzi, suddenly and without reason, not only pardoned them all, but conferred upon them some of the most important charges and offices of the state. No sooner were these nobles and princes free out of Rome than they began seriously to conspire to overthrow Rienzi and his government. They assembled their soldiers, and, after devastating the country, threatened to march upon Rome itself. The Tribune, who was no soldier, attempted to intimidate his enemies by threats; but finding that the people grew clamorous for action, he at last took up arms, and made a show of advancing against them. But after a few days, during which he did nothing except to destroy still more of the Campagna, he returned to Rome, clothed himself in the Imperial robes,. and received a legate from the Pope. … His power soon began to crumble away under him; and when, shortly afterwards, he endeavoured to prevail upon the people to rise and drive out the Count of Minorbino, who had set his authority at defiance, he found that his day was past. … He then ordered the trumpets of silver to sound, and, clothed in all his pomp, he marched through Rome, accompanied by his small band of soldiers, and on the 15th October, 1347, intrenched himself in the Castle St. Angelo. Still the influence of his name and his power was so great, that it was not till three days after that the nobles ventured to return to Rome, and then they found that Cola's power had vanished. It faded away like a carnival pageant, as that gay procession entered the Castle St. Angelo. There he remained until the beginning of March, and then fled, and found his way to Civita Vecchia, where he stayed with a nephew of his for a short time. But his nephew having been arrested, he again returned to Rome secretly, and was concealed in Castle St. Angelo by one of the Orsini who was friendly to him and his party. … Cola soon after fled to Naples, fearing lest he should be betrayed into the hands of the Cardinals. Rome now fell into a state of anarchy and confusion even worse than when he assumed the reins of power. Revolutions occurred. Brigandage was renewed. … In 1353 Rienzi returned with Cardinal Albornos, the legate of the Pope. He was received with enthusiasm, and again installed in power. But he was embarrassed in all his actions by the Cardinal, who sought only to make use of him, while he himself exercised all the power. The title of Senator of Rome was conferred on him, and the people forgave him. … But Rienzi had lost the secret of his power in losing his enthusiasm. … At last, in October 1353, a sedition broke out, and the mob rushed to the Capitol with cries of 'Death to the traitor Rienzi!' … He appeared on the balcony clothed in his armour as Knight, and, with the standard of the people in his hand, demanded to be heard. But the populace refused to listen to him. … At last he decided to fly. Tearing off his robes, he put on the miserable dress of the porter, rushed down the flaming stairs and through the burning chambers, … and at last reached the third floor. … At this very moment his arm was seized, and a voice said, 'Where are you going?' He saw that all was lost. {2751} But, at bay, he did nothing mean. Again there was a flash of heroic courage, not unworthy of him. He threw off his disguise, and disdaining all subterfuges, said, 'I am the Tribune!' He was then led out through the door … to the base of the basalt lions, where he had made his first great call upon the people. Standing there, undaunted by its tumultuous cries, he stood for an hour with folded arms, and looked around upon the raging crowd. At last, profiting by a lull of silence, he lifted his voice to address them, when suddenly an artisan at his side, fearing perhaps the result of his eloquence, and perhaps prompted by revenge, plunged his pike in his breast, and he fell. The wild mob rushed upon his corpse."

W. W. Story, Castle St. Angelo, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 12, chapters 10-11 (volume 5).

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 70.

ROME: A. D. 1367-1369. Temporary return of Urban V. from Avignon.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1352-1378.

ROME: A. D. 1377-1379. Return of the Papal court. Election of Urban VI. and the Great Schism. Battles in the city. Siege and partial destruction of Castle St. Angelo.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1377-1417.

ROME: A. D. 1405-1414. Rising in the city and flight of Pope Innocent VII. Sacking of the Vatican. Surrender of the city to Ladislas, king of Naples. Expulsion of the Neapolitans and their return.

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1386-1414.

ROME: A. D. 1447-1455. The pontificate of Nicolas V. Building of the Vatican Palace and founding of the Vatican Library. The Porcaro revolt.

See ITALY: A. D. 1447-1480.

ROME: A. D. 1492-1503. Under the Borgias.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1471-1513.

ROME: A. D. 1494. Charles VIII. and the French army in the city.

See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496.

ROME: A. D. 1526. The city taken and the Vatican plundered by the Colonnas and the Spaniards.

See ITALY: A. D. 1523-1527.

ROME: A. D. 1527. The capture and the sacking of the city by the army of Constable Bourbon. Captivity of the Pope.

See ITALY: A. D. 1523-1527; 1527; and 1527-1529.

ROME: A. D. 1537-1563. Inclinations towards the Reformation. Catholic reaction.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1537-1563.

ROME: A. D. 1600-1656. The great families and the Roman population.

"A numerous, powerful, and wealthy aristocracy surrounded the papal throne; the families already established imposed restraints ou those that were but newly rising; from the self-reliance and authoritative boldness of monarchy, the ecclesiastical sovereignty was passing to the deliberation, sobriety, and measured calmness of aristocratic government. … There still flourished those old and long-renowned Roman races, the Savelli, Conti, Orsini, Colonna, and Gaetani. … The Colonna and Orsini made it their boast, that for centuries no peace had been concluded between the princes of Christendom, in which they had not been included by name. But however powerful these houses may have been in earlier times, they certainly owed their importance in those now before us to their connection with the Curia and the popes. … Under Innocent X., there existed for a considerable time, as it were, two great factions, or associations of families. The Orsini, Cesarini, Borghesi, Aldobrandini, Ludovisi, and Giustiniani were with the Pamfili; while opposed to them, was the house of Colonna and the Barberini. … In the middle of the seventeenth century there were computed to be fifty noble families in Rome of three hundred years standing, thirty-five of two hundred, and sixteen of one hundred years. None were permitted to claim a more ancient descent, or were generally traced to an obscure, or even a low origin. … But by the side of the old families there rose up various new ones. All the cardinals and prelates of the Curia proceeded according to the pope's example, and each in proportion to his means employed the surplus of his ecclesiastical revenue for the aggrandizement of his kindred, the foundation of a new family. There were others which had attained to eminence by judicial appointments, and many were indebted for their elevation to being employed as bankers in the affairs of the Dataria. Fifteen families of Florence, eleven from Genoa, nine Portuguese, and four French, are enumerated as having risen to more or less consideration by these means, according to their good fortune or talents; some of them, whose reputation no longer depended on the affairs of the day, became monarchs of gold; as for example, the Guicciardini and Doni, who connected themselves, under Urban VIII., with the Giustiniani, Primi, and Pallavicini. But even, without affairs of this kind, families of consideration were constantly repairing to Rome, not only from Urbino, Rieti, and Bologna, but also from Parma and Florence. … Returns of the Roman population are still extant, and by a comparison of the different years, we find a most remarkable result exhibited, as regards the manner in which that population was formed. Not that its increase was upon the whole particularly rapid, this we are not authorized to assert. In the year 1600 the inhabitants were about 110,000; fifty-six years afterwards they were somewhat above 120,000, an advance by no means extraordinary; but another circumstance here presents itself which deserves attention. At an earlier period, the population of Rome had been constantly fluctuating. Under Paul IV. it had decreased from 80,000 to 50,000; in a score or two of years it had again advanced to more than 100,000. And this resulted from the fact that the court was then formed principally of unmarried men, who had no permanent abode there. But, at the time we are considering, the population became fixed into settled families. This began to be the case towards the end of the sixteenth century, but took place more particularly during the first half of the seventeenth. … After the return of the popes from Avignon, and on the close of the schism, the city, which had seemed on the point of sinking into a mere village, extended itself around the Curia. But it was not until the papal families had risen to power and riches—until neither internal discords nor external enemies were any longer to be feared, and the incomes drawn from the revenues of the church or state secured a life of enjoyment without the necessity for labour, that a numerous permanent population arose in the city."

L. Ranke. History of the Popes, book 8, section 7 (volume 2).

ROME: A. D. 1797-1798. French intrigues and occupation of the city. Formation of the Roman Republic. Expulsion of the Pope.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1797-1798 (DECEMBER-MAY).

{2752}

ROME: A. D. 1798 (November). Brief expulsion of the French by the Neapolitans.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL).

ROME: A. D. 1799. Overthrow of the Roman Republic. Expulsion of the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).

ROME: A. D. 1800. The Papal government re-established by Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (JUNE-FEBRUARY).

ROME: A. D. 1808-1809. Napoleon's quarrel with the Pope. Captivity of Pius VII. French occupation. Declared to be a free and imperial city.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.

ROME: A. D. 1810. The title of King of Rome given to Napoleon's son.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.

ROME: A. D. 1813. Papal Concordat with Napoleon.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.

ROME: A. D. 1814. Occupation by Murat for the Allies. Return of the Pope.

See ITALY: A. D. 1814: and PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.

ROME: A. D. 1815. Restoration of the works of art taken by Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (JULY-NOVEMBER).

ROME: A. D. 1831-1832. Revolt of the Papal States, suppressed by Austrian troops.

See ITALY: A. D. 1830-1832.

ROME: A. D. 1846-1849. Liberal reforms of Pope Pius IX. His breach with the extremists. Revolution, and flight of the Pope. Intervention of France. Garibaldi's defense of the city. Its capture and occupation by the French. Overthrow of the Roman Republic.

See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.

ROME: A. D. 1859-1861. First consequences of the Austro-Italian war. Absorption of the Papal States in the new kingdom of Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1859-1861.

ROME: A. D. 1867-1870. Garibaldi's attempt. His defeat at Mentana. Italian troops in the city. The king of Italy takes possession of his capital.

See ITALY: A. D. 1867-1870.

ROME: A. D. 1869-1870. The (Ecumenical Council of the Vatican.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1869-1870.

ROME: A. D. 1870-1871. End of Papal Sovereignty. Occupation of the city as the capital of the kingdom of Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1867-1870; and PAPACY: A. D. 1870.

----------ROME: End--------

ROMERS-WAALE, Naval battle of (1574).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1573-1574.

ROMMANY.

See GYPSIES.

ROMULUS, Legendary founder of Rome.

See ROME: B. C. 753-510.

ROMULUS AUGUSTULUS, The last Roman Emperor of the old line, in the West, A. D. 475-476.

RONCAGLIA, The Diets of.

See ITALY: A. D. 961-1039.

RONCESVALLES, The ambuscade of.

See SPAIN: A. D. 778.

ROOD, Holy (or Black Rood) of Scotland.

See HOLY ROOD OF SCOTLAND.

ROOF OF THE WORLD.

The Pamir high plateau, which is a continuation of the Bolor range, is called by the natives "Bamiduniya," or the Roof of the World.

T. E. Gordon, The Roof of the World, chapter 9.

ROOSEBECK OR ROSEBECQUE, Battle of (1382).

See FLANDERS: A. D. 1382.

ROOT AND BRANCH BILL, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1641 (MARCH-MAY).

RORKE'S DRIFT, Defense of (1879).

See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1877-1879.

ROSAS, OR ROSES: A. D. 1645-1652. Siege and capture by the French. Recovery by the Spaniards.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1644-1646; and 1648-1652.

ROSAS, OR ROSES: A. D. 1808. Siege and capture by the French.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1808-1809 (DECEMBER-MARCH).

ROSBACH, OR ROSSBACH, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER).

ROSECRANS, General W. S.: Command in West Virginia.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY-NOVEMBER); and 1861 (AUGUST-DECEMBER: WEST VIRGINIA).

Command of the Army of the Mississippi.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE-OCTOBER: TENNESSEE-KENTUCKY).

Battle of Stone River.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862-1863 (DECEMBER-JANUARY: TENNESSEE).

The Tullahoma campaign.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JUNE-JULY: TENNESSEE).

Chickamauga. Chattanooga campaign. Displacement.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER: TENNESSEE) ROSECRANS'S ADVANCE; and (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER: TENNESSEE)

Command in Missouri.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MARCH-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).

ROSES, Wars of the.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.

ROSETTA STONE.

"The Rosetta Stone is a fragment of a stela discovered in the year 1799 by M. Boussard, a French artillery officer, while digging entrenchments round the town of that name. It contains a copy of a decree made by the priests of Egypt, assembled at Memphis, in honour of Ptolemy Epiphanes. This decree is engraved on the stone in three languages, or rather in three different writings. The first is the hieroglyphic, the grand old writing of the monuments; the second is the demotic character as used by the people; and the third is the Greek. But the text in Greek character is the translation of the two former. Up to this time, hieroglyphs had remained an impenetrable mystery even for science. But a corner of the veil was about to be lifted: in proceeding from the known to the unknown, the sense at all events was at length to be arrived at of that mysterious writing which had so long defied all the efforts of science. Many erudite scholars tried to solve the mystery, and Young, among others, very nearly brought his researches to a satisfactory issue. But it was Champollion's happy lot to succeed in entirely tearing a way the veil. Such is the Rosetta Stone, which thus became the instrument of one of the greatest discoveries which do honour to the nineteenth century."

A. Mariette-Bey, Monuments of Upper Egypt (Itinéraire) page 29.

See, also, HIEROGLYPHICS.

ROSICRUCIANS. ILLUMINATI.

"About the year 1610, there appeared anonymously a little book, which excited great sensation throughout Germany. It was entitled, The Discovery of the Brotherhood of the Honourable Order of the Rosy Cross, and dedicated to all the scholars and magnates of Europe. It commenced with an imaginary dialogue between the Seven Sages of Greece, and other worthies of antiquity, on the best method of accomplishing a general reform in those evil times. {2753} The suggestion of Seneca is adopted, as most feasible, namely a secret confederacy of wise philanthropists, who shall labour everywhere in unison for this desirable end. The book then announces the actual existence of such an association. One Christian Rosen Kreuz, whose travels in the East had enriched him with the highest treasures of occult lore, is said to have communicated his wisdom, under a vow of secrecy, to eight disciples, for whom he erected a mysterious dwelling-place called The Temple of the Holy Ghost. It is stated further, that this long-hidden edifice had been at last discovered, and within it the body of Rosen Kreuz, untouched by corruption, though, since his death, 120 years had passed away. The surviving disciples of the institute call on the learned and devout, who desire to co-operate in their projects of reform, to advertise their names. They themselves indicate neither name nor place of rendezvous. They describe themselves as true Protestants. They expressly assert that they contemplate no political movement in hostility to the reigning powers. Their sole aim is the diminution of the fearful sum of human suffering, the spread of education, the advancement of learning, science, universal enlightenment, and love. Traditions and manuscripts in their possession have given them the power of gold-making, with other potent secrets; but by their wealth they set little store. They have arcana, in comparison with which the secret of the alchemist is a trifle. But all is subordinate, with them, to their one high purpose of benefiting their fellows both in body and soul. … I could give you conclusive reasons, if it would not tire you to hear them, for the belief that this far-famed book was written by a young Lutheran divine named Valentine Andreä. He was one of the very few who understood the age, and had the heart to try and mend it. … This Andreä writes the Discovery of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood, a jeu-d'esprit with a serious purpose, just as an experiment to see whether something cannot be done by combined effort to remedy the defect and abuses—social, educational, and religious, so lamented by all good men. He thought there were many Andreäs scattered throughout Europe—how powerful would be their united systematic action! … Many a laugh, you may be sure, he enjoyed in his parsonage with his few friends who were in the secret, when they found their fable everywhere swallowed greedily as unquestionable fact. On all sides they heard of search instituted to discover the Temple of the Holy Ghost. Printed letters appeared continually, addressed to the imaginary brotherhood, giving generally the initials of the candidate, where the invisibles might hear of him, stating his motives and qualifications for entrance into their number, and sometimes furnishing samples of his cabbalistic acquirements. Still, no answer. Not a trace of the Temple. Profound darkness and silence, after the brilliant flash which had awakened so many hopes. Soon the mirth grew serious. Andreä saw with concern that shrewd heads of the wrong sort began to scent his artifice, while quacks reaped a rogue's harvest from it. … A swarm of impostors pretended to belong to the Fraternity, and found a readier sale than ever for their nostrums. Andreä dared not reveal himself. All he could do was to write book after book to expose the folly of those whom his handiwork had so befooled, and still to labour on, by pen and speech, in earnest aid of that reform which his unhappy stratagem had less helped than hindered. … Confederacies of pretenders appear to have been organized in various places; but Descartes says he sought in vain for a Rosicrucian lodge in Germany. The name Rosicrucian became by degrees a generic term, embracing every species of occult pretension,—arcana, elixirs, the philosopher's stone, theurgic ritual, symbols, initiations. In general usage the term is associated more especially with that branch of the secret art which has to do with the creatures of the elements. … And from this deposit of current mystical tradition sprang, in great measure, the Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism of the 18th century,—that golden age of secret societies. Then flourished associations of every imaginable kind, suited to every taste. … Some lodges belonged to Protestant societies, others were the implements of the Jesuits. Some were aristocratic, like the Strict Observance; others democratic, seeking in vain to escape an Argus-eyed police. Some—like the Illuminati under Weishaupt Knigge, and Von Zwackh, numbering (among many knaves) not a few names of rank, probity, and learning—were the professed enemies of mysticism and superstition. Others existed only for the profitable juggle of incantations and fortune-telling. … The best perished at the hands of the Jesuits, the worst at the hands of the police."

R. A. Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, book 8, chapter 9 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: F. C. Schlosser, History of the 18th Century, volume 4, pages 483-504.

T. Frost, The Secret Societies of the European Revolution, volume 1, chapter 1.

A. P. Marras, Secret Fraternities of the Middle Ages, chapter 8.

ROSLIN, Battle of.

One of the minor battles fought in the Scottish "war of independence," with success to the Scots, A. D. 1302.

ROSSBACH, ROSBACH, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER).

ROSSBRUNN, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

ROSTOCK: The founding of the city.

See HANSA TOWNS.

ROSY CROSS, The Honourable Order of the.

See ROSICRUCIANS.

ROTENNU, RUTENNU, RETENNU, The.

"The Syrian populations, who, to the north of the Canaanites [17th century B. C.], occupied the provinces called in the Bible by the general name of Aram, as far as the river Euphrates, belonged to the confederation of the Rotennu, or Retennu, extending beyond the river and embracing all Mesopotamia ( Naharaina). … The Rotennu had no well-defined territory, nor even a decided unity of race. They already possessed powerful cities, such as Nineveh and Babylon, but there were still many nomadic tribes within the ill-defined limits of the confederacy. Their name was taken from the city of Resen, apparently the most ancient, and originally the most important, city of Assyria. The germ of the Rotennu confederation was formed by the Semitic Assyro-Chaldæan people, who were not yet welded into a compact monarchy."

F. Lenormant, Manual of the Ancient History of the East, book 3, chapter 3.

ROTHIERE, Battle of La.

See FRANCE A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).

{2754}

ROTOMAGUS. Modern Rouen.

See BELGÆ.

RÖTTELN: Capture by Duke Bernhard (1638).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

ROTTEN BOROUGHS.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1830; and 1830-1832.

ROTTWEIL: Siege and capture by the French (1643).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1643-1644.

----------ROUEN: Start--------

ROUEN: Origin of the city and name.

See BELGÆ.

ROUEN: A. D. 841. First destructive visit of the Northmen.

See NORMANS: A. D. 841.

ROUEN: A. D. 845. Second capture by the Northmen.

See PARIS: A. D.845.

ROUEN: A. D. 876-91 I. Rollo's settlement.

See NORMANS: A. D. 876-911.

ROUEN: A. D. 1418-1419. Siege and capture by Henry V. of England.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1417-1422.

ROUEN: A. D. 1431. The burning of the Maid of Orleans.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1429-1431.

ROUEN: A. D. 1449. Recovery from the English.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1431-1453.

ROUEN: A. D. 1562. Occupied by the Huguenots and retaken by the Catholics.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1560-1563.

ROUEN: A. D. 1591-1592. Siege by Henry IV., raised by the Duke of Parma.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1591-1593.

ROUEN: A. D. 1870. Taken by the Germans.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870-1871.

----------ROUEN: End--------

ROUM, ICONIUM, NICÆA, The Sultans of.

See TURKS (THE SELJUKS): A. D. 1073-1092.

ROUMANI, ROMÚNI, The.

See DACCA: A. D. 102-106.

ROUMANIA.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14-18TH CENTURIES.

ROUMELIA, Eastern.

See TURKS: A. D. 1878, TREATIES OF SAN STEFANO AND MADRID; and BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1878, to 1878-1886.

ROUND TABLE, Knights of the.

See ARTHUR, KING.

ROUND TOWERS OF IRELAND.

"At various periods between the sixth and twelfth centuries (some of them still later, but the greater number, perhaps, in the ninth and tenth centuries), were erected those singular buildings, the round towers, which have been so enveloped in mystery by the arguments and conjectures of modern antiquaries. … The real uses of the Irish round towers, both as belfries and as ecclesiastical keeps or castles, have been satisfactorily established by Dr. Petrie, in his important and erudite work on the ecclesiastical architecture of Ireland. … These buildings were well contrived to supply the clergy with a place of safety for themselves, the sacred vessels, and other objects of value, during the incursions of the Danes, and other foes; and the upper stories, in which there were four windows, were perfectly well adapted for the ringing of the largest bells then used in Ireland."

M. Haverty, History of Ireland, page 115.

ALSO IN: S. Bryant, Celtic Ireland, chapter 7.

ROUNDHEADS.

The Parliamentary or popular party in the great English civil war were called Roundheads because they generally wore their hair cut short, while the Cavaliers of the king's party held to the fashion of flowing locks. According to the Parliamentary clerk Rushworth, the first person who applied the name was one David Hyde, who threatened a mob of citizens which surrounded the Houses of Parliament on the 27th of December, 1641, crying "No Bishops," that he would "cut the throats of these round-headed dogs."

D. Masson, Life of John Milton, volume 2, book 2, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: _Mrs. Hutchinson, Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson (1642)._

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1641 (OCTOBER).

ROUSSEAU, and educational reform.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: REFORMS, &c.: A. D. 1762.

ROUSSILLON: A. D. 1639. Situation of the county. Invasion by the French.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1037-1640.

ROUSSILLON: A. D. 1642. French conquest.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1640-1642.

ROUSSILLON: A. D. 1659. Ceded to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.

ROUTIERS The.

See WHITE HOODS OF FRANCE.

ROXOLANI, The.

A people, counted among the Sarmatians, who occupied anciently the region between the Don and the Dnieper, —afterwards encroaching on Dacian territory. They were among the barbarians who troubled the Roman frontier earliest, and were prominent in the wars which disturbed the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Later, they disappeared in the flood of Gothic and Hunnish invasion, partly by absorption, it is supposed, and partly by extermination.

ROYAL ROAD OF ANCIENT PERSIA, The.

"Herodotus describes the great road of the Persian period from Ephesos by the Cilician Gates to Susa. It was called the 'Royal Road,' because the service of the Great King passed along it; and it was, therefore, the direct path of communication for all government business. … It is an accepted fact that in several other cases roads of the Persian Empire were used by the Assyrian kings long before the Persian time, and, in particular, that the eastern part of the 'Royal Road,' from Cilicia to Susa, is much older than the beginning of the Persian power. … Herodotus represents it as known to Aristagoras, and therefore, existing during the 6th century, B. C., and the Persians had had no time to organise a great road like this before 500; they only used the previously existing road. Moreover, the Lydian kings seem to have paid some attention to their roads, and perhaps even to have measured them, as we may gather from Herodotus's account of the roads in the Lycus valley, and of the boundary pillar erected by Crœsus at Kydrara."

W. M. Ramsay, Historical Geography of Asia Minor, part 1, chapter 2.

ROYAL TOUCH, The.

See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 12-17TH CENTURIES.

RUBICON, Cæsar's passage of the.

See ROME: B. C. 50-49.

RUCANAS, The.

See PERU: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

RUDOLPH, King of France, A. D. 923-936.

Rudolph I., King of Germany-called Emperor (the first of the House of Hapsburg), 1273-1291.

Rudolph II., Archduke of Austria and King of Hungary, 1576-1606; King of Bohemia and Germanic Emperor, 1576-1612.

{2755}

RUGBY SCHOOL.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.—ENGLAND.

RUGII, The.

A coast tribe in ancient Germany who seem to have occupied the extreme north of Pomerania and who probably gave their name to the Isle of Rugen.

_Church and Brodribb, Geographical Notes to the Germany of Tacitus._

In the fifth century, after the breaking up of the empire of Attila, the Hun, a people called the Rugii, and supposed to be the same, were occupying a region embraced in modern Austria. There were many Rugians among the barbarian auxiliaries in the Roman army, and some of the annalists place among the number Odoacer, who gave the extinguishing blow to the empire.

T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 3, chapter 8.

RULE OF ST. BENEDICT.

See BENEDICTINE ORDERS.

RUMP, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).

RUNJIT SINGH, RANJIT SINGH, The conquests of.

See SIKHS.

RUNNYMEDE.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1215.

RUPERT, OR ROBERT (of the Palatine).

King of Germany, A. D. 1400-1410.

RUPERT'S LAND.

See CANADA: A. D. 1869-1873.

RUSCINO.

The ancient name of modern Roussillon.

RUSSELL, Lord John, Ministries of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1846; 1851-1852; 1865-1868.

RUSSELL, Lord William, Execution of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1681-1683.

----------RUSSIA: Start--------

RUSSIA: A. D. 862. Scandinavian Origin of the name and the National Organization.

"'In the year 859,' says Nestor [the oldest Russian chronicler, a monk of Kiev, who wrote early in the 12th century] 'came the Varangians from beyond the sea and demanded tribute from the Chud and from the Slavonians, the Meria, the Ves, and the Krivichi; but the Khazars took tribute of the Polians, the Severians and of the Viatichi.' Then he continues: 'In the year 862 they drove the Varangians over the sea, and paid them no tribute, and they began to govern themselves, and there was no justice among them, and clan rose against clan, and there was internal strife between them, and they begun to make war upon each other. And they said to each other: Let us seek for a prince who can reign over us and judge what is right. And they went over the sea to the Varangians, to Rus, for so were these Varangians called: they were called Rus as others are called Svie (Swedes), others Nurmane (Northmen, Norwegians), others Angliane (English, or Angles of Sleswick?), others Gote (probably the inhabitants of the island of Gothland). The Chud, the Slavonians, the Krivichi, and the Ves said to Rus: Our land is large and rich, but there is no order in it; come ye and rule and reign over us. And three brothers were chosen with their whole clan, and they took with them all the Rus, and they came. And the eldest, Rurik, settled in Novgorod, and the second, Sineus, near Bielo-ozero, and the third, Truvor, in Izborsk. And the Russian land, Novgorod, was called after these Varangians; they are the Novgorodians of Varangian descent; previously the Novgorodians were Slavonians. But after the lapse of two years Sineus and his brother Truvor died and Rurik assumed the government and divided the towns among his men, to one Polotsk, to another Rostov, to another Bielo-ozero.' Such is Nestor's naive description of the foundation of the Russian state. If it be read without prejudice or sophistical comment, it cannot be doubted that the word Varangians is used here as a common term for the inhabitants of Scandinavia, and that Rus was meant to be the name of a particular Scandinavian tribe; this tribe, headed by Rurik and his brothers, is said to have crossed the sea and founded a state whose capital, for a time, was Novgorod, and this state was the nucleus of the present Russian empire. Next, Nestor tells us that in the same year two of Rurik's men, 'who were not of his family,' Askold and Dir, separated themselves from him with the intention to go to Constantinople. They went down the Dnieper; but when they arrived at Kiev, the capital of the Polians, who at that time were tributary to the Khazars, they preferred to stay there, and founded in that town an independent principality. Twenty years after, in 882, this principality was incorporated by Rurik's successor, Oleg: by a stratagem he made himself master of the town and killed Askold and Dir, and from this time Kiev, 'the mother of all Russian towns,' as it was called, remained the capital of the Russian state and the centre of the Russian name. … From the time historical critics first became acquainted with Nestor's account, that is to say from the beginning of the last century, until about fifteen or twenty years ago [written in 1877], scarcely anyone ventured to doubt the accuracy of his statement. Plenty of evidence was even gradually produced from other sources to corroborate in the most striking manner the tradition of the Russian chronicles."

V. Thomsen, Relations between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia, lecture 1.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 55.

R. G. Latham, The Germany of Tacitus; Epilegomena, section 18.

RUSSIA: A. D. 865. First attack of the Russians on Constantinople.

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 865.

RUSSIA: A. D. 865-900. Early relations with the Byzantine Empire.

"The first Russian naval expedition against Constantinople in 865 would probably have been followed by a series of plundering excursions, like those carried on by the Danes and Normans on the coasts of England and France, had not the Turkish tribe called the Patzinaks rendered themselves masters of the lower course of the Dnieper, and become instruments in the hands of the emperors to arrest the activity of the bold Varangians. The northern rulers of Kief were the same rude warriors that infested England and France, but the Russian people was then in a more advanced state of society than the mass of the population in Britain and Gaul. The majority of the Russians were freemen; the majority of the inhabitants of Britain and Gaul were serfs. {2756} The commerce of the Russians was already so extensive as to influence the conduct of their government, and to modify the military ardour of their Varangian masters. … After the defeat in 865, the Russians induced their rulers to send envoys to Constantinople to renew commercial intercourse, and invite Christian missionaries to visit their country; and no inconsiderable portion of the people embraced Christianity, though the Christian religion continued long after better known to the Russian merchants than to the Varangian warriors. The commercial relations of the Russians with Cherson and Constantinople were now carried on directly, and numbers of Russian traders took up their residence in these cities. The first commercial treaty between the Russians of Kief and the Byzantine empire was concluded in the reign of Basil I. The intercourse increased from that time."

G. Finlay, History of the Byzantine Empire, from 716 to 1057, book 2, chapter 2, section 1.

RUSSIA: A. D. 907-1043. Wars, commerce and church connection with the Byzantines.

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 907-1043.

RUSSIA: 10TH Century. The introduction of Christianity.

See CHRISTIANITY: 10TH CENTURY.

RUSSIA: A. D. 980-1054. Family divisions and their consequence.

"Under Wladimir I. (980-1015), and under Jaroslaf I. (1019-1054), the power of the grand-duchy of Kiew was respectable. But Jaroslaf having divided it between his sons conduced to enfeeble it. In the 12th century, the supremacy passed from the grand-duchy of Kiew to the grand-duchy of Wladimir, without extricating Russia from division and impotence. The law of primogeniture not existing in Russia, where it was not introduced into the Czarean family until the 14th century, the principalities were incessantly divided."

S. Menzies, History of Europe, chapter. 36.

RUSSIA: A. D. 988. Acquisition of Cherson.

See CHERSON: A. D. 988.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1054-1237. The early Russian territory and its divisions.

"It must not be forgotten that the oldest Russia was formed mainly of lands which afterwards passed under the rule of Poland and Lithuania. … The Dnieper, from which Russia was afterwards cut off, was the great central river of the elder Russia; of the Don and the Volga she held only the upper course. The northern frontier barely passed the great lakes of Ladoga and Onega, and the Gulf of Finland itself. It seems not to have reached what was to be the Gulf of Riga, but some of the Russian princes held a certain supremacy over the Finnish and Lettish tribes of that region. In the course of the 11th century, the Russian state, like that of Poland, was divided among princes of the reigning family, acknowledging the superiority of the great prince of Kief. In the next century the chief power passed from Kief to the northern Vladimir on the Kiasma. Thus the former Finnish land of Susdal on the upper tributaries of the Volga became the cradle of the second Russian power. Novgorod the Great, meanwhile, under elective princes, claimed, like its neighbour Pskof, to rank among commonwealths. Its dominion was spread far over the Finnish tribes to the north and east; the White Sea, and, far more precious, the Finnish Gulf, had now a Russian seaboard. It was out of Vladimir and Novgorod that the Russia of the future was to grow. Meanwhile a crowd of principalities, Polotsk, Smolensk, the Severian Novgorod, Tchernigof, and others, arose on the Duna and Dnieper. Far to the east arose the commonwealth of Viatka, and on the frontiers of Poland and Hungary arose the principality of Halicz or Galicia, which afterwards grew for a while into a powerful kingdom. Meanwhile in the lands on the Euxine the old enemies, Patzinaks and Chazars, gave way to the Cumans, known in Russian history as Polovtzi and Parthi. They spread themselves from the Ural river to the borders of Servia and Danubian Bulgaria, cutting off Russia from the Caspian. In the next century Russians and Cumans—momentary allies—fell before the advance of the Mongols, commonly known in European history as Tartars. Known only as ravagers in the lands more to the west, over Russia they become overlords for 250 years. All that escaped absorption by the Lithuanian became tributary to the Mongol. Still the relation was only a tributary one; Russia was never incorporated in the Mongol dominion, as Servia and Bulgaria were incorporated in the Ottoman dominion. But Kief was overthrown; Vladimir became dependent; Novgorod remained the true representative of free Russia in the Baltic lands."

E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, chapter 11, section 2.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1235. Formation of the grand-duchy of Lithuania, embracing a large area of Russian territory.

See LITHUANIA: A. D. 1235.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1239. Mongol conquest.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1229-1294.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480. Prosperity and greatness of Novgorod as a commercial republic. Two centuries of Tartar domination. Growing power of Lithuania and Poland. Rise of the Duchy of Moscow, the nucleus of the future Russian Empire.

"Alone among the cities the ancient Novgorod has boasted its exemption from plunder [at the hands of the Tartars]. The great city, though fallen since the days of Rurik from being the capital of an Empire, had risen to the dignity of a Republic. It had found wealth in trade; and at successive epochs had introduced the riches of Constantinople to the North, the merchandise of the great Hanse Towns to the South. It had profited by the example, and had emulated the prosperity, of the rich cities of Germany. It had striven also to attain their freedom; and, though still continuing to acknowledge a vague allegiance to the Russian Princes, it had been able, by its wealth and its remoteness from control, to win or to assume privileges, until it had resembled Bremen or Lubeck in the sovereignty of its assemblies, and had surpassed those cities by the assumption of a style declaratory of its independence. It boasted further of a prince, St. Alexander Nevsky, to whom a glorious victory over the Swedes had already given a name, and whose virtues were hereafter to enrol him among the Saints; and it had a defence in the marshes and forests which surrounded it and which had already once deterred the invaders. But even the great city could not continue to defy the Tartar horde, and its submission is at once the last and most conclusive proof of the supremacy of their power. Thenceforth the nation felt the bitterness of servitude. The Tartars did not occupy the country they had conquered; they retired to establish their settlements upon the Volga, where they became known as the Golden Horde: but they exacted the tribute and the homage of the Russian Princes. … {2757} Five centuries have been unable to obliterate the traces which this period has imprinted upon the national character. The Tartars oppressed and extorted tribute from the Russian princes; the princes in their turn became the oppressors and extortioners of their people. Deceit and lying, the refuge of the weak, became habitual. Increasing crime and increasing punishments combined to brutalise the people. The vice of drunkenness was universal. Trade indeed was not extinguished; and religion prospered so abundantly that of all the many monasteries of Russia there are but few that do not owe their origin to this time. … Meanwhile the provinces of the West were falling into the hands of other enemies. The Tartar wave had swept as far as Poland, but it had then recoiled, and had left the countries westward of the Dnieper to their fate. All links of the connection that had bound these regions to the Princes of Vladimir, were now broken. Vitepsk, Polotsk, Smolensk, and even provinces still nearer Moscow, were gradually absorbed by the growing power of Lithuania, which, starting from narrow limits between the Dwina and the Niemen, was destined to overshadow Russia.

See LITHUANIA: A. D. 1235.

The provinces of the South for a time maintained a certain unity and independence under the name of the Duchy of Halicz or Kief; but these also, through claims of inheritance or feudal right, became eventually merged in the dominions of their neighbours. Poland obtained Black Russia, which has never since returned to its earlier masters. Lithuania acquired Volhynia and Red Russia, and thus extended her wide empire from the Baltic as far as the Red Sea. Then came the union of these powers by the acceptance in 1383 of the Grand Duke Jagellon as King of Poland; and all hopes for the Russian princes of recovering their possessions seemed lost. The ancient empire of Yaroslaf was thus ended; and its history is parted from that of mediæval Russia by the dark curtain of two centuries in which the Russian people were a race but not a nation. The obscure descendants of Rurik still occupied his throne, and ruled with some appearance of hereditary succession. They even chose this period of their weakness to solace their vanity by the adoption of the style of Sovereigns of All the Russias. But they were the mere vassals of the Golden Horde. … It was not until the reign of Dimitry IV., that any sign was shown of reviving independence. Time, by weakening the Tartars, had then brought freedom nearer to the Russians. The Horde, which had been united under Bati, when it had first precipitated itself upon Europe, had become divided by the ambition of rebellious Khans, who had aspired to establish their independent power; and the Russians had at length a prince who was able to profit by the weakness of his enemies. Dimitry, who reigned from 1362 to 1389, is celebrated as having checked the divisions which civil strife and appanages had inflicted upon his country, and as having also gloriously repulsed the Lithuanians from the walls of Moscow, now rising to be his capital. But his greatest deed, and that by which he lives in the remembrance of every Russian, is his victory upon the Don, which gave to him thenceforth the name of Donskoi. The Tartars, indignant at his prominence, had united with the Lithuanians. For the first time the Russians turned against their tyrants, and found upon the field of Khoulikof [1383] that their freedom was still possible. They did not achieve indeed for many years what they now began to hope. Their strength was crippled by renewed attacks of Tartars from the south and of Lithuanians from the west; and they could not dare to brave the revengeful enmity of the Horde. For a hundred years they still paid tribute, and the successors of Dimitry still renewed their homage at the camp upon the Volga. But progress gradually was made. The Grand Prince Vassili Dimitrievitch [1389-1425] was able to extend his rule over a territory that occupied the space of six or seven of the modern governments round Moscow; and though the country, under Vassili Vassilievitch [1425-1462], became enfeebled by a renewal of civil strife, the increasing weakness of the Tartar power continued to prepare the way for the final independence that was accomplished by the close of the 15th century. The reign of Ivan III. became the opening of a new epoch in Russian history. He restored his people, long sunk out of the gaze of Europe, to a place among its nations, and recalled them in some degree from the barbarism of the East to the intercourse and civilization of the West. The Russia of old time was now no more; but the Grand Prince, or Duke of Moscow, as he was called, was still the heir of Rurik and of Yaroslaf, and in the growth of his Duchy their Empire reappeared. … Without the fame of a warrior, but with the wisdom of a statesman, with a strong hand and by the help of a long reign, he built up out of the fragments that surrounded Him an Empire that exceeded vastly that of his immediate predecessor. … The fall of the republic of Novgorod [1478] and the final extinction of the Golden Horde, are the events which are most prominent. Riches had been the bane of the great city. They had fostered insolence, but they had given a distaste for war. The citizens had often rebelled; they had accepted the protection of Lithuania, and had later meditated, and even for a time accomplished, a union with Poland. But they had had no strength to defend the liberty to which they had aspired. … When Ivan advanced, determined, as he said, to reign at Novgorod as he reigned at Moscow, they were unable to repel or to endure a siege, and they surrendered themselves into his hand. Once he had pardoned them; now their independence was taken from them. Their assembly was dissolved; their great bell, the emblem of their freedom, was carried to Moscow. The extinction of the Golden Horde was due to time and policy, rather than to any deeds which have brought glory to the Russian people.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1238-1391.

Released in this manner from the most dangerous both of domestic and of foreign foes the power of Ivan rapidly advanced. The broad province of Penn, that had begun to boast a half accomplished independence, had been early forced to acknowledge her subjection. The Khan of Kazan was now made tributary; and the rule of Ivan was extended from the Oural to the Neva. Provinces, as important, though less extensive, were acquired in the south. The Russian princes and cities that had preserved their independence were all, with the one exception of Riazan, compelled to acknowledge the sovereignty of Moscow. … {2758} At the same time the Lithuanians were thrust back. Their greatness had gone by; and the territories of Tula, Kalouga, and Orel now ceasing to own allegiance to a declining power, were incorporated with the rising Empire. That Empire had already reached the Dnieper, and was already scheming to recover the ancient capital of its princes."

C. F. Johnstone, Historical Abstracts, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: A. Rambaud, History of Russia, chapters 8-14 (volume 1).

RUSSIA: 15th Century. Effects of the Tartar domination. Sources of autocracy.

"The invasion of the Mongols, in the beginning of the 13th century, snapped the thread of Russia's destinies. … Nature, after preparing the invasion, herself marked its bounds. The Tatars, now masters of the steppes in the southeast, which felt to them very much like home, grew ill at ease as soon as they began to lose themselves in the forests of the north. They did not settle there. These regions were too European to suit their half-nomadic habits, and they cared more for tribute-payers than for subjects. So the 'kniazes' received their principalities back from the hands of the Mongols—as fiefs. They had to submit to the presence near their person of a sort of Tatar 'residents,'—the 'baskàks,' whose duty it was to take the census and to collect the taxes. They were compelled to take the long, long journey to the 'Horde,' often encamped in the heart of Asia, in order to receive their investiture from the successors of Djinghiz, and ended by becoming the vassals of a vassal of the 'Great-Khan.' At this price Russia retained her religion, her dynasties, and—thanks to her clergy and her princes—her nationality. Never yet was nation put through such a school of patience and abject submission. … Under this humiliating and impoverishing domination the germs of culture laid in the old principalities withered up. … The Tatar domination developed in the Russians faults and faculties of which their intercourse with Byzance had already brought them the germs, and which, tempered by time, have since contributed to develop their diplomatic gifts. … The oppression by man, added to the oppression by the climate, deepened certain traits already sketched in by nature in the Great-Russian's soul. Nature inclined him to submission, to endurance, to resignation; history confirmed these inclinations. Hardened by nature, he was steeled by history. One of the chief effects of the Tatar domination and all that makes up Russian history, is the importance given to the national worship. … The domination of an enemy who was a stranger to Christianity fortified the sufferers' attachment to their worship. Religion and native land were merged into one faith, took the place of nationality and kept it alive. It was then that the conception sprang up which still links the quality of Russian to the profession of Greek orthodoxy, and makes of the latter the chief pledge of patriotism. … Upon Russia's political sovereignty the Tatar domination had two parallel effects: it hastened national unity and it strengthened autocracy. The country which, under the appanage system, was falling to pieces, was bound together by foreign oppression as by a chain of iron. Having constituted himself suzerain of the 'Grand-Kniazes,' whom he appointed and dethroned at will, the Khan conferred on them his authority. The Asiatic tyranny of which they were the delegates empowered them to govern tyrannically. Their despotism over the Russians was derived from their servitude under the Tatars. … Every germ of free government, whether aristocratic or democratic, was stifled. Nothing remained but one power, the 'Velíki-Kniaz,' the autocrat,—and such now, after more than 500 years, still is the basis of the state."

A. Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars and the Russians, part 1, book 4, chapter 3.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1533-1682. From Ivan the Terrible to Peter the Great. The Poles at Moscow. Origin of the dynasty of the Romanoffs.

"Apart from the striking and appalling character of Ivan himself, whom Mickiewicz, the Polish poet, calls, in his lectures on the Slavonians, 'the most finished tyrant known in history—frivolous and debauched like Nero, stupid and ferocious like Caligula, full of dissimulation like Tiberius or Louis XI.,' the reign of Ivan the Terrible is interesting as marking the beginning of the intercourse between Russia and Western Europe, and especially between Russia and England. The natural approach to Russia from the west was, of course, through Poland; but the Poles impeded systematically, and for political reasons, the introduction of arts and artificers into Russia, and Sigismund wrote a letter to Elizabeth, warning her against the Muscovite power as a danger to civilization, only not formidable for the moment because it was still semi-barbarous. Ivan the Terrible was the third of the independent Tsars; and already under Ivan, sometimes called the 'Great'—to whom indeed belongs the honour of having finally liberated Russia from the Tartar yoke—endeavours had been made to enter into relations with various European nations. Foreigners, too, were encouraged to visit Russia and settle there. The movement of foreigners towards Russia increased with each succeeding reign; and beginning with the first Tsar of Muscovy it became much more marked under the third, that Ivan the Terrible, under whose reign the mariners in the service of the English company of 'merchant adventurers' entered the White Sea, and, in their own language, 'discovered' Russia. Russia was, indeed, until that time, so far as Western Europe was concerned, an unknown land, cut off from Western civilization for political and warlike reasons by the Poles, and for religious reasons by the Catholic Church. On the 18th of March, 1584, Ivan was sitting half dressed, after his bath, 'solacing himself and making merie with pleasant songs, as he used to doe.' He called for his chess-board, had placed the men, and was just setting up the king, when he fell back in a swoon and died. … The death of Ivan was followed by strong dislike against the English at Moscow; and the English diplomatist and match-maker, Sir Jerome Bowes, after being ironically informed that 'the English king was dead,' found himself seized and thrown into prison. He was liberated through the representations of another envoy, who pointed out that it would be imprudent to excite Elizabeth's wrath; and though for a time intercourse between Russia and Western Europe was threatened, through the national hatred of foreigners as manifested by the councillors of the Tsar, yet when the weak-minded Feodor fell beneath the influence of his brother-in-law Boris Godounoff, the previous policy, soon to become traditional, of cultivating relations with Western Europe, was resumed. … {2759} Nineteen years have yet to pass before the election of the first of the Romanoffs to the throne; for strange as it may seem, the first member of the dynasty of the Romanoffs was chosen and appointed to the imperial rule by an assembly representing the various estates. Meanwhile the order of succession had been broken. Several pretenders to the throne had appeared, one of whom, Demetrius, distinctively known as the 'Imposter,' attained for a time supreme power. Demetrius, married to a Polish lady, Marina Mniszek, was aided by her powerful family to maintain his position in Moscow; for the Mniszeks assembled and sent to the Russian capital a body of 4,000 men. Then Ladislas [son of the king] of Poland interfered, and after a time [1610] Moscow fell beneath the power of the Poles.

See POLAND: A. D. 1590-1648.

Soon, however, the national feeling of Russia was aroused. A butcher, or cattle dealer of Nijni Novgorod, named Minin, whose patriotism has made him one of the most popular figures in Russian history, got together the nucleus of a national army, and called upon the patriotic nobleman, Prince Pojarski, to place himself at its head. Pojarski and Minin marched together to Moscow, and their success in clearing the capital of the foreign invaders [1612] is commemorated by a group of statuary which stands in the principal square of Moscow. … Among the tombs of the metropolitans buried in … [the cathedral of the Assumption at Moscow] are those of Philaret and Hermogenes, who were thrown into prison by the Poles for refusing to consent to the accession of Ladislas, the Polish prince, to the Russian throne. Hermogenes died soon after his arrest. Philaret, at the expulsion of the Poles, was carried away captive by them in their retreat from Moscow (1612), and was kept nine years a prisoner in Poland. On his return to Russia, he found his son, Michael Feodorovitch, elected to the throne. The belief, then, of the Russian people in Michael's patriotism, seems to have been founded on a knowledge of the patriotism of his father. The surname of the metropolitan who had defied the Polish power and had suffered nine years' imprisonment in Poland was Romanoff; Philaret was the name he had adopted on becoming a monk. His baptismal name was Feodor, and hence the patronymic Feodorovitch attached to the name of Michael, the first of the Romanoffs. There is little to say about the reign of Michael Feodorovitch, the circumstances having once been set forth under which he was elected to the vacant throne; and his son and successor, Alexis Michailovitch, is chiefly remembered as father of Peter the Great."

H. S. Edwards, The Romanoffs, chapters 1-2.

ALSO IN: W. K. Kelly, History of Russia, chapters 13-19 (volume 1).

_P. Mérimée, Demetrius the Imposter._

RUSSIA: A. D. 1547. Assumption of the title, Czar, or Tzar, by the Grand Prince of Moscow.

"In January 1547, Ivan [IV., known as Ivan the Terrible] ordered the Metropolitan Macarius to proceed with his coronation. He assumed at the ceremony not only the title of Grand Prince, but that of Tzar. The first title no longer answered to the new power of the sovereign of Moscow, who counted among his domestics, princes and even Grand Princes. The name of Tzar is that which the books in the Slavonic language, ordinarily read by Ivan, give to the kings of Judæa, Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, and to the emperors of Rome and Constantinople. Now, was not Ivan in some sort the heir of the Tzar Nebuchadnezzar, the Tzar Pharaoh, the Tzar Ahasuerus, and the Tzar David, since Russia was the sixth empire spoken of in the Apocalypse? Through his grandmother Sophia Palæologus, he was connected with the family of the Tzars of Byzantium; through his ancestor Vladimir Monomachus, he belonged to the Porphyrogeniti; and through Constantine the Great, to Cæsar. … We may imagine what prestige was added to the dignity of the Russian sovereign by this dazzling title, borrowed from Biblical antiquity, from Roman majesty, from the orthodox sovereigns of Byzantium."

A. Rambaud, History of Russia, volume 1, chapter 15.

"This title [Czar] … is not a corruption of the word 'Cæsar,' as many have supposed [see CÆSAR, THE TITLE], but is an old Oriental word which the Russians acquired through the Slavonic translation of the Bible, and which they bestowed at first on the Greek emperors, and afterwards on the Tartar Khans. In Persia it signifies throne, supreme authority; and we find it in the termination of the names of the kings of Assyria and Babylon, such as Phalassar, Nabonasser, &c.—Karamsin."

W. K. Kelly, History of Russia, volume 1, page 125, foot-note.

"Von Hammer, in his last note to his 31st book, says, 'The title Czar or Tzar is an ancient title of Asiatic sovereigns. We find an instance of it in the title 'The Schar,' of the sovereign of Gurdistan; and in that of Tzarina … of the Scythians.'"

Sir E. S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, page 213, foot-note.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1569-1571. First collision with the Turks. Their repulse from Astrakhan.- Moscow stormed and sacked by the Crim Tartars. Peace with the Porte.

At the time (1566) of the accession of Selim II. to the Ottoman throne, the Russians "had been involved in fierce and frequent wars with the Sultan's vassals, the Crim Tartars; but the Porte had taken no part in these contests. But the bold genius of the Vizier Sokolli now attempted the realisation of a project, which, if successful, would have barred the southern progress of Russia, by firmly planting the Ottoman power on the banks of the Don and the Volga, and along the shores of the Caspian Sea. … Sokclli proposed to unite the rivers Don and Volga by a canal, and then send a Turkish armament up the sea of Azoph and the Don, thence across by the intended channel to the Volga, and then down the latter river into the Caspian; from the southern shores of which sea the Ottomans might strike at Tabriz and the heart of the Persian power. … Azoph already belonged to the Turks, but in order to realise the great project entertained it was necessary to occupy Astrakhan also. Accordingly, 3,000 Janissaries and 20,000 horse were sent [1569] to besiege Astrakhan, and a cooperative force of 30,000 Tartars was ordered to join them, and to aid in making the canal. 5,000 Janissaries and 3,000 pioneers were at the same time sent to Azoph to commence and secure the great work at its western extremity. But the generals of Ivan the Terrible did their duty to their stern master ably in this emergency. The Russian garrison of Astrakhan sallied on its besiegers, and repulsed them with considerable loss. {2760} And a Russian army, 15,000 strong, under Prince Serebinoff, came suddenly on the workmen and Janissaries near Azoph, and put them to head-long flight. It was upon this occasion that the first trophies won from the Turks came into Russian hands. An army of Tartars, which marched to succour the Turks, was also entirely defeated by Ivan's forces; and the Ottomans, dispirited by their losses and reverses, withdrew altogether from the enterprise. … Russia was yet far too weak to enter on a war of retaliation with the Turks. She had subdued the Tartar Khanates of Kasan and Astrakhan; but their kinsmen of the Crimea were still formidable enemies to the Russians, even without Turkish aid. It was only two years after the Ottoman expedition to the Don and Volga that the Khan of the Crimea made a victorious inroad into Russia, took Moscow by storm, and sacked the city (1571). The Czar Ivan had, in 1570, sent an ambassador, named Nossolitof, to Constantinople, to complain of the Turkish attack on Astrakhan, and to propose that there should be peace, friendship, and alliance between the two empires. … The Russian ambassador was favourably received at the Sublime Porte, and no further hostilities between the Turks and Russians took place for nearly a century."

Sir E. S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, chapter 11.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1577-1580. Conquests by the Poles.

See POLAND: A. D. 1574-1590.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1578-1579. Yermac's conquest of Siberia.

See SIBERIA.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1613-1617. War with Sweden. Cession of territory, including the site of St. Petersburg.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1611-1629.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1652. Allegiance of the Cossacks of the Ukraine transferred from the King of Poland to the Czar.

See POLAND: A. D. 1648-1654.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1655-1659. The great schism, known as the Rascol.

"In the reign of Alexis took place the great revision of the Bible, carried out by the energy of Nicon, the Patriarch, who, finding that the church-books were full of ridiculous blunders caused by ignorant copyists, procured a quantity of the best Greek manuscripts from Mount Athos, and other places. In 1655, and the following year, he summoned two councils of the church, at which the newly translated service-books were promulgated and the old ones called in. In consequence of this change, a great schism took place in the Russian Church, a number of people attaching a superstitious veneration to the old books, errors and all. Thus was formed the large sect of the Staro-obriadtsi or Raskolniks, still existing in Russia, who have suffered great persecutions at many periods of her history."

W. R. Morfill, The Story of Russia, chapter 6.

"The most important innovation, which afterwards became the symbol and the war-cry of the religious rebellion, referred to the position of the fingers in making the sign of the cross. The Russians of Nicon's time when they crossed themselves held two fingers together, while the Oriental churches and the Greeks enjoined their adherents to cross themselves with three fingers united into one point. The two-fingered cross of the Muscovites was used in the Orient only for giving the priestly benediction. … Patriarch Nicon was anxious to return to ancient traditions. Reserving the two-fingered cross for priestly benedictions only, he re-established the three-fingered Greek cross, or, as his opponents called it, 'the pinch-of-snuff cross,' for the private act of devotion. Then, too, in certain cases, for instance in stamping the round wafers, he introduced the use of the equilateral, four-sided cross. … The Russians celebrated the mass on seven wafers, while the Greeks and Orientals used only five. In the processions of the Church the Russians were in the habit of first turning their steps westward—going with the sun; the Greeks marched eastward—against the sun. In all these points Patriarch Nicon conformed to the traditions of the Greek mother-church. In conformity with this rule, moreover, he directed that the hallelujahs should be 'trebled,' or sung thrice, as with the Greeks, the Russians having up till then only 'doubled' it—singing, instead of the third hallelujah, its Russian equivalent, 'God be praised.' Finally, or we should rather say above all, Nicon introduced a fresh spelling of the name of Jesus. The fact is that, probably in consequence of the Russian habit of abbreviating some of the commonest scriptural names, the second letter in the name Jesus had been dropped altogether; it was simply spelt Jsus, without any sign of abbreviation. Patriarch Nicon corrected this orthographical error, replacing the missing letter. Was this all? Yes, this was all. As far as doctrinal matters were concerned, nothing more serious was at stake in the great religious schism of the 17th century, known by the name of the Rascol. And yet it was for these trifles—a letter less in a name, a finger more in a cross, the doubling instead of the trebling of a word—that thousands of people, both men and women, encountered death on the scaffold or at the stake. It was for these things that other scores of thousands underwent the horrible tortures of the knout, the strappado, the rack, or had their bodies mutilated, their tongues cut, their hands chopped off."

Stepniak, The Russian Peasantry (American edition), pages 237-239.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1686-1696. War of the Holy League against the Turks. Capture of Azov. First foothold on the Black Sea acquired.

See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1689. Accession of Peter the Great.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1697-1704. Peter the Great: his travels in pursuit of knowledge; his apprenticeship to the useful arts; his civilizing work in Muscovy.

"Many princes before [Peter the Great] had renounced crowns, wearied out with the intolerable load of public affairs; but no man had ever divested himself of the royal character, in order to learn the art of governing better: this was a stretch of heroism which was reserved for Peter the Great alone. He left Russia in [1697], having reigned as yet but [a few] years, and went to Holland disguised under a common name, as if he had been a menial servant of that same Lefort, whom he sent in quality of ambassador-extraordinary to the States-General. As soon as he arrived at Amsterdam, he enrolled his name among the shipwrights of the admiralty of the Indies, and wrought in the yard like the other mechanics. At his leisure hours he learned such parts of the mathematics as are useful to a prince,—fortification, navigation, and the art of drawing plans. He went into the workmen's shops, and examined all their manufactures: nothing could escape his observation. {2761} From thence he passed over into England, where having perfected himself in the art of ship-building, he returned to Holland, carefully observing every thing that might turn to the advantage of his country. At last, after two years of travel and labor, to which no man but himself would have willingly submitted, he again made his appearance in Russia, with all the arts of Europe in his train. Artists of every kind followed him in abundance. Then were seen, for the first time, large Russian ships in the Baltic, and on the Black Sea and the ocean. Stately buildings, of a regular architecture, were raised among the Russian huts. He founded colleges; academies, printing-houses, and libraries. The cities were brought under a regular police. The dress and customs of the people were gradually changed, though not without some difficulty; and the Muscovites learned by degrees the true nature of a social state. Even their superstitious rites were abolished; the dignity of the patriarch was suppressed; and the czar declared himself the head of the Church. This last enterprise, which would have cost a prince less absolute than Peter both his throne and his life, succeeded almost without opposition, and insured to him the success of all his other innovations. After having humbled an ignorant and a barbarous clergy, he ventured to make a trial of instructing them, though, by that means, he ran the risk of rendering them formidable. … The czar not only subjected the Church to the State, after the example of the Turkish emperors, but, what was a more masterly stroke of policy, he dissolved a militia of much the same nature with that of the janizaries: and what the sultans had attempted in vain, he accomplished in a short time: he disbanded the Russian janizaries, who were called Strelitz, and who kept the czars in subjection. These troops, more formidable to their masters than to their neighbors, consisted of about 30,000 foot, one half of which remained at Moscow, while the other was stationed upon the frontiers. The pay of a Strelitz was no more than four roubles a year; but this deficiency was amply compensated by privileges and extortions. Peter at first formed a company of foreigners, among whom he enrolled his own name, and did not think it below him to begin the service in the character of a drummer, and to perform the duties of that mean office; so much did the nation stand in need of examples! By degrees he became an officer. He gradually raised new regiments; and, at last, finding himself master of a well-disciplined army, he broke the Strelitz, who durst not disobey. The cavalry were nearly the same with that of Poland, or France, when this last kingdom was no more than an assemblage of fiefs. The Russian gentlemen were mounted at their own expense, and fought without discipline, and sometimes without any other arms than a sabre or a bow, incapable of obeying, and consequently of conquering. Peter the Great taught them to obey, both by the example he set them and by the punishments he inflicted; for he served in the quality of a soldier and subaltern officer, and as czar he severely punished the Boyards, that is, the gentlemen, who pretended that it was the privilege of their order not to serve but by their own consent. He established a regular body to serve the artillery, and took 500 bells from the churches to found cannon. … He was himself a good engineer; but his chief excellence lay in his knowledge of naval affairs: he was an able sea-captain, a skilful pilot, a good sailor, an expert shipwright, and his knowledge of these arts was the more meritorious, as he was born with a great dread of the water. In his youth he could not pass over a bridge without trembling. … He caused a beautiful harbor to be built at the mouth of the Don, near Azof, in which he proposed to keep a number of galleys; and some time after, thinking that these vessels, so long, light, and flat, would probably succeed in the Baltic, he had upwards of 300 of them built at his favorite city of Petersburg. He showed his subjects the method of building ships with fir only, and taught them the art of navigation. He had even learned surgery, and, in a case of necessity, has been known to tap a dropsical person. He was well versed in mechanics, and instructed the artists. … He was always travelling up and down his dominions, as much as his wars would allow him; but he travelled like a legislator and natural philosopher, examining nature everywhere, endeavoring to correct or perfect her; sounding with his own hands the depths of seas and rivers, repairing sluices, visiting docks, causing mines to be searched for, assaying metals, ordering accurate plans to be drawn, in the execution of which he himself assisted. He built, upon a wild and uncultivated spot, the imperial city of Petersburg. … He built the harbor of Cronstadt, on the Neva, and Sainte-Croix, on the frontiers of Persia; erected forts in the Ukraine and Siberia; established offices of admiralty at Archangel, Petersburg, Astrakhan, and Azof; founded arsenals, and built and endowed hospitals. All his own houses were mean, and executed in a bad taste; but he spared no expenses in rendering the public buildings grand and magnificent. The sciences, which in other countries have been the slow product of so many ages, were, by his care and industry, imported into Russia in full perfection. He established an academy on the plan of the famous societies of Paris and London. … Thus it was that a single man changed the face of the greatest empire in the universe. It is however a shocking reflection, that this reformer of mankind should have been deficient in that first of all virtues, the virtue of humanity. Brutality in his pleasures, ferocity in his manners, and cruelty in his punishments, sullied the lustre of so many virtues. He civilized his subjects, and yet remained himself a barbarian. He would sometimes with his own hands execute sentences of death upon the unhappy criminals; and, in the midst of a revel, would show his dexterity in cutting off heads."

Voltaire, History of Charles XII., King of Sweden, book 1.

ALSO IN: _J. L. Motley, Peter the Great._

E. Schuyler, Peter the Great, volume 1.

A. Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, part 1, book 4, chapter 4.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1699. The Peace of Carlowitz with the Sultan. Possession of Azov confirmed.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1699.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1700. Aggressive league with Poland and Denmark against Charles XII. of Sweden. Defeat at Narva.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1697-1700.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1701-1706. War with Charles XII. of Sweden in Poland and Livonia.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1701-1707.

{2762}

RUSSIA: A. D. 1703-1718. The founding of St. Petersburg.

"Immediately after the capture of Nyenskanz [1703], a council of war was convened to consider the question of defending and utilising the mouth of the Neva, and whether it would be better to strengthen the little fort which had just been taken, or to seek a fit site for a commercial town nearer the sea. The latter course was decided upon. Near its mouth the Neva takes a sharp turn and divides into three or four branches, which by subsequent redivision form a number of islands, large and small. These marshy islands, overgrown with forests and thickets, and liable to be covered with water during the westerly winds, were inhabited by a few Finnish fishermen, who were accustomed to abandon their mud huts at the approach of high water, and seek a refuge on the higher ground beyond. It was on the first of these islands, called by the Finns Yanni-Saari, or Hare Island, where the river was still broad and deep, that Peter laid the foundation of a fortress and a city, named St. Petersburg, after his patron saint. … For this work many carpenters and masons were sent from the district of Novgorod, who were aided by the soldiers. Wheelbarrows were unknown (they are still little used in Russia), and in default of better implements the men scraped up the earth with their hands, and carried it to the ramparts on pieces of matting or in their shirts. Peter wrote to Ramodanofsky, asking him to send the next summer at least 2,000 thieves and criminals destined for Siberia, to do the heavy work under the direction of the Novgorod carpenters. At the same time with the construction of the bastions, a church was built in the fortress and dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul. … Just outside of the fortress Peter built for himself a small hut, which he called his palace. It was about fifty-five feet long by twenty wide, built of logs roofed with shingles, and contained only three rooms, lighted by little windows set in leaden frames. In respect for this, his earliest residence in St. Petersburg, Peter subsequently had another building erected outside of it to preserve it from the weather, and in this state it still remains, an object of pilgrimage to the curious and devout. … In spite of disease and mortality among the men, in spite of the floods, which even in the first year covered nearly the whole place and drowned some who were too ill to move, the work went on. But in its infancy St. Petersburg was constantly in danger from the Swedes, both by sea and land. … St. Petersburg was the apple of Peter's eye. It was his 'paradise,' as he often calls it in his letters. It was always an obstacle, and sometimes the sole obstacle, to the conclusion of peace. Peter was willing to give up all he had conquered in Livonia and Esthonia, and even Narva, but he would not yield the mouth of the Neva. Nevertheless, until the war with Sweden had been practically decided by the battle of Poltava, and the position of St. Petersburg had been thus secured, although it had a certain importance as a commercial port, and as the fortress which commanded the mouth of the Neva, it remained but a village. The walls of the fortress were finally laid with stone, but the houses were built of logs at the best, and for many years, in spite of the marshy soil, the streets remained unpaved. If fate had compelled the surrender of the city, there would not have been much to regret. Gradually the idea came to Peter to make it his capital. In 1714 the Senate was transported thither from Moscow, but wars and foreign enterprises occupied the Tsar's attention, and it was not until 1718 that the colleges or ministries were fully installed there, and St. Petersburg became in fact the capital of the Empire."

E. Schuyler, Peter the Great, chapter 46 (volume 2).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1707-1718. Invasion by Charles XII. of Sweden. His ruinous defeat at Pultowa. His intrigues with the Turks. Unlucky expedition of the Czar into Moldavia. Russian conquests in the north.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1707-1718.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1721. The Peace of Nystad with Sweden. Livonia and other conquests of Peter the Great secured. Finland given up.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1719-1721.

[IMAGE: CENTRAL EUROPE IN 1715 AFTER THE TREATIES OF UTRECHT AND RASTADT.

FRANCE.[IN 1643] ACQUIRED BY FRANCE UNDER LOUIS XIV. HABSBURG POSSESSIONS. HOHENZOLLERN POSSESSIONS. DANISH POSSESSIONS. HOUSE OF HOLSTEEN-GOTTORP. ECCLESIASTICAL STATES OF THE EMPIRE. STATES OF THE CHURCH. THE BOUNDARY OF THE EMPIRE IS SHOWN BY THE HEAVY RED LINE.]

[IMAGE: EASTERN EUROPE IN 1715. SHOWING SOME PRIOR AND SUBSEQUENT CHANGES. HABSBURG POSSESSIONS. HOHENZOLLERN POSSESSIONS. VENETIAN POSSESSIONS. DANISH AND NORWEGIAN POSSESSIONS. SWEDISH POSSESSIONS. RUSSIA. POLAND. THE EASTERN BOUNDARY UP THE EMPIRE IS SHOWN BY THE HEAVY RED LINE.]

RUSSIA: A. D. 1725-1739. The reigns of Catherine I., Peter II., and Anne Ivanovna. Fruitless war with Turkey. Depredations in the Crimea.

"The death of Peter found the Russian Court divided into two powerful factions. The reactionary party, filled with Russians of the old school, who had looked upon the reforms of Peter with no favourable eye, such as the Golitsins and the Dolgorukis, were anxious to raise to the throne Peter, the son of Alexis [Peter the Great's son, whom he had caused to be put to death], a mere boy; whereas the party of progress, led by Menshikov, wished that Catherine, the Tsar's widow, should succeed. … The party of reform finally triumphed. Catherine was elected the successor of her husband, and the chief authority fell into the hands of Alexander Menshikov. … The brief reign of Catherine is distinguished only by two events which added any glory to Russia. The Academy of Sciences was founded in 1726, and Behring, a Dane, was sent on an exploring expedition to Kamchatka. He has left his name indelibly written on the geography of the world. … The Empress died on the 17th of May, 1727, a little more than two years after her accession to the throne, aged about 39 years. … A ukase of Peter permitted Catherine to choose her successor. She accordingly nominated Peter, the son of the unfortunate Alexis, and, in default of Peter and his issue, Elizabeth and Anne, her daughters. Anne died in 1728, the year after her mother; she had married Karl Friedrich, the Duke of Holstein, … and was the mother of the unfortunate Peter III. Menshikov was appointed the guardian of the young Tsar till he had reached the age of 17." In four months Menshikov was in disgrace and the young Tsar had signed a ukase which condemned him to Siberian banishment. He died in 1729, and was followed to the grave a year later by the boy autocrat whose fiat had been his ruin. On the death of Peter II., the will of Catherine, in favor of her daughters, was set aside, and the Council of the Empire conferred the crown on Anne [Anne Ivanovna], the widowed Duchess of Courland, who was a daughter of Ivan, elder brother of Peter the Great. An attempt was made to impose on her a constitution, somewhat resembling the Pacta Conventa of the Poles, but she evaded it. "The Empress threw herself entirely into the hands of German favourites, especially a Courlander of low extraction, named Biren, said to have been the son of a groom. … The Empress was a woman of vulgar mind, and the Court was given up to unrefined orgies. … {2763} Her reign was not an important one for Russia either as regards internal or foreign affairs. The right of primogeniture which had been introduced into the Russian law of real property by Peter the Great, was abolished; it was altogether alien to the spirit of Slavonic institutions. A four years' war with Turkey led to no important results."

W. R. Morfill, The Story of Russia, chapter 8.

"The Russians could have no difficulty in finding a pretence for the war [with Turkey], because the khan of the Turkish allies and dependents, the Tatars on the coast of the Black Sea and the Sea of Asof, and in the Crimea, could never wholly restrain his wandering hordes from committing depredations and making incursions into the neighbouring pasture-lands of Russia. … In 1735 a Russian corps marched into the Crimea, ravaged a part of the country, and killed a great number of Tatars; but having ventured too far without a sufficient stock of provisions, they were obliged to retreat, and sustained so great a loss in men that what had been accomplished bore no proportion to this misfortune. The almost total failure of this first attempt, which had cost the Russians 10,000 men, by no means deterred them from pursuing their designs of conquest. Count Munich marched with a large army from the Ukraine into the Crimea (1730). The Tatars … suffered the Russian troops to advance unmolested, thinking themselves safe behind their entrenchments. … But entrenchments of that kind were unable to resist the impetuosity of the Russian troops. They were surmounted; the Tatars repulsed; and a great part of the Crimea lay at the mercy of the conquerors. In the month of June they entered the Crimean fortress of Perekop. The Russian troops now retaliated the devastations committed by the Tatars in the Empire; but they found it impossible to remain long. … Whatever the army was in want of had to be fetched with extreme difficulty from the Ukraine; so that Munich at length found himself, towards autumn, under the necessity of withdrawing with his troops by the shortest way to the Ukraine. … While Munich was in the Crimea, endeavouring to chastise the Tatars for their depredations, Lascy had proceeded with another army against Asof. The attack proved successful; and on the 1st of July the fort of Asof had already submitted to his arms. … The Ottomans published a manifesto against Russia, but they were neither able afterwards to protect the Crimea nor Moldavia, for they were soon threatened with an attack from Austria also. By the treaty with Russia, the emperor was bound to furnish 30,000 auxiliaries in case of a war with the Turks; but a party in the Austrian cabinet persuaded the emperor that it would be more advantageous to make war himself. … In the year 1737 a new expedition was undertaken from the Ukraine at an immense cost. … A new treaty had been concluded with Austria before this campaign, in which the two empires agreed to carry on the war in common, according to a stipulated plan. In order to gain a pretence for the war, Austria had previously acted as if she wished to force her mediation upon the Turks. The first year's campaign was so unfortunate that the Austrians were obliged to give up all idea of prosecuting their operations, and to think of the protection and defence of their own frontiers." But "the Russians were every where victorious, and made the names of their armies a terror both in the east and the west. Lascy undertook a new raid into the Crimea. Munich first threatened Bender, then reduced Otchakof without much difficulty, and left a few troops behind him when he withdrew … who were there besieged by a large combined army of Turks and Tatars, supported by a fleet. The Russians not only maintained the fortress, which was, properly speaking, untenable, but they forced the Turks to retire with a loss of 10,000 men. The Russian campaign in 1738 was as fruitless, and cost quite as many men, as the Austrian, but it was at least the means of bringing them some military renown." In 1739, the Russians, under Munich, advanced in the direction of Moldavia, violating Polish territory. "The Turkish and Tatar army which was opposed to the Russians was beaten and routed [at Stavoutchani] on the first attack. … Immediately afterwards the whole garrison, struck with a panic, forsook the fortress of Khotzim, which had never been once attacked, and it was taken possession of by the Russians, who were astonished at the ease of the conquest. Jassy was also taken, and Munich even wished to attack Bender, when the news of the peace of Belgrade … made him infuriate, because he saw clearly enough that Russia alone was not equal to carry on the war. … By the peace of Belgrade, Austria not only suffered shame and disgrace, but lost all the possessions which had been gained by Eugene in the last war, her best military frontier, and her most considerable fortresses. … By virtue of this treaty, Austria restored to Turkey Belgrade, Shabacz, the whole of Servia, that portion of Bosnia which had been acquired in the last war, and Austrian Vallachia. Russia was also obliged to evacuate Khotzim and Otchakof; the fortifications of the latter were, however, blown up; as well as those of Perekop; Russia retained Asof, and a boundary line was determined, which offered the Russians the most favourable opportunities for extending their vast empire southward, at the cost of the Tatars and Turks."

W. K. Kelly, History of Russia, chapter 33 (volume 1).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1726-1740. The question of the Austrian Succession. Guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738; and 1740.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1732-1733. Interference in the election of king of Poland.

See POLAND: A. D. 1732-1733.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1740-1762. Two regencies and two revolutions. The reign of Empress Elizabeth.

The Empress Anne died in 1740. Her deceased sister, Catherine, had left a daughter, Anna, married to Anthony Ulrich, Prince of Brunswick, and this daughter had an infant son, Ivan. By the will of the Empress the child Ivan was named as her successor, and Biren was appointed Regent. He enjoyed the regency but a short time, when he was overcome by a palace conspiracy and sent in banishment to Siberia. The mother of the infant Czar was now made Regent; but her rule was brief. Another revolution, in the latter part of 1741, consigned her, with her son and husband, to a prison, and raised the Princess Elizabeth, second daughter of Peter the Great, to the Russian throne. "The Empress Anna might have ruled without control, and probably have transmitted the throne to her son Ivan, had Elizabeth been left to the quiet enjoyment of her sensual propensities. {2764} Elizabeth indulged without concealment or restraint in amours with subalterns, and even privates of the guard whose barracks lay near her residence; she was addicted, like them, to strong drink, and had entirely gained their favour by her good humour and joviality. Her indolence made her utterly averse to business, and she would never have thought of encumbering herself with the cares of government had she not been restricted in her amusements, reproved for her behaviour, and, what was worst of all, threatened with a compulsory marriage with the ugly and disagreeable Anthony Ulrich, of Brunswick Bevern, brother of the Regent's husband. At the instigation, and with the money, of the French ambassador, La Chétardie, a revolution was effected. … Elizabeth, in the manifest which she published on the day of her accession, declared that the throne belonged to her by right of birth, in face of the celebrated ukase issued by her father in 1722, which empowered the reigning sovereign to name his successor. … On communicating her accession to the Swedish Government [which had lately declared war and invaded Finland with no success], she expressed her desire for peace, and her wish to restore matters to the footing on which they had been placed by the Treaty of Nystadt. The Swedes, who took credit for having assisted the revolution which raised her to the throne, demanded from the gratitude of the Empress the restitution of all Finnland, with the town of Wiborg and part of Carelia; but Elizabeth, with whom it was a point of honour to cede none of the conquests of her father, would consent to nothing further than the re-establishment of the Peace of Nystadt. On the renewal of the war the Swedes were again unsuccessful in every rencounter, as they had been before."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 6, chapter 3 (volume 3).

"This war had no result except to show the weakness of the Sweden of Charles XII. against regenerate Russia. The Scandinavian armies proved themselves very unworthy of their former reputation. Elizabeth's generals, Lascy and Keith, subdued all the forts in Finland. At Helsingfors 17,000 Swedes laid down their arms before a hardly more numerous Russian force. By the treaty of Abo [August 17, 1743], the Empress acquired South Finland as far as the river Kiümen, and caused Adolphus Frederic, Administrator of the Duchy of Holstein, and one of her allies, to be elected Prince Royal of Sweden, in place of the Prince Royal of Denmark. … In her internal policy … Elizabeth continued the traditions of the great Emperor. She developed the material prosperity of the country, reformed the legislation, and created new centres of population; she gave an energetic impulse to science and the national literature; she prepared the way for the alliance of France and Russia, emancipated from the German yoke; while in foreign affairs she put a stop to the threatening advance of Prussia." Elizabeth died in January, 1762.

A. Rambaud, History of Russia, volume 2, chapter 6.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1743. Acquisition of part of Finland from Sweden.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1720-1792.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1755. Intrigue with Austria and Saxony against Frederick the Great. Causes of the Seven Years War.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1755-1756.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1758. Invasion of Prussia. Defeat at Zorndorf. Retreat.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1758.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1759. Renewed invasion of Prussia. Victory at Kunersdorf.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1759 (JULY-NOVEMBER).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1761-1762. Brief reign of Peter III. His peace with Frederick the Great. His deposition and death. His queen, Catherine II., on the throne.

"Charles Peter Ulric, duke of Holstein Gottorp, whom Elizabeth had nominated her successor, who had embraced the Greek religion, and who, at his baptism, had received the name of Peter Fedorovitch, had arrived at St. Petersburg immediately after her accession: he was then in his fourteenth year. The education of this unfortunate prince was neglected. … Military exercises were the only occupation for which he had any relish, and in them he was indulged. … His potations, which were frequent and long, were encouraged by his companions; and, in a few years, he became a complete bacchanalian." In 1744 the young prince was married to "Sophia Augusta, daughter of the prince of Anhalt Zerbst, who, on her conversion to the Greek faith,—a necessary preliminary to her marriage,—had received the baptismal name of Catherine. This union was entitled to the more attention, as in its consequences it powerfully affected, not only the whole of Russia, but the whole of Europe. Shortly before its completion, Peter was seized with the small-pox, which left hideous traces on his countenance. The sight of him is said so far to have affected Catherine that she fainted away. But though she was only in her sixteenth year, ambition had already over her more influence than the tender passion, and she smothered her repugnance. Unfortunately, the personal qualities of the husband were not of a kind to remove the ill impression: if he bore her any affection, which appears doubtful, his manners were rude, even vulgar. … What was still worse, she soon learned to despise his understanding; and it required little penetration to foresee that, whatever might be his title after Elizabeth's death, the power must rest with Catherine. Hence the courtiers in general were more assiduous in their attentions to her than to him,—a circumstance which did not much dispose him for the better. Finding no charms in his new domestic circle, he naturally turned to his boon companions; his orgies became frequent; and Catherine was completely neglected. Hence her indifference was exchanged into absolute dislike. … Without moral principles; little deterred by the fear of worldly censure, in a court where the empress herself was any thing but a model of chastity; and burning with hatred towards her husband,—she soon dishonoured his bed." Elizabeth died on the 29th of December, 1761, and Peter III. succeeded to the throne without opposition. The plotting against him on behalf of his wife, had long been active, but no plans were ripe for execution. He was suffered to reign for a year and a half; but the power which he received at the beginning slipped quickly away from him. He was humane in disposition, and adopted some excellent measures. He suppressed the secret chancery—an inquisitorial court said to be as abominable as the Spanish inquisition. He emancipated the nobles from the servility to the crown which Peter the Great had imposed on them. {2765} He improved the discipline of the army, and gave encouragement to trade. But the good will which these measures might have won for him was more than cancelled by his undisguised contempt for Russia and the Russians, and especially for their religion, and by his excessive admiration for Frederick the Great, of Prussia, with whom his predecessor had been at war [but with whom he entered into alliance.]

See GERMANY: A. D. 1761-1762.

The clergy and the army were both alienated from him, and were easily persuaded to support the revolution, which Catherine and her favorites planned for his overthrow. Their scheme was carried out on the morning of the 19th of July, 1762, when Peter was in the midst of one of his orgies at Oranienbaum, some miles from the capital. Catherine went to the barracks of the troops, and regiment after regiment declared for her. "Accompanied by about 2,000 soldiers, with five times that number of citizens, who loudly proclaimed her sovereign of Russia, she went to the church of Our Lady of Kasan. Here every thing was prepared for her reception: the archbishop of Novogorod, with a host of ecclesiastics, awaited her at the altar; she swore to observe the laws and religion of the empire; the crown was solemnly placed on her head; she was proclaimed sole monarch of Russia, and the grand-duke Paul her successor." The dethroned czar, when the news of these events reached him, doubted and hesitated until he lost even the opportunity to take to flight. On the day following Catherine's coronation he signed an act of abdication. Within a week he was dead. According to accounts commonly credited, he was poisoned, and then strangled, because the poison did its deadly work too slowly. "Whether Catherine commanded this deed of blood, has been much disputed. There can be little doubt that she did. None of the conspirators would have ventured to such an extremity unless distinctly authorised by her." Two years later Catherine added another murder to her crimes by directing the assassination of Ivan, who had been dethroned as an infant by Elizabeth in 1741, and who had grown to manhood in hopeless imprisonment.

History of Russia (Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia), volume 2, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: History of the Reign of Peter III. and Catherine II., volume 1.

A. Rabbe and J. Duncan, History of Russia, volume 1, pages 203-221.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1762-1796. Character and reign of Catherine II. Partition of Poland. Wars with the Turks. Acquisition of the Crimea and part of the Caucasus. Extension of boundaries to the Dnieper.

"Thus was inaugurated the reign of Catherine II., a woman whose capacities were early felt to be great, but were great for evil as well as for good. … She was without scruple in the gratification of her passions, and without delicacy in their concealment; and a succession of lovers, installed ostentatiously in her palace, proclaimed to the world the shamelessness of their mistress. Yet she was great undoubtedly as a sovereign. With a clear and cultivated intellect, with high aims and breadth of views, and fearless because despising the opinions of others, she could plan and she could achieve her country's greatness; and in the extended dominions and improved civilization which she bequeathed to her successor is found a true claim to the gratitude of her subjects. The foreign transactions of the reign begin with the history of Poland. With Frederick of Prussia, Catherine may be said to have shared both the scheme of partition and the spoils that followed.

See POLAND: A. D. 1763-1773.

If it is doubtful which originated the transaction, there is at least no doubt but that Russian policy had prepared the way for such a measure. … The war with Turkey [see TURKS: A. D. 1768-1774] was closed with equal profit and yet greater glory to the Russian Empire. The Russian armies had fought and conquered upon the soil of Moldavia, and had invaded and occupied the Crimea. At the same time the Russian fleets, no longer confining themselves to the Baltic or Black Seas, had sailed round Europe, and had appeared in the Archipelago. An insurrection of the Greeks had aided their design; and for a time the Bosphorus and Constantinople had been threatened. The great Empress of the North had dazzled Europe by the vastness of her power and designs; and Turkey, exhausted and unequal to further contest, was constrained to purchase peace. The possession of Azof, Kertch, Yenikale, and Kinburn, the free navigation of the Euxine and the Mediterranean, were the immediate gains of Russia. A stipulation for the better treatment of the Principalities, and for the rights of remonstrance, both in their behalf, and in that of the Greek church at Constantinople, gave the opening for future advantages. Another clause assured the independence of the Khan of the Crimea, and of the Tartars inhabiting the northern shores of the Black Sea. Under the name of liberty, these tribes were now, like Poland, deprived of every strength except their own; and the way was prepared for their annexation by Russia. The Peace of Kainardji, as this settlement was called, was signed in 1774. Within ten years dissensions had arisen within the Crimea, and both Turks and Russians had appeared upon the scene. The forces of Catherine passed the isthmus as allies of the reigning Khan; but they remained to receive his abdication, and to become the masters of his country.

See TURKS: A. D. 1776-1792.

At the same time the Kuban was entered and subdued by Souvarof, and thus already the Caucasus was reached. Catherine was now at the height of her power. In a triumphant progress she visited her new dominions, and gave the august name of Sebastopol to a new city which was already destined to be the scourge of the Turkish Empire. She believed herself to be upon the road to Constantinople; and, in the interviews which she held with the Emperor Joseph II., she began to scheme for the partition of Turkey, as she had done for that of Poland. … The Empress now found herself assailed in two distinct quarters. Gustavus III. of Sweden, allying with the Sultan, invaded Finland; and in her palace at St. Petersburg the Empress heard the Swedish guns.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1720-1792.

She was relieved, however, on the north by the dissension in the Swedish army, which compelled the King to an inglorious retreat; and she became able to give an undivided attention to the affairs of the south. While an Austrian army, which supported her, was threatening the north-west of Turkey, her own forces conquered in the north-east. Under Souvarof the town of Oczakof was taken, and the battle of Rimnik was won. {2766} Ismail, that gave the key of the Danube, next fell, and in the horrors of its fall drew forth a cry from Europe. The triumph of Catherine was assured; but already the clouds of revolution had risen in the west; Austria, too busy with the affairs of the Netherlands, had withdrawn from the fight; and the Empress herself, disquieted, and satisfied for the time with her successes, concluded the Peace of Jassy, which extended her frontiers to the Dniester, and gave her the coast on which so soon arose the rich city of Odessa. The acquisitions of Catherine upon the south were completed. Those upon the west had still to receive important additions. Poland, already once partitioned was again to yield new provinces to Russia.

See POLAND: A. D. 1791-1792, and 1793-1796.

The internal government of the Empire was meant undoubtedly to rival these foreign successes, but unhappily fell short of them. … The long meditated secularization of the estates of the clergy was at last accomplished; the freedom of the serfs was now first urged; and, as a unique experiment in Russian history, the convoking of a kind of States General was made to discuss the project. But both project and parliament came to nothing. … There was much that was unreal in everything, and Europe, as well as the great Empress herself, was deceived. And so it came to pass that at the close of the reign there was the spectacle of much that had been begun but little finished. Before the death of Catherine [1796], in fact, her greatness may be said to have passed away."

C. F. Johnstone, Historical Abstracts, chapter 6.

"The activity of Catherine was prodigious, and her autocratic instincts extremely strong, and these impulses, affected by the French doctrines, which we must not forget set up despotism, if enlightened, as the perfection of wisdom, made her government attempt to accomplish all things and to meddle in every department of the national life. She tried to force civilisation into premature growths; established modern institutions of many kinds in a backward and half-barbaric empire; arranged industrial and economic projects and works in the minutest details; and rigidly prescribed even court dress and fashions. Ségur thus describes this omni-present and ubiquitous interference:—'It is sought to create at the same time a third estate, to attract foreign commerce, to establish all kinds of manufactures, to extend agriculture, to increase paper money, to raise the exchanges, to reduce the interest of money, to found cities, to people deserts, to cover the Black Sea with a new navy, to conquer one neighbour and circumvent another, and finally to extend Russian influence all over Europe.' These liberal reforms and grand aspirations came, however, for the most part to nothing; and Catherine's internal government grew by degrees into a grievous, cruel and prying despotism. … The antithesis of the liberalism in words and of the tyranny in deeds in Catherine's reign may be attributed to four main causes. She gradually found out that reform and progress were impossible in the Russian Empire—half Asiatic, backward and corrupt—and she swung back to the old tyranny of the past. The great rising of the serfs under Pugacheff, too—a servile outbreak of the worst kind —changed to a great extent the type of her government, and gave it a harsh and cruel complexion:—'The domestic policy of Catherine bore, until the end, the traces of those terrible years, and showed, as it were, the bloody cicatrices of the blows given and received in a death struggle.' … The foreign policy of Catherine was more successful than her government and administration at home, and the reasons are sufficiently plain. She found grand opportunities to extend her power in the long quarrels between France and England, in the alliance she maintained with Frederick the Great—an alliance she clung to, though she felt the burden—in the instability and weakness of the Austrian councils, in the confusion and strife of the French Revolution, above all in the decay of Islam; and Russia justly hailed her as a great conqueror. … The Muscovite race would not see her misdeeds in the march of conquest she opened for it; and her reputation has steadily increased in its eyes. 'The spirit of the people passes, in its fulness, into her. It was this that enabled her to make a complete conquest of her empire, and by this we do not mean the power which she wrested from the weakness, the cowardice, and the folly of Peter III.; but the position which this German woman attained at the close of her life, and especially after her death, in the history, and the national life, and development of a foreign and hostile race. For it may be said that it is since her death, above all, that she has become what she appears now—the sublime figure, colossal alike and splendid, majestic and attractive, before which incline, with an equal impulse of gratitude, the humble Moujik and the man of letters, who shakes the dust of reminiscences and legends already a century old.' In one particular, Catherine gave proof of being far in advance of the ideas of her day, and of extraordinary craft and adroitness. She anticipated the growing power of opinion in Europe, and skilfully turned it to her side by the patronage of the philosophers of France. In Napoleon's phrase, she did not spike the battery, she seized it and directed its fire; she had Voltaire, Diderot, and D'Alembert, admiring mouthpieces, to apologise for, nay to extol, her government. This great force had prodigious influence in throwing a glamour over the evil deeds of her reign, and in deceiving the world as to parts of her conduct: —'All this forms part of a system—a system due to the wonderful intuition of a woman, born in a petty German court, and placed on the most despotic throne of Europe; due, too—and so better—to her clear apprehension of the great power of the modern world—public opinion. It is, we do not hesitate to believe and affirm, because Catherine discovered this force, and resolved to make use of it, that she was able to play the part she played in history. Half of her reputation in Europe was caused by the admiration of Voltaire, solicited, won, managed by her with infinite art, nay, paid for when necessary.'"

_The Empress Catherine II. (Edinburgh Review, July, 1893)._

"In 1781 Catherine had already sent to Grimm the following resume of the history of her reign, set forth by her new secretary and factotum, Besborodko, in the fantastic form of an inventory:

Governments instituted according to the new form, 29; Towns built, 144; Treaties made, 30; Victories won, 78; Notable edicts, decreeing laws, 88; Edicts on behalf of the people, 123; Total, 492.

{2767}

Four hundred and ninety-two active measures! This astonishing piece of book-keeping, which betrays so naïvely all that there was of romantic, extravagant, childish, and very feminine, in the extraordinary genius that swayed Russia, and in some sort Europe, during thirty-four years, will no doubt make the reader smile. It corresponds, however, truly enough, to a sum-total of great things accomplished under her direct inspiration. … In the management of men … she is simply marvellous. She employs all the resources of a trained diplomatist, of a subtle psychologist, and of a woman who knows the art of fascination; she employs them together or apart, she handles them with unequalled 'maestria.' If it is true that she sometimes takes her lovers for generals and statesmen, it is no less true that she treats on occasion her generals and statesmen as lovers. When the sovereign can do nothing, the Circe intervenes. If it avails nothing to command, to threaten, or to punish, she becomes coaxing and wheedling. Towards the soldiers that she sends to death, bidding them only win for her victory, she has delicate attentions, flattering forethought, adorable little ways. … Should fortune smile upon the efforts she has thus provoked and stimulated, she is profusely grateful: honours, pensions, gifts of money, of peasants, of land, rain upon the artisans of her glory. But she does not abandon those who have had the misfortune to be unlucky. … Catherine's art of ruling was not, however, without its shortcomings, some of which were due to the mere fact of her sex, whose dependences and weaknesses she was powerless to overcome. 'Ah!' she cried one day, 'if heaven had only granted me breeches instead of petticoats, I could do anything. It is with eyes and arms that one rules, and a woman has only ears.' The petticoats were not solely responsible for her difficulties. We have already referred to a defect which bore heavily upon the conduct of affairs during her reign: this great leader of men, who knew so well how to make use of them, did not know how to choose them. … It seems that her vision of men in general was disturbed, in this respect, by the breath of passion which influenced all her life. The general, the statesman, of whom she had need, she seemed to see only through the male whom she liked or disliked. … These mistakes of judgment were frequent. But Catherine did more than this, and worse. With the obstinacy which characterised her, and the infatuation that her successes gave her, she came little by little to translate this capital defect into a 'parti pris,' to formulate it as a system; one man was worth another, in her eyes, so long as he was docile and prompt to obey. … And her idea that one man is worth as much as another causes her, for a mere nothing, for a word that offends her, for a cast of countenance that she finds unpleasing, or even without motive, for the pleasure of change and the delight of having to do with some one new, as she avows naïvely in a letter to Grimm, to set aside, disgraced or merely cashiered, one or another of her most devoted servants."

R. Waliszewski, Romance of an Empress, volume 2, book 2, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: _W. Tooke, Life of Catherine II._

Memoirs of Catherine II., by herself.

_Princess Daschkaw, Memoirs._

_S. Menzies, Royal Favourites._

F. C. Schlosser, History of the 18th Century, volumes 4-7.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1786. Establishment of the Jewish Pale.

See JEWS: A. D. 1727-1880.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1791-1793. Joined in the Coalitions against Revolutionary France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1790-1791; 1791 (JULY-SEPTEMBER); 1793 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1796. Accession of Paul.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1798-1799. The war of the Second Coalition against Revolutionary France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1799. Suwarrow's victorious campaign in Italy and failure in Switzerland. Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland. Its disastrous ending.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER); (AUGUST-DECEMBER); and (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1800. Desertion of the Coalition by the Czar. His alliance with Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (JUNE-FEBRUARY).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1800-1801. War with England. The Northern Maritime League and its sudden overthrow at Copenhagen by the British fleet. Peace with England.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1802.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1801. Paul's despotism and assassination. Accession of Alexander I.

The Emperor Paul's "choice of his Ministers was always directed by one dominant idea—that of surrounding himself with servants on whom he could entirely rely; for from the moment of his accession he foresaw and dreaded a Palace revolution. … He erred in the selection, and especially in the extent, of the means which he employed to save his life and his power; they only precipitated his deplorable end. Among the men whom he suspected, he persecuted some with implacable rigour, while he retained others at their posts and endeavoured to secure their fidelity by presents; this, however, only made them ungrateful. Never was there a sovereign more terrible in his severity, or more liberal when he was in a generous mood. But there was no certainty in his favour. A single word uttered intentionally or by accident in a conversation, the shadow of a suspicion, sufficed to make him persecute those whom he had protected. The greatest favourites of to-day feared to be driven from the Court on the morrow, and banished to a distant province. Yet the Emperor wished to be just. … All who belonged to the Court or came before the Emperor were thus in a state of continual fear." This fear, and the hatred which it inspired, produced in due time a conspiracy, headed by Counts Panin and Pahlen, of the Emperor's Council. Purporting to have for its object only the deposition of the Czar, the conspiracy was known and acquiesced in by the heir to the throne, the Grand-Duke Alexander, who had been persuaded to look upon it as a necessary measure for rescuing Russia from a demented ruler. "Paul was precipitating his country into incalculable disasters, and into a complete disorganisation and deterioration of the Government machine. … Although everybody sympathised with the conspiracy, nothing was done until Alexander had given his consent to his father's deposition." Then it was hurried to its accomplishment. The conspirators, including a large number of military and civil officials, supped together, on the evening of March 3, 1801. At midnight, most of them being then intoxicated, they went in a body to the palace, made their way to the Emperor's bed-chamber—resisted by only one young valet—and found him, in his night-clothes, hiding in the folds of a curtain. "They dragged him out in his shirt, more dead than alive; the terror he had inspired was now repaid to him with usury. … {2768} He was placed on a chair before a desk. The long, thin, pale, and angular form of General Bennigsen [a Hanoverian officer, just admitted to the conspiracy, but who had taken the lead when others showed signs of faltering], with his hat on his head and a drawn sword in his hand, must have seemed to him a terrible spectre. 'Sire,' said the General, 'you are my prisoner and have ceased to reign; you will now at once write and sign a deed of abdication in favour of the Grand-Duke Alexander.' Paul was still unable to speak, and a pen was put in his hand. Trembling and almost unconscious, he was about to obey, when more cries were heard. General Bennigsen then left the room, as he has often assured me, to ascertain what these cries meant, and to take steps for securing the safety of the palace and of the Imperial family. He had only just gone out when a terrible scene began. The unfortunate Paul remained alone with men who were maddened by a furious hatred of him. … One of the conspirators took off his official scarf and tied it round the Emperor's throat. Paul struggled. … But the conspirators seized the hand with which he was striving to prolong his life, and furiously tugged at both ends of the scarf. The unhappy emperor had already breathed his last, and yet they tightened the knot and dragged along the dead body, striking it with their bands and feet." When Alexander learned that an assassination instead of a forced abdication had vacated the throne for him, he "was prostrated with grief and despair. … The idea of having caused the death of his father filled him with horror, and he felt that his reputation had received a stain which could never be effaced. … During the first years of his reign, Alexander's position with regard to his father's murderers was an extremely difficult and painful one. For a few months he believed himself to be at their mercy, but it was chiefly his conscience and a feeling of natural equity which prevented him from giving up to justice the most guilty of the conspirators. … The assassins all perished miserably."

Prince Adam Czartoryski, Memoirs, volume 1, chapters 9 and 11.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1805. The Third Coalition against France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (JANUARY-APRIL).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1805. The crushing of the Coalition at Austerlitz.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (MARCH-DECEMBER).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1806-1807. War with Napoleon in aid of Prussia. Battle of Eylau. Treaty of Bartenstein with Prussia. Decisive defeat at Friedland.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER); 1806-1807; and 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1807. Ineffective operations of England as an ally against Turkey. Treaty of Tilsit. Secret understandings of Napoleon with the Czar.

See TURKS: A. D.1806-1807; and GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (JUNE-JULY).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1807-1810. Northern fruits of the Peace of Tilsit. English seizure of the Danish fleet. War with England and Sweden. Conquest of Finland. Peculiar annexation of the Grand Duchy to the Empire.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1807-1810.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1808. Imperial conference and Treaty of Erfurt.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1808 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1809. Cession of Eastern Galicia by the Emperor of Austria.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1809-1812. War with Turkey. Treaty of Bucharest. Acquisition of Bessarabia.

See TURKS: A. D. 1789-1812.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1810. Grievances against France. Desertion of the Continental System. Resumption of commerce with Great Britain. Rupture with Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1810-1812.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (June-September). Napoleon's invasion. Battles of Smolensk and Borodino. The French advance to Moscow.

"With the military resources of France, which then counted 130 departments, with the contingents of her Italian kingdoms, of the Confederation of the Rhine, of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and with the auxiliary forces of Prussia and Austria, Napoleon could bring a formidable army into the field. On the first of June the Grand Army amounted to 678,000 men, 356,000 of whom were French, and 322,000 foreigners. It included not only Belgians, Dutchmen, Hanoverians, Hanseats, Piedmontese, and Romans, then confounded under the name of Frenchmen, but also the Italian army, the Neapolitan army, the Spanish regiments, natives of Germany. … Besides Napoleon's marshals, it had at its head Eugene, Viceroy of Italy; Murat, King of Naples; Jerome, King of Westphalia; the princes royal and heirs of nearly all the houses in Europe. The Poles alone in this war, which recalled to them that of 1612, mustered 60,000 men under their standards. Other Slavs from the Illyrian provinces, Carinthians, Dalmatians, and Croats, were led to assault the great Slav empire. It was indeed the 'army of twenty nations,' as it is still called by the Russian people. Napoleon transported all these races from the West to the East by a movement similar to that of the great invasions, and swept them like a human avalanche against Russia. When the Grand Army prepared to cross the Niemen, it was arranged thus:—To the left, before Tilsit, Macdonald with 10,000 French and 20,000 Prussians under General York of Wartenburg; before Kovno, Napoleon with the corps of Davoust, Oudinot, Ney, the Guard commanded by Bessières, the immense reserve cavalry under Murat—in all a total of 180,000 men; before Pilony, Eugène with 50,000 Italians and Bavarians; before Grodno, Jerome Bonaparte, with 60,000 Poles, Westphalians and Saxons, &c. We must add to these the 30,000 Austrians of Schwartzenberg, who were to fight in Gallicia as mildly against the Russians as the Russians had against the Austrians in 1809. Victor guarded the Vistula and the Oder with 30,000 men, Augereau the Elbe with 50,000. Without reckoning the divisions of Macdonald, Schwartzenberg, Victor, and Augereau, it was with about 290,000 men, half of whom were French, that Napoleon marched to cross the Niemen and threaten the centre of Russia. Alexander had collected on the Niemen 90,000 men, commanded by Bagration; on the Bug, tributary to the Vistula, 60,000 men, commanded by Barclay de Tolly; those were what were called the Northern army and the army of the South. On the extreme right, Wittgenstein with 30,000 men was to oppose Macdonald almost throughout the campaign; on the extreme left, to occupy the Austrian Schwartzenberg as harmlessly as possible, Tormassof was placed with 40,000. {2769} Later this latter army, reinforced by 50,000 men from the Danube, became formidable, and was destined, under Admiral Tchitchagof, seriously to embarrass the retreat of the French. In the rear of all these forces was a reserve of 80,000 men—Cossacks and militia. … In reality, to the 290,000 men Napoleon had mustered under his hand, the Emperor of Russia could only oppose the 150,000 of Bagration and Barclay de Tolly. … At the opening of the campaign the head-quarters of Alexander were at Wilna. … They deliberated and argued much. To attack Napoleon was to furnish him with the opportunity he wished; to retire into the interior, as Barclay had advised in 1807, seemed hard and humiliating. A middle course was sought by adopting the scheme of Pfühl—to establish an intrenched camp at Drissa, on the Dwina, and to make it a Russian Torres Vedras. The events in the Peninsula filled all minds. Pfühl desired to act like Wellington at Torres Vedras." But his intrenched camp was badly placed; it was easily turned, and was speedily abandoned when Napoleon advanced beyond the Niemen, which he did on the 24th of June. The Russian armies fell back. "Napoleon made his entry into Wilna, the ancient capital of the Lithuanian Gedimin. He had said in his second proclamation, 'The second Polish war has begun!' The Diet of Warsaw had pronounced the re-establishment of the kingdom of Poland, and sent a deputation to Wilna to demand the adhesion of Lithuania, and to obtain the protection of the Emperor. … Napoleon, whether to please Austria, whether to preserve the possibility of peace with Russia, or whether he was afraid to make Poland too strong, only took half measures. He gave Lithuania an administration distinct from that of Poland. … A last attempt to negotiate a peace had failed. … Napoleon had proposed two unacceptable conditions—the abandonment of Lithuania, and the declaration of war against Great Britain. If Napoleon, instead of plunging into Russia, had contented himself with organising and defending the ancient principality of Lithuania, no power on earth could have prevented the reestablishment of the Polish-Lithuanian State within its former limits. The destinies of France and Europe would have been changed. … Napoleon feared to penetrate into the interior; he would have liked to gain some brilliant success not far from the Lithuanian frontier, and seize one of the two Russian armies. The vast spaces, the bad roads, the misunderstandings, the growing disorganisation of the army, caused all his movements to fail. Barclay de Tolly, after having given battle at Ostrovno and Vitepsk, fell back on Smolensk; Bagration fought at Mohilef and Orcha, and in order to rejoin Barclay retreated to Smolensk. There the two Russian generals held council. Their troops were exasperated by this continual retreat, and Barclay, a good tactician, with a clear and methodical mind, did not agree with Bagration, impetuous, like a true pupil of Souvorof. The one held firmly for a retreat, in which the Russian army would become stronger and stronger, and the French army weaker and weaker, as they advanced into the interior; the other wished to act on the offensive, full of risk as it was. The army was on the side of Bagration, and Barclay, a German of the Baltic provinces, was suspected and all but insulted. He consented to take the initiative against Murat, who had arrived at Krasnoé, and a bloody battle was fought (August 14). On the 16th, 17th, and 18th of August, another desperate fight took place at Smolensk, which was burnt, and 20,000 men perished. Barclay still retired, drawing with him Bagration. In his retreat Bagration fought Ney at Valoutina; it was a lesser Eylau: 15,000 men of both armies remained on the field of battle. Napoleon felt that he was being enticed into the interior of Russia. The Russians still retreated, laying waste all behind them. … The Grand Army melted before their very eyes. From the Niemen to Wilna, without ever having seen the enemy, it had lost 50,000 men from sickness, desertion and marauding; from Wilna to Mohilef nearly 100,000. … In the Russian army, the discontent grew with the retreating movement; … they began to murmur as much against Bagration as against Barclay. It was then that Alexander united the two armies under the supreme command of Koutouzof. … Koutouzof halted at Borodino. He had then 72,000 infantry, 18,000 regular cavalry, 7,000 Cossacks, 10,000 opoltchénié or militiamen, and 640 guns served by 14,000 artillerymen or pioneers; in all, 121,000 men. Napoleon had only been able to concentrate 86,000 infantry, 28,000 cavalry, and 587 guns, served by 16,000 pioneers or artillerymen. … On the 5th of September the French took the redoubt of Chevardino; the 7th was the day of the great battle: this was known as the battle of Borodino among the Russians, as that of the Moskowa in the bulletins of Napoleon, though the Moskowa flows at some distance from the field of carnage. … The battle began by a frightful cannonade of 1,200 guns, which was heard 30 leagues round. Then the French, with an irresistible charge, took Borodino on one side and the redoubts on the other; Ney and Murat crossed the ravine of Semenevskoé, and cut the Russian army nearly in two. At ten o'clock the battle seemed won, but Napoleon refused to carry out his first success by employing the reserve, and the Russian generals had time to bring up new troops in line. They recaptured the great redoubt, and Platof, the Cossack, made an incursion on the rear of the Italian army; an obstinate fight took place at the outworks. At last Napoleon made his reserve troops advance; again Murat's cavalry swept the ravine; Caulaincourt's cuirassiers assaulted the great redoubt from behind, and flung themselves on it like a tempest, while Eugène of Italy scaled the ramparts. Again the Russians had lost their outworks. Then Koutouzof gave the signal to retreat. … The French had lost 30,000 men, the Russians 40,000. … Koutouzof retired in good order, announcing to Alexander that they had made a steady resistance, but were retreating to protect Moscow." But after a council of war, he decided to leave Moscow to its fate, and the retreating Russian army passed through and beyond the city, and the French entered it at their heels.

A. Rambaud, History of Russia, volume 2, chapter 12.

{2770}

"The facts prove beyond doubt that Napoleon did not foresee the danger of an advance upon Moscow, and that Alexander I. and the Russian generals never dreamed of trying to draw him into the heart of the country. Napoleon was led on, not by any plan,—a plan had never been thought of,—but by the intrigues, quarrels, and ambition of men who unconsciously played a part in this terrible war and never foresaw that the result would be the safety of Russia. … Amid these quarrels and intrigues, we are trying to meet the French, although ignorant of their whereabouts. The French encounter Neverovski's division, and approach the walls of Smolensk. It is impossible not to give battle at Smolensk. We must maintain our communications. The battle takes place, and thousands of men on both sides are killed. Contrary to the wishes of the tsar and the people, our generals abandon Smolensk. The inhabitants of Smolensk, betrayed by their governor, set fire to the city, and, with this example to other Russian towns, they take refuge in Moscow, deploring their losses and sowing on every side the seeds of hate against the enemy. Napoleon advances and we retreat, and the result is that we take exactly the measures necessary to conquer the French."

Count L. Tolstoi, The Physiology of War: Napoleon and the Russian Campaign, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: C. Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I., volume 2, chapter 4.

Baron Jomini, Life of Napoleon, chapter 18 (volume 3).

Count P. de Segur, History of the Expedition to Russia, books 1-8 (volumes 1-2).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (September). The French in Moscow. The burning of the city.

"With rapid steps the French army advanced towards the heights whence they hoped to perceive at length the great city of Moscow; and, if the Russians were filled with the utmost sadness, the hearts of the French were equally inspired with feelings of joy and triumph, and the most brilliant illusions. Reduced from 420,000 (which was its number at the passage of the Niemen) to 100,000, and utterly exhausted, our army forgot all its troubles on its approach to the brilliant capital of Muscovy. … Imagination … was strongly excited within them at the idea of entering Moscow, after having entered all the other capitals of Europe with the exception of London, protected by the sea. Whilst Prince Eugene advanced on the left of the army, and Prince Poniatowski on its right, the bulk of the army, with Murat at its head, Davout and Ney in the centre, and the Guard in the rear, followed the great Smolensk road. Napoleon was in the midst of his troops, who, as they gazed upon him and drew near to Moscow, forgot the days of discontent, and uttered loud shouts in honour of his glory and their own. The proposal submitted by Miloradovitch was readily accepted, for the French had no desire to destroy Moscow, and it was agreed that not a shot should be fired during the evacuation, on condition that the Russian army should continue to defile across the city without a moment's halt. … The Russian rear-guard defiled rapidly to yield the ground to our advanced guard, and the King of Naples, followed by his staff and a detachment of cavalry, plunged into the streets of Moscow, and, traversing by turns the humblest quarters and the wealthiest, perceived everywhere the most profound solitude, and seemed to have entered a city of the dead. … The information which was now obtained—that the whole population of the city had fled—saddened the exultation of the commanders of our advanced guard, who had flattered themselves that they would have had the pleasure of surprising the inhabitants by their kindness. … On the morning of the 15th September, Napoleon entered Moscow, at the head of his invincible legions, but passed through a deserted city, and his soldiers were now, for the first time on entering a capital, the sole witnesses of their own glory. Their feelings on the occasion were sad ones. As soon as Napoleon had reached the Kremlin, he hastened to ascend the lofty tower of the great Ivan, and to survey from its elevation the magnificent city he had conquered. … A sullen silence, broken only by the tramp of the cavalry, had replaced that populous life which during the very previous evening had rendered the city one of the most animated in the world. The army was distributed through the various quarters of Moscow, Prince Eugene occupying the northwest quarter, Marshal Davout the southwest, and Prince Poniatowski the southeast. Marshal Ney, who had traversed Moscow from west to east, established his troops in the district comprised between the Riazan and Wladimir roads; and the Guard was naturally posted at the Kremlin and in its environs. The houses were full of provisions of every kind, and the first necessities of the troops were readily satisfied. The Superior officers were received at the gates of palaces by numerous servants in livery, eager in offering a brilliant hospitality; for the owners of these palaces, perfectly unaware that Moscow was about to perish, had taken great pains, although they fully shared the national hatred against the French, to procure protectors for their rich dwellings by receiving into them French officers. … From their splendid lodgings, the officers of the French army wandered with equal delight through the midst of the city, which resembled a Tartar camp sown with Italian palaces. They contemplated with wonder the numerous towns of which the capital is composed, and which are placed in concentric circles, the one within the other. … A few days before, Moscow had contained a population of 300,000 souls, of whom scarcely a sixth part now remained, and of these the greater number were concealed in their houses or prostrated at the foot of the altars. The streets were deserts, and only echoed with the footsteps of our soldiers. … But although the solitude of the city was a source of great vexation to them, they had no suspicion of any approaching catastrophe, for the Russian army, which alone had hitherto devastated their country, had departed, and there appeared to be no fear of fire. The French army hoped, therefore, to enjoy comfort in Moscow, to obtain, probably, peace by means of its possession, and at least good winter-cantonments in case the war should be prolonged. But, on the afternoon they had entered, columns of flame arose from a vast building containing … quantities of spirits, and just as our soldiers had almost succeeded in mastering the fire in this spot, a violent conflagration suddenly burst forth in a collection of buildings called the Bazaar, situated to the northeast of the Kremlin, and containing the richest magazines, abounding in stores of the exquisite tissues of India and Persia, the rarities of Europe, colonial produce, and precious wines. The troops of the Guard immediately hastened up and attempted to subdue the flames; but their energetic efforts were unfortunately unsuccessful, and the immense riches of the establishment fell a prey to the fire, with the exception of some portions which our men were able to snatch from the devouring element. {2771} This fresh accident was again attributed to natural causes, and considered as easily explicable in the tumult of an evacuation. During the night of the 15th of September, however, a sudden change came over the scene; for then as though every species of misfortune were to fall at the same moment on the ancient Muscovite capital, the equinoctial gales suddenly arose with the extreme violence usual to the season and in countries where widespread plains offer no resistance to the storm. This wind, blowing first from the east, carried the fire to the west into the streets comprised between the Iwer and Smolensk routes, which were the most beautiful and the richest in all Moscow. Within some hours the fire, spreading with frightful rapidity, and throwing out long arrows of flame, spread to the other westward quarters. And soon rockets were observed in the air, and wretches were seized in the act of spreading the conflagration. Interrogated under threat of instant death, they revealed the frightful secret,—the order given by Count Rostopschin for the burning of the city of Moscow as though it had been a simple village on the Moscow route. This information filled the whole army with consternation. Napoleon ordered that military commissions should be formed in each quarter of the city for the purpose of judging, shooting, and hanging incendiaries taken in the act, and that all the available troops should be employed in extinguishing the flames. Immediate recourse was had to the pumps, but it was found they had been removed; and this latter circumstance would have proved, if indeed any doubt on the matter had remained, the terrible determination with which Moscow had been given to the flames. In the mean time, the wind, increasing in violence every moment, rendered the efforts of the whole army ineffectual, and, suddenly changing, with the abruptness peculiar to equinoctial gales, from the east to the northwest, it carried the torrent of flame into quarters which the hands of the incendiaries had not yet been able to fire. After having blown during some hours from the northwest, the wind once more changed its direction, and blew from the southwest, as though it had a cruel pleasure in spreading ruin and death over the unhappy city, or, rather, over our army. By this change of the wind to the southwest the Kremlin was placed in extreme peril. More than 400 ammunition wagons were in the court of the Kremlin, and the arsenal contained some 400,000 pounds of powder. There was imminent danger, therefore, that Napoleon with his Guard, and the palace of the Czars, might be blown up into the air. … Napoleon, therefore, followed by some of his lieutenants, descended from the Kremlin to the quay of the Moskowa, where he found his horses ready for him, and had much difficulty in threading the streets, which, towards the northwest (in which direction he proceeded), were already in flames. The terrified army set out from Moscow. The divisions of Prince Eugene and Marshal Ney fell back upon the Zwenigarod and St. Petersburg roads, those of Marshal Davout fell back upon the Smolensk route, and, with the exception of the Guard, which was left around the Kremlin to dispute its possession with the flames, our troops drew back in horror from before the fire, which, after flaming up to heaven, darted back towards them as though it wished to devour them. The few inhabitants who had remained in Moscow, and had hitherto lain concealed in their dwellings, now fled, carrying away such of their possessions as they valued most highly, uttering lamentable cries of distress, and, in many instances, falling victims to the brigands whom Rostopochin had let loose, and who now exulted in the midst of the conflagration, as the genius of evil in the midst of chaos. Napoleon took up his quarters at the Château of Petrowskoié, a league's distance from Moscow on the St. Petersburg route, in the centre of the cantonments of the troops under Prince Eugene, awaiting there the subsidence of the conflagration, which had now reached such a height that it was beyond human power either to increase or extinguish it. As a final misfortune the wind changed on the following day from southwest to direct west, and then the torrents of flame were carried towards the eastern quarters of the city, the streets Messnitskaia and Bassmanaia, and the summer palace. As the conflagration reached its terrible height, frightful crashes were heard every moment,—roofs crushing inward, and stately façades crumbling headlong into the streets as their supports became consumed in the flames. The sky was scarcely visible through the thick cloud of smoke which overshadowed it, and the sun was only apparent as a blood-red globe. For three successive days—the 16th, the 17th, and the 18th of September—this terrific scene continued, and in unabated intensity. At length, after having devoured four-fifths of the city, the fire ceased, gradually quenched by the rain, which, as is usually the case, succeeded the violence of the equinoctial gales. As the flames subsided, only the spectre, as it were, of what had once been a magnificent city was visible; and, indeed, the Kremlin, and about a fifth part of the city, were alone saved,—their preservation being chiefly due to the exertions of the Imperial Guard. As the inhabitants of Moscow themselves entered the ruins, seeking what property still remained in them undestroyed, it was scarcely possible to prevent our soldiers from acting in the same manner. … Of this horrible scene the chiefest horror of all remains to be told: the Russians had left 15,000 wounded in Moscow, and, incapable of escaping, they had perished, victims of Rostopschin's barbarous patriotism."

A. Thiers, History of the] Consulate and the Empire, book 44 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: General Count M. Dumas, Memoirs, chapter 15 (volume 2).

J. Philippart, Northern Campaigns, 1812-1813, volume 1, pages 81-115.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (October-December). The retreat from Moscow. Its horrors.

"Napoleon waited in vain for propositions from the Czar; his own were scornfully rejected. Meanwhile the Russians were reorganizing their armies, and winter set in. On the 13th of October, the first frost gave warning that it was time to think of the retreat, which the enemy, already on the French flank, was threatening to cut off. Leaving Mortier with 10,000 men in the Kremlin, the army quitted Moscow on the 19th of October, thirty-five days after it had entered the city. It still numbered 80,000 fighting men and 600 cannons, but was encumbered with camp-followers and vehicles. At Malo-Jaroslavetz a violent struggle took place on the 24th. The town was captured and recaptured seven times. It was finally left in the hands of the French. Here, however, the route changed. {2772} The road became increasingly difficult, the cold grew intense, the ground was covered with snow, and the confusion in the quartermaster's department was terrible. When the army reached Smolensk, there were only 50,000 men in the ranks (November 9). Napoleon had taken minute precautions to provide supplies and reinforcements all along his line of retreat; but the heedlessness of his subalterns, and the difficulty of being obeyed at such distances and in such a country, rendered his foresight useless. At Smolensk, where he hoped to find provisions and supplies, everything had been squandered. Meanwhile there was not a moment to lose; Wittgenstein, with the army of the North, was coming up on the French right. Tchitchagof was occupying Minsk behind the Beresina, with the army which had just come from the banks of the Danube. Kutusof was near at hand. The three Russian armies proposed to unite and bar the Beresina, which the French were obliged to cross. The French began their march, but the cold became suddenly intense; all verdure had disappeared, and there being no food for the horses, they died by the thousand. The cavalry was forced to dismount; it became necessary to destroy or abandon a large portion of the cannon and ammunition. The enemy surrounded the French columns with a cloud of Cossacks, who captured all stragglers. On the following days the temperature moderated. Then arose another obstacle,—the mud, which prevented the advance; and the famine was constant. Moreover, the retreat was one continuous battle. Ney, 'the bravest of the brave,' accomplished prodigies of valor. At Krasnoi the Emperor himself was obliged to charge at the head of his guard. When the Beresina was reached, the army was reduced to 40,000 fighting men, of whom one-third were Poles. The Russians had burned the bridge of Borisof, and Tchitchagof, on the other shore, barred the passage. Fortunately a ford was found. The river was filled with enormous blocks of ice; General Eblé and his pontoniers, plunged in the water up to their shoulders, built and rebuilt bridges across it. Almost all the pontoniers perished of cold or were drowned. Then, while on the right of the river Ney and Oudinot held back the army of Tchitchagof, and Victor on the left that of Wittgenstein, the guard, with Napoleon, passed over. Victor, after having killed or wounded 10,000 of Wittgenstein's Russians, passed over during the night. When, in the morning, the rear-guard began to cross the bridges, a crowd of fugitives rushed upon them. They were soon filled with a confused mass of cavalry, infantry, caissons, and fugitives. The Russians came up and poured a shower of shells upon the helpless crowd. This frightful scene has ever since been famous as the passage of the Beresina. The governor of Minsk had 24,000 dead bodies picked up and burned. Napoleon conducted the retreat towards Wilna, where the French had large magazines. At Smorgoni he left the army, to repair in all haste to Paris, in order to prevent the disastrous effects of the last events, and to form another army. The army which he had left struggled on under Murat. The cold grew still more intense, and 20,000 men perished in three days. Ney held the enemy a long time in check with desperate valor; be was the last to recross the Niemen (December 20). There the retreat ended, and with it this fatal campaign. Beyond that river the French left 300,000 soldiers, either dead or in captivity."

Victor Duruy, History of France, chapter 66.

"Thousands of horses soon lay groaning on the route, with great pieces of flesh cut off their necks and most fleshy parts by the passing soldiery for food; whilst thousands of naked wretches were wandering like spectres, who seemed to have no sight or sense, and who only kept reeling on till frost, famine, or the Cossack lance put an end to their power of motion. In that wretched state no nourishment could have saved them. There were continual instances, even amongst the Russians, of their lying down, dozing, and dying within a quarter of an hour after a little bread had been supplied. All prisoners, however, were immediately and invariably stripped stark naked and marched in columns in that state, or turned adrift to be the sport and the victims of the peasantry, who would not always let them, as they sought to do, point and hold the muzzles of the guns against their own heads or hearts to terminate their suffering in the most certain and expeditious manner; for the peasantry thought that this mitigation of torture 'would be an offence against the avenging God of Russia, and deprive them of his further protection.' A remarkable instance of this cruel spirit of retaliation was exhibited on the pursuit to Wiazma. Milaradowitch, Beningsen, Korf, and the English General, with various others, were proceeding on the high-road, about a mile from the town, where they found a crowd of peasant-women, with sticks in their hands, hopping round a felled pine-tree, on each side of which lay about sixty naked prisoners, prostrate, but with their heads on the tree, which those furies were striking in accompaniment to a national air or song which they were yelling in concert; while several hundred armed peasants were quietly looking on as guardians of the direful orgies. When the cavalcade approached, the sufferers uttered piercing shrieks, and kept incessantly crying 'La mort, la mort, la mort!' Near Dorogobouche a young and handsome Frenchwoman lay naked, writhing in the snow, which was ensanguined all around her. On hearing the sound of voices she raised her head, from which extremely long black, shining hair flowed over the whole person. Tossing her arms about with wildest expression of agony, she kept frantically crying, 'Rendez moi mon enfant'—Restore me my babe. When soothed sufficiently to explain her story, she related, 'That on sinking from weakness, a child newly born had been snatched away from her; that she had been stripped by her associates, and then stabbed to prevent her falling alive into the hands of their pursuers.' … The slaughter of the prisoners with every imaginable previous mode of torture by the peasantry still continuing, the English General sent off a despatch to the Emperor Alexander' to represent the horrors of these outrages and propose a check.' The Emperor by an express courier instantly transmitted an order 'to prohibit the parties under the severest menaces of his displeasure and punishment;' at the same time he directed 'a ducat in gold to be paid for any prisoner delivered up by peasant or soldier to any civil authority for safe custody.' The order was beneficial as well as creditable, but still the conductors were offered a higher price for their charge, and frequently were prevailed on to surrender their trust, for they doubted the justifiable validity of the order. {2773} Famine also ruthlessly decimated the enemy's ranks. Groups were frequently overtaken, gathered round the burning or burnt embers of buildings which had afforded cover for some wounded or frozen; many in these groups were employed in peeling off with their fingers and making a repast of the charred flesh of their comrades' remains. The English General having asked a grenadier of most martial expression, so occupied, 'if this food was not loathsome to him?' 'Yes,' he said, 'it was; but he did not eat it to preserve life—that he had sought in vain to lose—only to lull gnawing agonies.' On giving the grenadier a piece of food, which happened to be at command, he seized it with voracity, as if he would devour it whole; but suddenly checking himself, he appeared suffocating with emotion: looking at the bread, then at the donor, tears rolled down his cheeks; endeavouring to rise, and making an effort as if he would catch at the hand which administered to his want, he fell back and had expired before he could be reached. Innumerable dogs crouched on the bodies of their former masters, looking in their faces, and howling their hunger and their loss; whilst others were tearing the still living flesh from the feet, hands, and limbs of moaning wretches who could not defend themselves, and whose torment was still greater, as in many cases their consciousness and senses remained unimpaired. The clinging of the dogs to their masters' corpses was most remarkable and interesting. At the commencement of the retreat, at a village near Selino, a detachment of fifty of the enemy had been surprised. The peasants resolved to bury them alive in a pit: a drummer boy bravely led the devoted party and sprang into the grave. A dog belonging to one of the victims could not be secured; every day, however, the dog went to the neighbouring camp, and came back with a bit of food in his mouth to sit and moan over the newly-turned earth. It was a fortnight before he could be killed by the peasants, afraid of discovery. The peasants showed the English General the spot and related the occurrence with exultation, as if they had performed a meritorious deed. The shots of the peasantry at stragglers or prisoners rang continuously through the woods; and altogether it was a complication of misery, of cruelty, of desolation, and of disorder, that can never have been exceeded in the history of mankind. Many incidents and crimes are indeed too horrible or disgusting for relation."

General Sir R. Wilson, Narrative of Events during the Invasion of Russia, pages 255-261.

General Sir R. Wilson, Private Journal, volume 1, page 202-257.

When Napoleon abandoned the army, at Smorghoni, on the 6th of December, the King of Naples was left in command. "They marched with so much disorder and precipitation that it was only when they arrived at Wilna that the soldiers were informed of a departure as discouraging as it was unexpected. 'What!' said they among themselves, 'is it thus that he abandons those of whom he calls himself the father? Where then is that genius, who, in the height of prosperity, exhorted us to bear our sufferings patiently? He who lavished our blood, is he afraid to die with us? Will he treat us like the army of Egypt, to whom, after having served him faithfully, he became indifferent, when, by a shameful flight, he found himself free from danger?' Such was the conversation of the soldiers, which they accompanied by the most violent execrations. Never was indignation more just, for never were a class of men so worthy of pity. The presence of the emperor had kept the chiefs to their duty, but when they heard of his departure, the greater part of them followed his example, and shamefully abandoned the remains of the regiments with which they had been intrusted. … The road which we followed presented, at every step, brave officers, covered with rags, supported by branches of pine, their hair and beards stiffened by the ice. These warriors, who, a short time before, were the terror of our enemies, and the conquerors of Europe, having now lost their fine appearance, crawled slowly along, and could scarcely obtain a look of pity from the soldiers whom they had formerly commanded. Their situation became still more dreadful, because all who had not strength to march were abandoned, and every one who was abandoned by his comrades, in an hour afterwards inevitably perished. The next day every bivouac presented the image of a field of battle. … The soldiers burnt whole houses to avoid being frozen. We saw round the fires the half-consumed bodies of many unfortunate men, who, having advanced too near, in order to warm themselves, and being too weak to recede, had become a prey to the flames. Some miserable beings, blackened with smoke, and besmeared with the blood of the horses which they had devoured, wandered like ghosts round the burning houses. They gazed on the dead bodies of their companions, and, too feeble to support themselves, fell down, and died like them. … The route was covered with soldiers who no longer retained the human form, and whom the enemy disdained to make prisoners. Every day these miserable men made us witnesses of scenes too dreadful to relate. Some had lost their hearing, others their speech, and many, by excessive cold and hunger, were reduced to a state of frantic stupidity, in which they roasted the dead bodies of their comrades for food, or even gnawed their own hands and arms. Some were so weak that, unable to lift a piece of wood, or roll a stone towards the fires which they had kindled, they sat upon the dead bodies of their comrades, and, with a haggard countenance, steadfastly gazed upon the burning coals. No sooner was the fire extinguished, than these living spectres, unable to rise, fell by the side of those on whom they had sat. We saw many who were absolutely insane. To warm their frozen feet, they plunged them naked into the middle of the fire. Some, with a convulsive laugh, threw themselves into the flames, and perished in the most horrid convulsions, and uttering the most piercing cries; while others, equally insane, immediately followed them, and experienced the same fate."

E. Labaume, Circumstantial Narrative of the Campaign in Russia, part 2, book 5.

ALSO IN: Count P. de Segur, History of the Expedition to Russia, books 9-12 (volume 2).

C. Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I., volume 2, chapter 5.

_Earl Stanhope, The French Retreat from Moscow (Historical Essays; and, also, Quarterly Review., October 1867, volume 123)._

_Baron de Marbot, Memoirs, volume 2, chapters 28-32._

RUSSIA: A. D. 1812-1813. Treaty of Kalisch with Prussia. The War of Liberation in Germany. Alliance of Austria. The driving of the French beyond the Rhine.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813, to 1814.

{2774}

RUSSIA: A. D. 1814 (January-April). The Allies in France and in possession of Paris. Fall of Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH), and (MARCH-APRIL).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1814 (May). The Treaty of Paris. Evacuation of France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1814-1815. The Congress of Vienna. Acquisitions in Poland. Surrender of Eastern Galicia.

See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1815. Napoleon's return from Elba. The Quadruple Alliance. The Waterloo campaign and its results.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814-1815, to 1815 (JUNE-AUGUST).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1815. The Allies again in France. Second Treaty of Paris.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (JULY-NOVEMBER).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1815. The Holy Alliance.

See HOLY ALLIANCE.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1817. Expulsion of Jesuits.

See JESUITS: A. D. 1769-1871.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1820-1822. The Congresses of Troppau, Laybach and Verona.

See VERONA, THE CONGRESS OF.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1825. Accession of Nicholas.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1827-1829. Intervention on behalf of Greece. Battle of Navarino.

See GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1830-1832. Polish revolt and its suppression. Barbarous treatment of the insurgents.

See POLAND: A. D. 1830-1832.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1831-1846. Joint occupation of Cracow. Extinction of the republic. Its annexation to Austria.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1815-1846.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1833-1840. The Turko-Egyptian question and its settlement.

See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1839-1859. Subjugation of the Caucasus.

See CAUCASUS.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1849. Aid rendered to Austria against the Hungarian patriots.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1853-1854. Causes of the Crimean War with Turkey, England and France.

"The immediate cause of the war which broke out in 1853 was a dispute which had arisen between France and Russia upon the custody of the Holy Places in Jerusalem. The real cause was the intention of Russia to hasten the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire. Nicholas, in a memorable conversation, actually suggested to the British ambassador at St. Petersburg that England should receive Egypt and Crete as her own portion of the spoil. This conversation, which took place in January 1853, was at once reported to the British Government. It undoubtedly prepared the way for future trouble. … It had the effect of rendering the British Ministry suspicious of his intentions, at a moment when a good understanding with this country was of the first importance to the Czar of Russia. There can, then, be very little doubt that Nicholas committed a grave error in suggesting a partition, which may have seemed reasonable enough to Continental statesmen, but which was regarded with horror by England. Almost at the same moment he affronted France by declining to call Napoleon 'Monsieur mon frère.' … Nicholas had the singular indiscretion to render a British ministry suspicious of him, and a French emperor angry with him, in the same month. Napoleon could easily avenge the affront. … The Greek and Latin Churches both claimed the right of protecting the Holy Places of Palestine. Both appealed to a Mahometan arrangement in support of their claim: each declined to admit the pretensions of the other. The Latin Church in Palestine was under the protection of France; the Greek Church was under the protection of Russia; and France and Russia had constantly supported, one against the other, these rival claims. In the beginning of 1853 France renewed the controversy. She even threatened to settle the question by force. The man whom Nicholas would not call 'mon frère' was stirring a controversy thick with trouble for the Czar of Russia. It happened, moreover, that the controversy was one which, from its very nature, was certain to spread. Nearly eighty years before, by the Treaty of Kainardji, the Porte had undertaken to afford a constant protection to its Christian subjects, and to place a new Greek Church at Constantinople, which it undertook to erect, 'and the ministers who officiated at it under the specific protection of the Russian Empire.' The exact meaning of this famous article had always been disputed. In Western Europe it had been usually held that it applied only to the new Greek Church at Constantinople, and the ministers who officiated at it. But Russian statesmen had always contended that its meaning was much wider; and British statesmen of repute had supported the contention. The general undertaking which the Porte had given to Russia to afford a constant protection to its Christian subjects gave Russia —so they argued—the right to interfere when such protection was not afforded. In such a country as Turkey, where chronic misgovernment prevailed, opportunity was never wanting for complaining that the Christians were inadequately protected. The dispute about the Holy Places was soon superseded by a general demand of Russia for the adequate protection of the Christian subjects of the Porte; In the summer of 1853 the demand took the shape of an ultimatum; and, when the Turkish ministers declined to comply with the Russian demand, a Russian army crossed the Pruth and occupied the Principalities. In six months a miserable quarrel about the custody of the Holy Places had assumed dimensions which were clearly threatening war. At the advice of England the Porte abstained from treating the occupation of the Principalities as an act of war; and diplomacy consequently secured an interval for arranging peace. The Austrian Government framed a note, which is known as the Vienna Note, as a basis of a settlement. England and the neutral powers assented to the note; Russia accepted it; and it was then presented to the Porte. But Turkey, with the obstinacy which has always characterised its statesmen, declined to accept it. War might even then have been prevented if the British Government had boldly insisted on its acceptance, and had told Turkey that if she modified the conditions she need not count on England's assistance. One of the leading members of Lord Aberdeen's Ministry wished to do this, and declared to the last hour of his life that this course should have been taken. {2775} But the course was not taken. Turkey was permitted, or, according to Baron Stockmar, encouraged to modify the Vienna Note; the modifications were rejected by Russia; and the Porte, on the 26th of September, delivered an ultimatum, and on the 4th of October 1853 declared war. These events excited a very widespread indignation in this country. The people, indeed, were only imperfectly acquainted with the causes which had produced the quarrel; many of them were unaware that the complication had been originally introduced by the act of France; others of them failed to reflect that the refusal of the Porte to accept a note which the four Great Powers—of which England was one—had agreed upon was the immediate cause of hostilities. Those who were better informed thought that the note was a mistake, and that the Turk had exercised a wise discretion in rejecting it; while the whole nation instinctively felt that Russia, throughout the negotiations, had acted with unnecessary harshness. In October 1853, therefore, the country was almost unanimously in favour of supporting the Turk. The events of the next few weeks turned this feeling into enthusiasm. The Turkish army, under Omar Pasha, proved its mettle by winning one or two victories over the Russian troops. The Turkish fleet at Sinope was suddenly attacked and destroyed. Its destruction was, undoubtedly, an act of war: it was distorted into an act of treachery; a rupture between England and Russia became thenceforward inevitable; and in March 1854 England and France declared war."

S. Walpole, Foreign Relations, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: A. W. Kinglake, The Invasion of the Crimea, volume l.

J. Morley, Life of Richard Cobden, volume 2, chapter 6.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1854 (September). The Crimean War: Landing of the Allies. Battle of the Alma. Sufferings of the invading army.

"England, then, and France entered the war as allies. Lord Raglan, formerly Lord Fitzroy Somerset, an old pupil of the Great Duke in the Peninsular War, and who had lost his right arm serving under Wellington at Waterloo, was appointed to command the English forces. Marshal St. Arnaud, a bold, brilliant soldier of fortune, was intrusted by the Emperor of the French with the leadership of the soldiers of France. The allied forces went out to the East and assembled at Varna, on the Black Sea shore, from which they were to make their descent on the Crimea. The war, meantime, had gone badly for the Emperor of Russia in his attempt to crush the Turks. The Turks had found in Omar Pasha a commander of remarkable ability and energy; and they had in one or two instances received the unexpected aid and counsel of clever and successful Englishmen. … The invasion of the Danubian provinces was already, to all intents, a failure. Mr. Kinglake and other writers have argued that but for the ambition of the Emperor of the French and the excited temper of the English people the war might well have ended then and there. The Emperor of Russia had found, it is contended, that he could not maintain an invasion of European Turkey; his fleet was confined to its ports in the Black Sea, and there was nothing for him but to make peace. But we confess we do not see with what propriety or wisdom the allies, having entered on the enterprise at all, could have abandoned it at such a moment, and allowed the Czar to escape thus merely scotched. … The allies went on. They sailed from Varna for the Crimea. … There is much discussion as to the original author of the project for the invasion of the Crimea. The Emperor Napoleon has had it ascribed to him; so has Lord Palmerston; so has the Duke of Newcastle; so, according to Mr. Kinglake, has the 'Times' newspaper. It does not much concern us to know in whom the idea originated, but it is of some importance to know that it was essentially a civilian's and not a soldier's idea. It took possession almost simultaneously, as far as we can observe, of the minds of several statesmen, and it had a sudden fascination for the public. The Emperor Nicholas had raised and sheltered his Black Sea fleet at Sebastopol. That fleet had sallied forth from Sebastopol to commit what was called the massacre of Sinope. Sebastopol was the great arsenal of Russia. It was the point from which Turkey was threatened; from which, it was universally believed, the embodied ambition of Russia was one day to make its most formidable effort of aggression. Within the fence of its vast sea-forts the fleet of the Black Sea lay screened. From the moment when the vessels of England and France entered the Euxine the Russian fleet had withdrawn behind the curtain of these defences, and was seen upon the open waves no more. If, therefore, Sebastopol could be taken or destroyed, it would seem as if the whole material fabric, put together at such cost and labor for the execution of the schemes of Russia, would be shattered at a blow. … The invasion of the Crimea, however, was not a soldier's project. It was not welcomed by the English or the French commander. It was undertaken by Lord Raglan out of deference to the recommendations of the Government; and by Marshal St. Arnaud out of deference to the Emperor of the French, and because Lord Raglan, too, did not see his way to decline the responsibility of it. The allied forces were, therefore, conveyed to the south-western shore of the Crimea, and effected a landing in Kalamita Bay, a short distance north of the point at which the river Alma runs into the sea. Sebastopol itself lies about 30 miles to the south; and then, more southward still, divided by the bulk of a jutting promontory from Sebastopol, is the harbor of Balaklava. The disembarkation began on the morning of September 14th, 1854. It was completed on the fifth day; and there were then some 27,000 English, 30,000 French, and 7,000 Turks landed on the shores of Catherine the Great's Crimea. The landing was effected without any opposition from the Russians. On September 19th, the allies marched out of their encampments and moved southward in the direction of Sebastopol. They had a skirmish or two with a reconnoitring force of Russian cavalry and Cossacks; but they had no business of genuine war until they reached the nearer bank of the Alma. The Russians, in great strength, had taken up a splendid position on the heights that fringed the other side of the river. The allied forces reached the Alma about noon on September 20th. They found that they had to cross the river in the face of the Russian batteries armed with heavy guns on the highest point of the hills or bluffs, of scattered artillery, and of dense masses of infantry which covered the hills. The Russians were under the command of Prince Mentschikoff. {2776} It is certain that Prince Mentschikoff believed his position unassailable, and was convinced that his enemies were delivered into his hands when he saw the allies approach and attempt to effect the crossing of the river. … The attack was made with desperate courage on the part of the allies, but without any great skill of leadership or tenacity of discipline. It was rather a pell-mell sort of fight, in which the headlong courage and the indomitable obstinacy of the English and French troops carried all before them at last. A study of the battle is of little profit to the ordinary reader. It was an heroic scramble. There was little coherence of action between the allied forces. But there was happily an almost total absence of generalship on the part of the Russians. The soldiers of the Czar fought stoutly and stubbornly, as they have always done; but they could not stand up against the blended vehemence and obstinacy of the English and French. The river was crossed, the opposite heights were mounted, Prince Mentschikoff's great redoubt was carried, the Russians were driven from the field, the allies occupied their ground; the victory was to the Western Powers. … The Russians ought to have been pursued. They themselves fully expected a pursuit. They retreated in something like utter confusion. … But there was no pursuit. Lord Raglan was eager to follow up the victory; but the French had as yet hardly any cavalry, and Marshal St. Arnaud would not agree to any further enterprise that day. Lord Raglan believed that he ought not to persist; and nothing was done. … Except for the bravery of those who fought, the battle was not much to boast of. … At this distance of time it is almost touching to read some of the heroic contemporaneous descriptions of the great scramble of the Alma. … Very soon, however, a different note came to be sounded. The campaign had been opened under conditions differing from those of most campaigns that went before it. Science had added many new discoveries to the art of war. Literature had added one remarkable contribution of her own to the conditions amidst which campaigns were to be carried on. She had added the 'special correspondent.' … When the expedition was leaving England it was accompanied by a special correspondent from each of the great daily papers of London. The 'Times' sent out a representative whose name almost immediately became celebrated—Mr. William Howard Russell, the 'preux chevalier' of war correspondents in that day, as Mr. Archibald Forbes of the 'Daily News' is in this. … Mr. Russell soon saw that there was confusion; and he had the soundness of judgment to know that the confusion was that of a breaking-down system. Therefore, while the fervor of delight in the courage and success of our army was still fresh in the minds of the public at home, while every music-hall was ringing with the cheap rewards of valor, in the shape of popular glorifications of our commanders and our soldiers, the readers of the 'Times' began to learn that things were faring badly indeed with the conquering army of the Alma. The ranks were thinned by the ravages of cholera. The men were pursued by cholera to the very battle-field, Lord Raglan himself said. … The hospitals were in a wretchedly disorganized condition. Stores of medicines and strengthening food were decaying in places where no one wanted them or could well get at them, while men were dying in hundreds among our tents in the Crimea for lack of them. The system of clothing, of transport, of feeding, of nursing—everything had broken down. Ample provisions had been got together and paid for; and when they came to be needed no one knew where to get at them. The special correspondent of the 'Times' and other correspondents continued to din these things into the ears of the public at home. Exultation began to give way to a feeling of dismay. The patriotic anger against the Russians was changed for a mood of deep indignation against our own authorities and our own war administration. It soon became apparent to everyone that the whole campaign had been planned on the assumption that it was to be like the career of the hero whom Byron laments, 'brief, brave, and glorious.' Our military authorities here at home—we do not speak of the commanders in the field—had made up their minds that Sebastopol was to fall, like another Jericho, at the sound of the war-trumpets' blast. Our commanders in the field were, on the contrary, rather disposed to overrate than to underrate the strength of the Russians. … It is very likely that if a sudden dash had been made at Sebastopol by land and sea, it might have been taken almost at the very opening of the war. But the delay gave the Russians full warning, and they did not neglect it. On the third day after the battle of the Alma the Russians sank seven vessels of their Black Sea fleet at the entrance of the harbor of Sebastopol. This was done full in the sight of the allied fleets, who at first, misunderstanding the movements going on among the enemy, thought the Russian squadron were about to come out from their shelter and try conclusions with the Western ships. But the real purpose of the Russians became soon apparent. Under the eyes of the allies the seven vessels slowly settled down and sank in the water, until at last only the tops of their masts were to be seen; and the entrance of the harbor was barred as by sunken rocks against any approach of an enemy's ship. There was an end to every dream of a sudden capture of Sebastopol."

J. McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, chapter 27 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: General Sir E. Hamley, The War in the Crimea, chapters 2-3.

W. H. Russell, The British Expedition to the Crimea, books 1-2.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1854 (September-October). Opening of the siege of Sebastopol.

Four days after the battle of the Alma the allies reached the Belbek, so close to Sebastopol that "it became a matter of necessity to decide upon their next step. It appears to have been the wish of the English at once to take advantage of their victory and assault the north side. It is now known that such a step would almost certainly have been successful. … But again St. Arnaud offered objections." It was then determined "to undertake a flank march round the head of the harbour, and to take possession of the heights on the south. It was a difficult operation, for the country was unknown and rough, and while in the act of marching the armies were open to any assault upon their left flank. It was however carried out unmolested. … On the 26th the English arrived at the little landlocked harbour of Balaclava, at the foot of the steep hills forming the eastern edge of the plateau. The fleet, duly warned of the operation, had already arrived. … {2777} Canrobert … had now succeeded the dying St. Arnaud. … A similar question to that which had arisen on the 24th now again rose. Should Sebastopol be attacked at once or not? Again it would appear that Lord Raglan, Sir Edmund Lyons, and others, were desirous of immediate assault. Again the French, more instructed in the technical rules of war, and supported by the opinion of Sir John Burgoyne, who commanded the English Engineers, declined the more vigorous suggestion, and it was determined at least to wait till the siege guns from the fleet were landed, and the artillery fire of the enemy weakened, in preparation for the assault. In the light of subsequent knowledge, and perhaps even with the knowledge then obtainable if rightly used, it appears that in all the three instances mentioned the bolder less regular course would have been the true wisdom. For Menschikoff had adopted a somewhat strange measure of defence. He had given up all hopes of using his fleet to advantage. He had caused some of his vessels to be sunk at the entrance of the harbour, which was thus closed; and having drawn the crews, some 18,000 in number, from the ships, he had intrusted to them the defence of the town, and had marched away with his whole army. The garrison did not now number more than 25,000, and they were quite unfit—being sailors—for operations in the field. The defences were not those of a regular fortress, but rather of an entrenched position. … There were in Sebastopol two men who, working together, made an extraordinary use of their opportunities. Korniloff, the Admiral, forcing himself to the front by sheer nobleness of character and enthusiasm, found in Colonel von Todleben, at that time on a voluntary mission in the town, an assistant of more than common genius. … The decision of the allies to await the landing of their siege train was more far-reaching than the generals at the time conceived, although some few men appear to have understood its necessary result. It in fact changed what was intended to be a rapid coup de main into a regular siege—and a regular siege of an imperfect and inefficient character, because the allied forces were not strong enough to invest the town. … Preparation had not been made to meet the change of circumstances. The work thrown upon the administration was beyond its powers; the terrible suffering of the army during the ensuing winter was the inevitable result. … The bombardment of the suburb, including the Malakoff and the Redan, fell to the English; the French undertook to carry it out against the city itself, directing their fire principally against the Flagstaff battery. … Slowly the siege trains were landed and brought into position in the batteries marked out by the engineers. … It was not till the 16th of October that these preparations were completed. … The energy of Korniloff and the skill of Todleben had by this time roused the temper of the garrison, and had rendered the defences far more formidable; and in the beginning of October means had been taken to persuade Menschikoff to allow considerable bodies of troops to return to the town. … On the 17th the great bombardment began. The English batteries gained the mastery over those opposed to them, but the efforts of the French, much reduced by the fire of the besieged, were brought to a speedy conclusion by a great explosion within their lines. Canrobert sent word to Lord Raglan that he should be unable to resume the fire for two days. The attack by the fleet had been to little purpose. … Every day till the 25th of October the fire of the allies was continued. But under cover of this fire (always encountered by the ceaseless energy of Todleben) the change had begun, and the French were attacking the Flagstaff bastion by means of regular approaches. On that day the siege was somewhat rudely interrupted. The presence of the Russian army outside the walls and the defect in the position of the allies became evident."

J. F. Bright, History of England, 1837-1880, pages 251-256.

ALSO IN: A. W. Kinglake, The Invasion of the Crimea, volumes 3-4.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1854 (October-November). The Crimean War: Balaclava and Inkermann.

"The Russian general soon showed that he was determined not to allow the allies to carry on their operations against the town undisturbed. Large parties of Russian soldiers had for some time been reconnoitring in the direction of Balaclava, showing that an attack in that quarter was meditated. At length, on the 25th of October, an army of 30,000 Russians advanced against the English position, hoping to get possession of the harbours and to cut the allies off from their supplies, or at any rate to destroy the stores which had already been landed. The part of the works on which the Russian troops first came was occupied by redoubts, defended by a body of Turkish recruits, recently arrived from Tunis, who, after offering a very feeble resistance, fled in confusion. But when the Russians, flushed with this first success, attempted to pursue the advantage they had gained, they soon encountered a very different foe in the Highlanders, commanded by Sir Colin Campbell, who bore the brunt of the Russian attack with great firmness. The British cavalry particularly distinguished themselves in this action, routing a far superior force of Russian cavalry. It was in the course of this engagement that the unfortunate blunder occurred, in consequence of which 607 men [the 'Light Brigade' immortalized by Tennyson] galloped forth against an army, and only 198 came back, the rest having been killed, wounded, or made prisoners. A long, unsatisfactory controversy was carried on some time after, having for its object to decide who was to blame for throwing away, in this foolish manner, the lives of so many gallant men. It seems that the orders were not very clearly expressed, and that the general—Lord Lucan—by whom they were received, misapprehended them more completely than a man in his position ought to have done. In the end, the Russians were forced to retire, without having effected their object: but as they retained some portion of the ground that had been occupied by the allies at the commencement of the battle, they too claimed the victory, and Te-Deums were sung all over Russia in honour of this fragmentary success. However, the Russian commander did not abandon the hope of being able to obtain possession of Balaclava. On the very day following the affair which has just been related, the Russians within the town made a sortie with a force of about 6,000 men: but near the village of Inkermann they encountered so strong a resistance from a far inferior force, that they were obliged to retreat. {2778} The Russian army at Balaclava had been prepared to coöperate with them; but the promptitude and vigour with which the allies repelled the sortie prevented the Russians from entrenching themselves at Inkermann, and thus frustrated the plan of a combined attack on the allied position which had probably been formed. The village of Inkermann, which was the scene of this skirmish, shortly after witnessed a more deadly and decisive contest. It was on the morning of Sunday, November 5th, that the approach of the Russian army was heard, while it was still concealed from view by the mists which overhung the British position. That army had been greatly increased by the arrival of large reinforcements, and every effort had been made to exalt the courage of the soldiers: they had been stimulated by religious services and exhortations, as well as by an abundant supply of ardent spirits; and they came on in the full confidence that they would be able to sweep the comparatively small British force from the position it occupied. That position was the centre of a grand attack made by the whole Russian army. The obscurity prevented the generals of the allies from discovering what was going on, or from clearly discerning, among a series of attacks on different parts of their position, which were real, and which were mere feints. There was a good deal of confusion in both armies; but the obscurity, on the whole, favoured the Russians, who had received their instructions before they set out, and were moving together in large masses. It was, in fact, a battle fought pell-mell, man against man, and regiment against regiment, with very little guidance or direction from the commanding officers, and consequently one in which the superior skill of the British gave them little advantage. The principal point of attack throughout was the plateau of Inkermann, occupied by the Guards and a few British regiments, who maintained a long and unequal struggle against the main body of the Russian army. It was, in fact, a hand-to-hand contest between superior civilization on the one hand, and superior numbers on the other, in which it is probable that the small British force would have been eventually swept off the field. Bosquet, the ablest of the French generals, with a soldier's instinct at once divined, amid all the obscurity, turmoil, and confusion, that the British position was the real point of attack; and therefore, leaving a portion of his force to defend his own position, he marched off to Inkermann, and never halted till his troops charged the Russians with such fury that they drove them down the hill, and decided the fate of the battle in favour of the allies. … Meanwhile Mr. Sidney Herbert, the minister at war, had succeeded in inducing Miss Florence Nightingale, well known in London for her skilful and self-denying benevolence, to go out and take charge of the military hospitals in which the wounded soldiers were received. Everything connected with the hospitals there was in a state of the most chaotic confusion. The medical and other stores which had been sent out were rotting in the holds of vessels, or in places where they were not wanted. Provisions had been despatched in abundance, and yet nothing could be found to support men who were simply dying from exhaustion. The system of check and counter-check, which had been devised to prevent waste and extravagance in the time of peace, proved to be the very cause of the most prodigious waste, extravagance, and inefficiency in the great war in which England was now embarked. The sort of dictatorial authority which had been conferred on Miss Nightingale, supported by her own admirable organising and administrative ability, enabled her to substitute order for confusion, and procure for the multitudes of wounded men who came under her care the comforts as well as the medical attendance they needed. She arrived at Scutari with her nurses on the very day of the battle of Inkermann. Winter was setting-in in the Crimea with unusual rigour and severity."

W. N. Molesworth, History of England, 1830-1874, volume 3, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: E. H. Nolan, Illustrated History of the War against Russia, chapters 40-48 (volume 1).

Chambers' Pictorial History of the Russian War, chapters 7-8.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1854-1855. Siege and capture of Kars.

"Everywhere unsuccessful in Europe, the Russians were more fortunate in Asia. Towards the close of 1854, the Turkish army at Kars was in a wretched and demoralised condition. Its unsatisfactory state, and the reverses it had experienced, resulting, it was well known, from the misconduct of the Turkish officials, induced the British government to appoint Colonel Williams as a commissioner to examine into the causes of previous failures, and endeavour to prevent a repetition of them. … Colonel Williams, attended only by major Teesdale and Dr. Sandwith, arrived at Kars at the latter end of September, 1854, where he was received with the honour due to his position. Kars, in past times considered the key of Asia Minor, is 'a true Asiatic town in all its picturesque squalor,' and has a fortress partly in ruins, but once considered most formidable. On inspecting the Turkish army there, Colonel Williams found the men in rags; their pay fifteen and even eighteen months in arrear; the horses half-starved; discipline so relaxed that it could be scarcely said to exist; and the officers addicted to the lowest vices and most disorderly habits. … Though treated with an unpardonable superciliousness and neglect by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the British ambassador at Constantinople, Colonel Williams succeeded in promoting a proper discipline, and in securing the men from being plundered by their officers. In the January of 1855, the Turkish government granted Colonel Williams the rank of terik, or general in the Ottoman army, together with the title of Williams Pasha. The inactivity of the Russian army at Gumri excited much surprise; but notwithstanding the condition of the Turks, they permitted spring to pass away, and summer to arrive, before active hostilities were resumed. … During this period, the Turks at Kars had been employed, under the direction of colonel Lake, in throwing up fortifications around the town, which gradually assumed the appearance of a formidably intrenched camp. Early in June the Russians left Gumri, and encamped within five leagues of Kars. They were estimated at 40,000 men; while the Turkish troops amounted to about 15,000 men, who had been familiarised with defeat, and scourged by fever and the scurvy. In addition to this, their provisions were insufficient to enable them to sustain a siege of any considerable duration, and their stock of ammunition was very low The Russians made a partial attack on the town on the 16th of June, but they met with a repulse. … The road to Erzeroum was in their possession, and the supplies intended for the Turks fell into their hands. {2779} In effect, they had blockaded Kars by drawing a cordon of troops around it. A period of dreary inaction followed this movement of the Russians, broken only by trivial skirmishes at the outposts. Want was already felt within the town, and the prospect of surrender or starvation was imminent. … Omar Pasha, and a large body of Turkish troops from the Crimea, had landed at Batoum, and it was expected that they would soon arrive to raise the siege of Kars. This circumstance, occurring shortly after the arrival of the news of the fall of Sebastopol, induced many of the officers of the besieged army to believe that the Russians were about to retire. This surmise was strengthened by the fact, that, for several days, large convoys of heavily laden waggons were observed leaving the Russian camp. General Williams, however, was not deceived by this artifice, and correctly regarded it as the prelude to an extensive attack upon Kars. An hour before dawn on the 29th of September, the tramp of troops and the rumble of artillery wheels was heard in the distance, and the Turkish garrison made hurried preparations to receive the foe. Soon the dim moonlight revealed a dark moving mass in the valley. It was an advancing column of the enemy, who had hoped to take the Turks by surprise. In this they were deceived; for no sooner were they within range, than a crushing shower of grape informed them that the Moslems were on the alert. The battle commenced almost immediately. The assailants rushed up the hill with a shout, and advanced in close column on the breastworks and redoubts. From these works a murderous fire of musketry and rifles was poured forth, aided by showers of grape from the great guns. This told with terrible effect upon the dense masses of the foe, who fell in heaps. … Riddled with shot, the Russians were completely broken, and sent headlong down the hill, leaving hundreds of dead behind them. … Had not the Turkish cavalry been destroyed by starvation—a circumstance which rendered pursuit impossible—the Russian army might have been almost annihilated. The Turks had obtained an unequivocal victory, after a battle of nearly seven hours' duration. Their loss did not exceed 463 killed, of whom 101 were townspeople, and 631 wounded. That of the Russians was enormous; 6,300 of them were left dead upon the field, and it is said that they carried 7,000 wounded off the ground. Though the Russians had suffered a severe reverse, they were not driven from the position they held prior to the battle … and were enabled to resume the blockade of the city with as much strictness as before. The sufferings of the unhappy garrison and inhabitants of Kars form one of the most terrible pictures incidental to this war. Cholera and famine raged within the town; and those who were enfeebled by the last frequently fell victims to the first. The hospitals were crowded with the sick and wounded, but the nourishment they required could not be obtained. The flesh of starved horses had become a luxury, and the rations of the soldiers consisted only of a small supply of coarse bread, and a kind of broth made merely of flour and water. … Children dropt and died in the streets; and every morning skeleton-like corpses were found in various parts of the camp. The soldiers deserted in large numbers, and discipline was almost at an end. … As all hope of relief from Selim Pasha or Omar Pasha had expired, general Williams resolved to put an end to these miseries by surrendering the town to the foe. … Articles of surrender were signed on the 25th of November. … The fall of Kars was a disgrace and a scandal to all who might have contributed to prevent it."

T. Gaspey, History of England, George III.-Victoria, chapter 56 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: T. H. Ward, Humphrey Sandwith, chapter 9.

S. Lane-Poole, Life of Stratford Canning, chapter 31 (volume 2).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1854-1856. Unfruitful peace negotiations at Vienna. Renewed bombardment of Sebastopol. Battle of the Tchernaya. Repulse of the English from the Redan. Taking of the Malakhoff by the French. The congress at Paris. Peace.

In November, 1854, the Czar, Nicholas I., authorized Gortschakoff, his Minister at Vienna, to signify to the Western Powers his willingness to conclude peace on the basis of "the four points" which the latter had laid down in the previous spring. These "four points" were as follows:

"(1) The protectorate which Russia had hitherto exercised over the Principalities was to be replaced by a collective guarantee;

(2) the navigation of the mouths of the Danube was to be freed from all impediments;

(3) the treaty of 1841 was to be revised in the interests of the European equilibrium; and

(4) Russia was to renounce all official protectorate over the Sultan's subjects, of whatever religion they might be. …

The Czar's new move was not entirely successful. It did not prevent Austria from concluding a close arrangement with the Western Powers, and it induced her, in concert with France and England, to define more strictly the precise meaning attached to the four points. With some disappointment, Russia was doomed to find that every successive explanation of these points involved some fresh sacrifice on her own part. The freedom of the lower Danube, she was now told, could not be secured unless she surrendered the territory between that river and the Pruth which she had acquired at the treaty of Adrianople; the revision of the treaty of 1841, she was assured, must put an end to her preponderance in the Black Sea. These new exactions, however, did not deter the Czar from his desire to treat. By no other means was it possible to prevent Austria from taking part against him; and a conference, even if it ultimately proved abortive, would in the interim confine her to neutrality. Under these circumstances, Nicholas consented to negotiate. … The conference which it was decided to hold in December did not assemble till the following March. The negotiation which had been agreed to by Aberdeen, was carried out under Palmerston; and, with the double object of temporarily ridding himself of an inconvenient colleague, and of assuring the presence of a statesman of adequate rank at the conference, Palmerston entrusted its conduct to Russell. While Russell was on his way to Vienna, an event occurred of momentous importance. Sore troubled at the events of the war, alarmed at the growing strength of his enemies, the Emperor of Russia had neither heart nor strength to struggle against a slight illness. His sudden death [March 2, 1855] naturally made a profound impression on the mind of Europe. … {2780} Alexander, his successor, a monarch whose reign commenced with disaster and ended with outrage, at once announced his adherence to the policy of his father. His accession, therefore, did not interrupt the proceedings of the Conference; and, in the first instance, the diplomatists who assembled at Vienna succeeded in arriving at a welcome agreement. On the first two of the four points all the Powers admitted to the Conference were substantially in accord. On the third point no such agreement was possible. The Western Powers were determined that an effectual limitation should be placed on the naval strength of Russia in the Black Sea; and they defined this limit by a stipulation that she should not add to the six ships of war which they had ascertained she had still afloat. Russia, on the contrary, regarded any such condition as injurious to her dignity and her rights, and refused to assent to it. Russia, however, did not venture on absolutely rejecting the proposal of the allies. Instead of doing so, she offered either to consent to the opening of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus to the ships of war of all nations, or to allow the Sultan a discretion in determining whether he would open them to the vessels either of the Western Powers or of Russia. The Western Powers, however, were firm in their determination to prevent the fleets of Russia from passing into the Mediterranean, and refused the alternative. With its rejection the Conference practically terminated. After its members separated, however, Buol, the Austrian Minister, endeavoured to evolve from the Russian offer a possible compromise. …The rejection of the Austrian alternative necessitated the continuance of the war. But the struggle was resumed under conditions very different from those on which it had previously been conducted. Austria, indeed, considered that the rejection of her proposal released her from the necessity of actively joining the Western Powers, and, instead of taking part in the war, reduced her armaments. But the Western Powers obtained other aid. The little State of Sardinia sent a contingent to the Crimea; later on in the year Sweden joined the alliance. Fresh contingents of troops rapidly augmented the strength of the French and English armies, and finer weather as well as better management banished disease from the camp. Under these circumstances the bombardment was renewed in April. In May a successful attack on Kertch and Yenikale, at the extreme east of the Crimea, proved the means of intercepting communication between Sebastopol and the Caucasian provinces, and of destroying vast stores intended for the sustenance of the garrison. In June the French, to whose command Pelissier, a Marshal of more robust fibre than Canrobert, had succeeded, made a successful attack on the Mamelon, while the English concurrently seized another vantage-ground. Men at home, cheered by the news of these successes, fancied that they were witnessing the beginning of the end. Yet the end was not to come immediately. A great assault, delivered on the 18th of June, by the French on the Malakhoff, by the English on the Redan, failed; and its failure, among other consequences, broke the heart· of the old soldier [Lord Raglan] who for nine months had commanded the English army. … His capacity as a general does not suffer from any comparison with that of his successor, General Simpson. That officer had been sent out to the Crimea in the preceding winter; he had served under Raglan as chief of the staff; and he was now selected for the command. He had, at least, the credit which attaches to any military man who holds a responsible post in the crisis of an operation. For the crisis of the campaign had now come. On both sides supreme efforts were made to terminate the struggle. On the 16th of August the Russian army in force crossed the Tchernaya, attacked the French lines, but experienced a sharp repulse. On the 8th of September the assault of June was repeated; and though the British were again driven back from the Redan, the French succeeded in carrying the Malakhoff. The Russians, recognising the significance of the defeat, set Sebastopol and their remaining ships on fire, and retreated to the northern bank of the harbour. After operations, which had lasted for nearly a year, the allies were masters of the south side of the city. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to prolong any further the narrative of operations which had little influence on history. The story of the defence of Kars and of the bombardment of Sweaborg have an interest of their own. But they had no effect on the events which followed or on the peace which ensued. Soon after, the Vienna Conference was dissolved, indeed, it became evident that the war was approaching its close. The cost and the sacrifices which it involved were making the French people weary of the struggle, and the accidental circumstances, which gave them in August and September the chief share in the glory, disposed them to make peace. The reasons which made the French, however, eager for peace, did not apply to the English. They, on the contrary, were mortified at their failures. Their expectations had been raised by the valour of their army at Alma, at Balaklava, and at Inkerman. But, since the day of Inkerman, their own share in the contest had added no new page of splendour to the English story. The English troops had taken no part in the battle of the Tchernaya; their assaulting columns had been driven back on the 18th of June; they had been repulsed in the final attack on the Redan; and the heroic conduct of their own countrymen at Kars had not prevented the fall of that fortress. Men at home, anxious to account for the failure of their expectations, were beginning to say that England is like the runner, never really ripe for the struggle till he has gained his second wind. They were reluctant that she should retire from the contest at the moment when, having repaired her defective administration and reinforced her shattered army, she was in a position to command a victory. Whatever wishes, however, individual Englishmen might entertain, responsible statesmen, as the autumn wore on, could not conceal from themselves the necessity of finding some honourable means for terminating the war. In October the British Cabinet learned with dismay that the French Emperor had decided on withdrawing 100,000 men from the Crimea. About the same time the members of the Government learned with equal alarm that, if war were to be continued at all, the French public were demanding that France should secure some advantage in Poland, in Italy, and on the left bank of the Rhine. In November the French ministry took a much more extreme course, and concerted with Austria terms of peace without the knowledge of England. … {2781} It was impossible any longer to depend on the co-operation of France, and … it was folly to continue the struggle without her assistance. The protocol which Austria had drawn up, and to which France had assented, was, with some modifications, adopted by Britain and presented, as an ultimatum, to Russia by Austria. In the middle of January, 1856, the ultimatum was accepted by Russia; a Congress at which Clarendon, as Foreign Minister, personally represented his country, was assembled at Paris. The plenipotentiaries, meeting on the 25th of February, at once agreed on a suspension of hostilities. Universally disposed towards peace, they found no difficulty in accommodating differences which had proved irreconcilable in the previous year, and on the 30th of March, 1856, peace was signed. The peace which was thus concluded admitted the right of the Porte to participate in the advantages of the public law of Europe; it pledged all the contracting parties, in the case of any fresh misunderstanding with the Turk, to resort to mediation before using force. It required the Sultan to issue and to communicate to the Powers a firman ameliorating the condition of his Christian subjects; it declared that the communication of the firman gave the Powers no right, either collectively or separately, to interfere between the Sultan and his subjects; it neutralised the Black Sea, opening its waters to the mercantile marine of every nation, but, with the exception of a few vessels of light draught necessary for the service of the coast, closing them to every vessel of war; it forbade the establishment or maintenance of arsenals on the shores of the Euxine; it established the free navigation of the Danube; it set back the frontier of Russia from the Danube; it guaranteed the privileges and immunities of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia; it similarly guaranteed the privileges of Servia, though it gave the Sultan the right of garrison in that province; and it undertook that Russia and Turkey should restore the conquests which they had made in Asia [Kars, etc.] one from another during the war. Such were the terms on which the war was terminated. Before the plenipotentiaries separated they were invited by Walewski, the Foreign Minister and first representative of France, to discuss the condition of Greece, of the Roman States, and of the two Sicilies; to condemn the licence to which a free press was lending itself in Belgium; and to concert measures for the mitigation of some of the worst evils of maritime war."

See DECLARATION OF PARIS.

_S. Walpole, History of England from 1815, chapter 24. _

ALSO IN: E. Hertslet, The Map of Europe by Treaty, volume 2, documents 263-272.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1855. Accession of Alexander II.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1859. Improved treatment of the Jews.

See JEWS: A. D. 1727-1880.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876. Conquests in Central Asia. Subjugation of Bokhara, Khiva and Khokand.

"The original cause of Russia's appearance in Central Asia or Turkestan may be considered either the turbulence of the Kirghiz tribes, or the ambitions and clearly defined policy of Peter the Great. … Although the Czarina Anne received in 1734 the formal surrender of all the Kirghiz hordes, it was not until the present century had far advanced that the Russian Government could so much as flatter itself that it had effectually coerced them. … When the Kirghiz were subjugated Russia found no difficulty in reaching the lower course of the Jaxartes, on which [in 1849] … she established her advanced post at Kazala, or Fort No. 1. With her ultimate task thus simplified, nothing but the Crimean War prevented Russia's immediate advance up the Jaxartes into Turkestan. … The conquest of the Khanate of Turkestan began with the siege and capture of the forts Chulak Kurgan and Yani Kurgan in 1859; its successful progress was shown by the fall of the fortified towns of Turkestan and Auliata in 1864; and it was brought to a conclusion with the storming of Tashkent in 1865. The conquest of this Khanate, which had been united early in the century with that of Khokand, was thus speedily achieved, and this rapid and remarkable triumph is identified with the name of General Tchernaieff."

D. C. Boulger, Central Asian Questions, chapter 1.

"Khudayar Khan, the ruler of Khokand, a noted coward even in Central Asia, had soon lost his spirits, and implored Muzaffar-ed-din-Khan for assistance. Bokhara, reputed at that time the very stronghold of moral and material strength in Central Asia, was soon at hand with an army outnumbering the Russian adventurers ten or fifteen times; an army in name only, but consisting chiefly of a rabble, ill-armed, and devoid of any military qualities. By dint of preponderating numbers, the Bokhariots succeeded so far as to inflict a loss upon the daring Russian general at Irdjar, who, constrained to retreat upon Tashkend, was at once deposed by his superiors in St. Petersburg, and, instead of praises being bestowed upon him for the capture of Tashkend, he had to feel the weight of Russian ingratitude. His successor, General Romanovsky, played the part of a consolidator and a preparer, and as soon as this duty was fulfilled he likewise was superseded by General Kauffmann, a German from the Baltic Russian provinces, uniting the qualities of his predecessors in one person, and doing accordingly the work entrusted to him with pluck and luck in a comparatively short time. In 1868 the Yaxartes valley, together with Samarkand, the former capital of Timur, fell into the hands of Russia, and General Kauffmann would have proceeded to Bokhara, and even farther, if Muzaffar-ed-din-Khan … had not voluntarily submitted and begged for peace. At the treaty of Serpul, the Emir was granted the free possession of the country which was left to him, beginning beyond Kermineh, as far as Tchardjui in the south. … Of course the Emir had to pledge himself to be a true and faithful ally of Russia. He had to pay the heavy war indemnity. … he had to place his sons under the tutorship of the Czar in order to be brought up at St. Petersburg. … and ultimately he had to cede three points on his southern frontier—namely, Djam, Kerki, and Tchardjui. … Scarcely five years had elapsed when Russia … cast her eyes beyond the Oxus upon the Khan of Khiva. … A plea for a 'casus belli' was soon unearthed. … The Russian preparations of war had been ready for a long time, provisions were previously secured on different points, and General Kauffmann, notoriously fond of theatrical pageantries, marched through the most perilous route across bottomless sands from the banks of the Yaxartes to the Oxus [1873]. … {2782} Without fighting a single battle, the whole country on the Lower Oxus was conquered. Russia again showed herself magnanimous by replacing the young Khan upon the paternal throne, after having taken away from him the whole country on the right bank of the Oxus, and imposed upon his neck the burden of a war indemnity which will weigh him down as long as he lives, and cripple even his successors, if any such are to come after him. Three more years passed, when Russia … again began to extend the limits of her possessions in the Yaxartes Valley towards the East. In July, 1876, one of the famous Russian embassies of amity was casually (?) present at the Court of Khudayar Khan at Khokand, when suddenly a rebellion broke out, endangering not only the lives of the Russian embassy but also of the allied ruler. No wonder, therefore, that Russia had to take care of the friend in distress. An army was despatched to Khokand, the rebellion was quelled, and, as a natural consequence, the whole Khanate incorporated into the dominions of the Czar. The Khokandians, especially one portion of them called the Kiptchaks, did not surrender so easily as their brethren in Bokhara and Khiva. The struggle between the conquerer and the native people was a bloody and protracted one; and the butchery at Namangan, an engagement in which the afterwards famous General Skobeleff won his spurs, surpasses all the accounts hitherto given of Russian cruelty. Similar scenes occurred in Endidjan and other places, until the power of the Kiptchaks, noted for their bravery all over Central Asia, was broken, and 'peace,' a pendant to the famous tableau of Vereshtchagin, 'Peace at Shipka,' prevailed throughout the valleys of Ferghana, enabling the Russian eagle to spread his wings undisturbedly over the whole of Central Asia, beginning from the Caspian Sea in the west to the Issyk Kul in the east, and from Siberia to the Turkoman sands in the south."

A. Vambéry, The Coming Struggle for India, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: _F. von Hellwald, The Russians in Central Asia, chapters 7-11. _

J. Hutton, Central Asia, chapters 12 and 18.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1860-1880. The rise, spread and character of Nihilism.

See NIHILISM.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1861. Emancipation of serfs.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL AND MODERN: RUSSIAN SERFDOM.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1864. Organization of Public Instruction.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.—RUSSIA.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1867. Sale of Alaska to the United States.

See ALASKA: A. D. 1867.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1869·1881. Advance in Central Asia from the Caspian. Capture of Geok Tepe. Subjugation of the Turkomans. Occupation of Merv.

"Down to 1869 the Russian advance into Central Asia was conducted from Orenburg and the various military posts of Western Siberia. Year by year the frontier was pushed to the southward, and the map of the Asiatic possessions of Russia required frequent revision. The long chain of the Altai Mountains passed into the control of the Czar; the Aral Sea became a Russian lake; and vast territories with a sparse population were brought under Russian rule. … The Turcoman country extends westward as far as the Caspian Sea. To put a stop to the organized thieving of the Turcomans, and more especially to increase the extent of territory under their control, and open the land route to India, the Russians occupied the eastern shore of the Caspian in 1869. A military expedition was landed at Krasnovodsk, where it built a fort, and took permanent possession of the country in the name of the Czar. Points on the eastern coast of the Caspian had been occupied during the time of Peter the Great, and again during the reign of Nicholas I., but the occupation of the region was only temporary. The force which established itself at Krasnovodsk consisted of a few companies of infantry, two sotnias of Cossacks, and half a dozen pieces of artillery. Three men who afterwards obtained considerable prominence in the affairs of Central Asia, and one of whom gained a world-wide reputation as a soldier, were attached to this expedition. The last was Skobeleff, the hero of Plevna and the Russo-Turkish campaign of 1877-78. The others were Stolietoff' and Grodekoff. … The Yomut Turcomans in the Caspian region made no resistance; they are far less warlike than the Tekke Turcomans farther to the east, who afterwards became the defenders of Geok Tepe. … From 1869 to 1873 there were numerous skirmishes and reconnoitrings, during which the steppes were pretty well explored as far as Kizil-Arvat. General Stolietoff' was in command until 1872, when he was succeeded by Colonel Markusoff, who pushed his explorations to the wells of Igdy, then bending to the southwest, he passed Kizil·Arvat on his return to Krasnovodsk. There appeared to be no obstacle to a Russian advance into the heart of the country. But when General Lomakin was ordered there during the years between 1873 and 1879, he found that beyond Kizil-Arvat were the Tekke Turcomans, who seemed determined to make a decided opposition to the Muscovite designs. … He advanced with 4,000 men and reached Geok Tepe without resistance, but no sooner was he in front of it than the Turcomans fell upon him. He was severely defeated and made a hasty retreat to Krasnovodsk with the remnant of his army. General Tergukasoff was next appointed to the command, but when he saw the difficulties confronting him he resigned. He was succeeded by General Petrussovitch under the chief command of Skobeleff. Thus from Stolietoff to Skobeleff there were no fewer than seven generals who had tried to conquer the Tekke Turcomans. Skobeleff, seeing the vast difficulties of the situation, matured a skilful and scientific plan of operations, for which he obtained the imperial sanction. … Skobeleff's first work [1880] was to secure a safe transport, establish a regular line of steamers across the Caspian, to build suitable docks, secure 20,000 camels, and build a railway from Michaelovsk to Kizil-Arvat. Michaelovsk is a small bay near Krasnovodsk and better suited as a harbor than the latter place. Skobeleff's first reconnoitring convinced him that Geok Tepe could only be taken by a regular siege. … Geok Tepe, sometimes called Goek Tepe ('The Green Hills'), is situated on the Akhal oasis, in the Turcoman steppes, 387 versts (250 miles), east of the Caspian Sea. The chain of hills called the Kopet·Dag, lies south and southwest of Geok Tepe, and on the other side it touches the sandy desert of Kara Kum, with the hill of Geok on the east. The Turcomans, or rather the Tekke Turcomans, who held it are the most numerous of the nomad tribes in that region. {2783} They are reported to count about 100,000 kibitkas, or tents; reckoning 5 persons to a kibitka, this would give them a strength of half a million. Their great strength in numbers and their fighting abilities enabled them to choose their position and settle on the most fertile oases along the northern border of Persia for centuries. These oases have been renowned for their productiveness, and in consequence of the abundance of food, the Tekkes were a powerful race of men, and were feared throughout all that part of Asia. … The fortress of Geok Tepe at the time of the Russian advance consisted of walls of mud 12 or 15 feet high towards the north and west, and 6 or 8 feet thick. In front of these walls was a ditch, 6 feet deep, supplied by a running stream, and behind the walls was a raised platform for the defenders. The space between the first and second interior wall was from 50 to 60 feet wide, and occupied by the kibitkas of the Tekke Turcomans and their families. The second wall was exactly like the outer one." The Russian siege was opened at the beginning of the year 1881. "The first parallel, within 800 yards of the walls, was successfully cut by January 4th. From that date it was a regular siege, interrupted occasionally by sallies of the Tekkes within the fort or attacks by those outside. In one of these fights General Petrussovitch was killed. The besieging army was about 10,000 strong, while the besieged were from 30,000, to 40,000. … Throughout the siege the Turcomans made frequent sallies and there was almost continuous fighting. Sometimes the Turcomans drove the Russians from the outposts, and if they had been as well armed as their besiegers it is highly probable that Skobeleff would have fared no better than did Lomakin in his disastrous campaign. … The storming columns were ordered to be ready for work on January 24th. … At 7 o'clock in the morning of the 24th, Gaidaroff advanced to attack the first fortification on the south front, supported by 36 guns. The wall had already been half crumbled down by an explosion of powder and completely broken by the firing of a dynamite mine. At 11.20 the assault took place, and during the action the mine on the east front was exploded. It was laid with 125 cwt: of gunpowder, and in its explosion completely buried hundreds of Tekkes. … About 1.30 P. M. Gaidaroff carried the southwestern part of the walls, and a battle raged in the interior. Half an hour later the Russians were in possession of Denghil-Tepe, the hill redoubt commanding the fortress of Geok Tepe. The Tekkes then seemed to be panic-stricken, and took to flight leaving their families and all their goods behind. … The ditches to Geok Tepe were filled with corpses, and there were 4, 000 dead in the interior of the fortress. The loss of the enemy was enormous. In the pursuit the Russians are said to have cut down no less than 8,000 fugitives. The total loss of the Tekkes during the siege, capture, and pursuit was estimated at 40,000. … Skobeleff pushed on in pursuit as far as Askabad, the capital of the Akhal Tekkes, 27 miles east of Geok Tepe, and from Askabad he sent Kuropatkin with a reconnoitring column half-way across the desert to Merv. Skobeleff wanted to capture Merv; but … he did not feel strong enough to make the attempt. Kuropatkin was recalled to Askabad, which remained the frontier post of the Russians for several months, until circumstances favored the advance upon Sarakhs and the Tejend, and the subsequent swoop upon Merv, with its bloodless capture [February, 1884]. The siege and capture of Geok Tepe was the most important victory ever achieved by the Russians in Central Asia. It opened the way for the Russian advance to the frontier of India, and carried the boundaries of the empire southward to those of Persia. In the interest of humanity, it was of the greatest importance, as it broke up the system of man-stealing and its attendant cruelties, which the Turcomans had practised for centuries. The people of Northern Persia no longer live in constant terror of Turcoman raids; the slave markets of Central Asia are closed, and doubtless forever."

T. W. Knox, Decisive Battles since Waterloo, chapter 22.

"There is a vast tract of country in Central Asia that offers great possibilities for settlement. Eastern Afghan, and Western Turkestan, with an area of 1,500,000 square miles, have a population which certainly does not exceed 15,000,000, or ten to the square mile. Were they peopled as the Baltic provinces of Russia are—no very extreme supposition—they would support 90,000,000. It is conceivable that something like this may be realized at no very distant date, when railroads are carried across China, and when water—the great want of Turkestan—is provided for by a system of canalisation and artesian wells. Meanwhile it is important to observe that whatever benefit is derived from an increase of population in these regions will mostly fall to China. That empire possesses the better two-thirds of Turkestan, and can pour in the surplus of a population of 400,000,000. Russia can only contribute the surplus of a population of about 100,000,000; and though the Russian is a fearless and good colonist, there are so many spaces in Russia in Europe to be filled up, so many growing towns that need workmen, so many counter-attractions in the gold bearing districts of Siberia, that the work of peopling the outlying dependencies of the empire is likely to be very gradual. Indeed it is reported that Russia is encouraging Chinese colonists to settle in the parts about Merv."

C. H. Pearson, National Life and Character, pages 43-44.

ALSO IN: _General Skobeleff, Siege and Assault of Denghil-Tépé (Geok-Tépé): Official Report._

C. Marvin, The Russians at the Gates of Herat, chapter 1-2.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1877-1878. Successful war with Turkey. Siege and reduction of Plevna. Threatening advance towards Constantinople.- Treaty of San Stefano. Congress and Treaty of Berlin.

See TURKS: A. D. 1861-1877; 1877-1878; and 1878.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1878-1880. Movements in Afghanistan.

See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1869-1881.

{2784}

RUSSIA: A. D. 1879-1881. Nihilist attempts against the life of the Czar Alexander II. His assassination.

In November, 1879, "the Czar paid his annual visit to the memorial church at Sevastopol, when a requiem was celebrated, and he left the Crimea on November 30. The following evening, as his train was entering Moscow, followed by another carrying his baggage, an explosion took place under the baggage train from a mine of dynamite below the rails, which destroyed one carriage, and threw seven more off the line: He was informed of the cause of the noise he had just heard, as he stepped on to the platform at Moscow, and it proved to be another Nihilist outrage [see NIHILISM], designed chiefly by an ex-Jew, who escaped to France, and by Sophia Perovsky, who was afterwards concerned in the Emperor's death. A similar mine, of which the wire was accidentally cut by a passing cart before the train arrived, had been laid further south at Alexandrovsk; and another nearer to Odessa was discovered in time by the officials, who reversed the usual position of the Imperial trains, thereby probably saving the Czar's life. He telegraphed the same night to the Empress at Cannes that he had arrived safely at Moscow, but did not mention his escape, which she learned from the newspapers, and from her attendants. In her weak, nervous state, it is not surprising that the effect was most injurious. … Another plot was discovered to blow up the landing stage at Odessa when the Emperor embarked for Yalta on his way from Warsaw in September; but the arrest of the conspirators frustrated a scheme by which hundreds as well as the sovereign might have perished. … The Revolutionary Committee put forth a circular acknowledging their part in the explosion, and calling on the people to aid them against the Czar. … A formal sentence of death was forwarded to him at Livadia by the Revolutionary Committee in the autumn of 1879; and December 1 was evidently selected for the Moscow attempt, being the anniversary of the death of Alexander I.; therefore a fatal day for monarchs in the eyes of the Nihilists. The Empress continued very ill, and her desire to return to Russia increased. At last it was decided to gratify her, as her case was pronounced hopeless. … The Emperor joined her in the train three stations before she arrived at St. Petersburg, and drove alone with her in the closed carriage, in which she was removed from the station to the Winter Palace. Only a fortnight later [February 17, 1880], a diabolical attempt was made to destroy the whole Imperial family. The hours when they assembled in the dining-room were well known. … The Empress was confined to her room, only kept alive by an artificial atmosphere being preserved in her apartment, which was next to the dining-room. Her only surviving brother, Prince Alexander of Hesse-Darmstadt, had arrived the same evening on a visit, and his letter to his wife on the occasion describes the result of the plot: … 'We were proceeding through a large corridor to His Majesty's rooms, when suddenly a fearful thundering was heard. The flooring was raised as if by an earthquake, the gas lamps were extinguished, and we were left in total darkness. At the same time a horrible dust and the smell of gunpowder or dynamite filled the corridor. Some one shouted to us that the chandelier had fallen down in the saloon where the table was laid for the dinner of the Imperial family. I hastened thither with the Czarovitz and the Grand-Duke Vladimir, while Count Adlerberg, in doubt as to what might happen next, held back the Emperor. We found all the windows broken, and the walls in ruins. A mine had exploded under the room. The dinner was delayed for half an hour by my arrival, and it was owing to this that the Imperial family had not yet assembled in the dining-hall.' One of the Princes remarked that it was a gas explosion; but the Emperor, who fully retained his composure, said, 'O no, I know what it is;' and it was subsequently stated that for several weeks past he had found a sealed black-bordered letter on his table every morning, always containing the same threat, that he should not survive the 2nd of March, the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession. His first care was to see that his daughter was safe, and he then asked her to go to the Empress, and prevent her from being alarmed, while he personally inspected the scene of the catastrophe. General Todleben was of opinion that 144 lbs. of dynamite must have been used; and one of the cooks —a foreigner—and another official disappeared; but none of those concerned in the plot was arrested at that time. Subsequent information showed that the explosion was intended for the 2nd of March, but hastened on account of the arrest of some one acquainted with the plot. It was caused by machinery placed in the flue, and set for 6 P. M. It killed and wounded two servants and thirty-three brave soldiers of the Finnish Guard, who were assembled in the hall under the dining-room and above the flue where the dynamite was laid. … The Russian and foreign newspapers teemed with advice to the Emperor to grant a constitution, or abdicate in order to save his life; and it is reported that in a Council of his Ministers and relations he offered to hand over the sceptre at once to his eldest son, if they agreed that it would be best for their own safety, and for Russia; but that he was earnestly requested to continue in power. However this might be, he took an extraordinary and decisive step. He appointed an Armenian, General Melikof, a man of 56 years of age, distinguished in the war with Turkey, and subsequently as Governor of Charkof, to be the temporary dictator of the Empire, with almost absolute powers, and over the six Governors-General who in 1879 were established throughout Russia. The Commission was for six months. … The explosion in the Winter Palace caused the greatest panic in St. Petersburg, and people would no longer take tickets for the opera, till they ascertained that the Emperor was not likely to be there. … The sad condition of the Empress, who lingered, hardly conscious, between life and death, the incessant Nihilist circulars which day after day were found among his clothes, or on his writing table, with the real attempts made to poison him in letters and other ways, and of assassins to penetrate into the Palace under the guise of sweeps, petitioners, fire-lighters, and guards, the danger to which his nearest relations were exposed, and the precautions which he looked upon as a humiliation that were taken to ensure his safety, added to the cares of Empire, must have rendered his [the Emperor's] existence hardly tolerable. It is not surprising that at last he desired to be left to take his chance. … He was again seen driving in the streets in an open droschky, with only his coachman and one Cossack. … In May the Court usually repaired to Gateschina for the summer manœuvres of the troops. … The Empress, having somewhat rallied, desired to go as usual to Gateschina. … But early in the morning of June 3, she passed quietly away in her sleep. … {2785} It has been since ascertained that the Nihilists had planned to blow up the bridge over which the funeral procession must pass, so as to destroy all the mourners, including the foreign princes, the Imperial hearse, and the numerous guards and attendants; but a tremendous storm of rain and wind on the previous night and morning, which raised the Neva to a level with its banks, and threatened to postpone the ceremony, prevented the last measures being taken to secure the success of the plot. … On March 2, the Emperor, as usual, attended the Requiem Mass for his father, and the service to celebrate his own accession to the throne. During the last week of his life, he lived in comparative retirement, as it was Lent, and he was preparing for the Holy Communion, which he received with his sons on the morning of Saturday, March 12. At 12 that day, Melikof came to tell him of the capture of one of the Nihilists concerned in the explosion in the Winter Palace. This man refused to answer any questions, except that his capture would not prevent the Emperor's certain assassination, and that his Majesty would never see another Easter. Both Melikof and the Czarovitz begged the Emperor in vain not to attend the parade the next day. … After the Parade [Sunday, March 13, 1881] the Emperor drove with his brother Michael to the Michael Palace, the abode of their cousin, the widowed Grand-Duchess Catherine; and, leaving his brother there, he set off about two o'clock by the shortest way to the Winter Palace, along the side of the Catherine Canal. There, in the part where the road runs between the Summer Garden and the Canal, a bombshell was hurled under the Imperial carriage, and exploded in a shower of snow, throwing down two of the horses of the escort, tearing off the back of the carriage, and breaking the glass, upsetting two lamp-posts, and wounding one of the Cossacks, and a baker's boy who was passing with a basket on his head. As soon as he saw the two victims lying on the pavement, the Emperor called to the coachman to stop, but the last only drove on faster, having received private orders from the Emperor's family to waive all ceremony, and to prevent his master from going into dangerous situations, or among crowds. However, the Emperor pulled the cord round the coachman's arm till he stopped; and then, in spite of the man's request to let himself be driven straight home, got out to speak to the sufferers, and to give orders for their prompt removal to the hospital, as the thermometer was below zero. … The Emperor gave his directions, and seeing the man who had thrown the bomb in the grasp of two soldiers, though still struggling to point a revolver at his sovereign, he asked his name, on which the aid-de-camp replied: 'He calls himself Griaznof, and says he is a workman.' The Emperor made one or two more remarks, and then turned to go back to his carriage. It was observed he was deadly pale, and walked very slowly; and as splashes of blood were found in the carriage, it was afterwards supposed that he had already received slight wounds. Several men had been placed at different points of the road with explosive bombs, and hearing the first explosion, two of these hurried up to see the effect. One of them flung a bomb at the Emperor's feet when he had gone a few paces towards his carriage, and it exploded, blowing off one leg, and shattering the other to the top of the thigh, besides mortally wounding the assassin himself, who fell with a shriek to the ground, and injuring twenty foot passengers. The other accomplice, according to his own evidence, put down his bomb, and instinctively ran forward to help the Emperor, who did not utter a sound, though his lips moved as if in prayer. He was supporting himself with his back against a buttress by grasping the rails on the canal. His helmet was blown off, his clothes torn to rags, and his orders scattered about on the snow, while the windows of houses 150 yards distant were broken by the explosion, which raised a column of smoke and snow, and was heard even at the Anitchkof Palace. … Besides his shattered limbs, the Emperor had a frightful gash in the abdomen, his left eyelid was burnt, and his sight gone, his right hand was crushed, and the rings broken. … The Emperor expired from loss of blood at five-and-twenty minutes to four. … More than twenty persons were killed and injured by the two bombs."

C. Joyneville, Life of Alexander II., chapter 13.

ALSO IN: Annual Register, 1879-1881.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1881. Accession of Alexander III.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1881-1894. Character and reign of Alexander III. Persecution of Jews and unorthodox Christians. Hostility to western civilization.

"According to an apparently authentic report in the Cracow paper 'Czas,' confirmed by later publications, the Emperor Alexander II. had signed the very morning of the day on which he was murdered a Ukase addressed to the Senate, by which a committee was to be appointed for realising Count Loris Melikow's project of a general representative assembly composed of delegates from the provincial assemblies. On March 20th Alexander III. convoked a grand council of the principal dignitaries, asking their opinion on Loris Melikow's proposal. A lively discussion took place, of which the 'Czas' gives a detailed account. … The Emperor, thanking the members, said that the majority had declared for the convening of an assembly elected by the nation for discussing the affairs of the State, adding, 'I share this opinion of the majority, and wish that the reform Ukase shall be published as under the patronage of my father, to whom the initiative of this reform is due.' The Ukase, however, was not published, Podobenoszew and Ignatiew having succeeded in discrediting it in the eyes of the Czar, asserting that it would only create excitement and increase the existing fermentation. On May 13th a manifesto appeared, in which the Czar declared his will 'to keep firmly the reins in obedience to the voice of God, and, in the belief in the force and truth of autocratic power, to fortify that power and to guard it against all encroachments.' A few days later Count Ignatiew, the head of the Slavophil party, was appointed Minister of the Interior, and by-and-by the other more liberal Ministers of Alexander II. disappeared. By far the most important personage under the present government is Podobenoszew, High Procurator of the Holy Synod, an office equivalent to a Minister of Public Worship for the State Church. Laborious and of unblemished integrity, this man is a fanatic by conviction. Under Alexander II., who was too much of a European to like him, he had but a secondary position, but under his pupil, the present Emperor, he has become all-powerful, the more so because his orthodoxy wears the national garb, and he insists that the break-down of the Nicolas I. system was only caused through governing with Ministers of German origin. {2786} He is seconded by Count Tolstoi, the Minister of Internal Affairs (who replaced the more liberal Saburow), to whom belong the questions concerning the foreign, i. e., non-orthodox, confessions. These two, supported by the Minister of Justice, Manasseïn, have enacted persecutions against Catholics, Uniates, Protestants, and Jews [see JEWS: 19TH CENTURY], which seem incredible in our age, but which are well attested. Thousands of persons who have committed no wrong other than that of being faithful to their inherited creed have been driven from their homes, and exiled to Siberia, or to distant regions without any means of livelihood. As regards Catholics, these measures are principally directed against the clergy; but the Uniates, i. e., the Catholics who have the Slav liturgy, are unsparingly deported if they refuse to have their children baptised by an orthodox Pope, and this is done with men, women, and children, peasants and merchants. Twenty thousand Uniates alone have been removed from the western provinces to Szaratow. Those who remain at home have Cossacks quartered upon them, and all sorts of compulsory means are used to stamp out this sect. … It is pretty certain that Alexander III. is ignorant of the atrocities committed in his name, for he is not a man to sanction deliberate injustice or to tolerate persons of manifest impurity in important offices. Though the Czar insists upon having personally honest Ministers, mere honesty is not sufficient for governing a great empire. Truth does not penetrate to the ear of the autocrat; the Russian Press does not reflect public opinion with its currents, but is simply the speaking-tube of the reigning coterie, which has suppressed all papers opposed to it, while the foreign Press is only allowed to enter mutilated by the censorship. Some people have, indeed, the privilege to read foreign papers in their original shape, but the Autocrat of All the Russias does not belong to them. … The Emperor is peaceful and will not hear of war: he has, in fact, submitted to many humiliations arising from Russia's conduct towards Bulgaria. … With all this, however, he is surrounded by Panslavists and allows them to carry on an underground warfare against the Balkan States. … He is strongly opposed to all Western ideas of civilisation, very irritable, and unflinching in his personal dislikes, as he has shown in the case of Prince Alexander of Battenberg; and, with his narrow views, he is unable to calculate the bearing of his words and actions, which often amount to direct provocation against his neighbours. If, nevertheless, tolerable relations with England, Austria, and Germany have been maintained, this is for the most part the merit of M. de Giers, the Foreign Secretary, an unpretending, cautious, and personally reliable man of business, whose influence with the Czar lies in the cleverness with which he appears not to exercise any."

_Professor Geffcken, Russia under Alexander III. (New Review, September, 1891)._

ALSO IN: _H. von Samson-Himmelstierna, Russia under Alexander III._

RUSSIA: A. D. 1894. Death of Alexander III. Accession of Nicholas II.

The Czar Alexander III. died on the 1st of November, 1894, at Livadia, and the accession of his eldest son, who ascends the throne as Nicholas II., was officially proclaimed at St. Petersburg on the following day. The new autocrat was born in 1868. He is to wed the Princess Alix of Hesse Darmstadt.

----------RUSSIA: End--------

RUSSIA, Great, Little, White, and Black.

"Little Russia consists of the governments of Podolia, Volhynia, Kief, Tchernigof, Poltava, and Kharkof. … To protect Poland from Tartar raids, the Polish king entrusted to the keeping of the Cossacks the whole south-east frontier of Poland, the former Grand Duchy of Kief, which acquired the name of Ukraine, 'borderland,' and also of Little Russia, in contradistinction to the Grand Duchy of Moscow or Great Russia. …

See COSSACKS.

The provinces of Moghilef, Minsk, and Vitebsk are popularly known by the name of White Russia. … The peaceful, industrious, good tempered White Russians are descendants of the old Slav race of the Krevitchi. … The name of 'the land of the Krevitchi,' by which White Russia was called in the 11th century, died out on the rise of the Principalities of Polotsk, Misteslavsk, and Minsk, which belonged first to Kief, next to Lithuania, and later still to Poland."

H. M. Chester, Russia, Past and Present, pages 225. 228, 270-271.

"The epithet of 'White,' applied also to the Muscovite Russians in the sense of 'free,' at the time when they were rescued from the Tatar yoke, has been the special designation of the Russians of the Upper Dnieper only since the end of the 14th century. At first applied by the Poles to all the Lithuanian possessions torn from the Muscovites, it was afterwards used in a more restricted sense. Catherine II. gave the name of White Russia to the present provinces of Vitebsk and Moghilov, and Nicholas abolished the expression altogether, since when it has lost all its political significance, while preserving its ethnical value. … The term 'White' is generally supposed to refer to the colour of their dress in contradistinction to the 'Black Russians,' between the Pripet and Niemen, who form the ethnical transition from the Little to the White Russians. … The terms Little Russia (Malo-Russia, Lesser Russia), Ukrania, Ruthenia, have never had any definite limits, constantly shifting with the vicissitudes of history, and even with the administrative divisions. … The name itself of Little Russia appears for the first time in the Byzantine chronicles of the 13th century in association with Galicia and Volhynia, after which it was extended to the Middle Dnieper, or Kiyovia. In the same way Ukrania—that is 'Frontier'—was first applied to Podolia to distinguish it from Galicia, and afterwards to the southern provinces of the Lithuanian state, between the Bug and Dnieper."

É. Reclus, The Earth and its Inhabitants: Europe, volume 5. pages 282-290.

RUSSIAN AMERICA.

See ALASKA.

RUSTCHUK, Battle of (1594).

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14-18TH CENTURIES (ROUMANIA, ETC.).

RUTENI, The.

The Ruteni were a Gallic tribe, who bordered on the Roman Gallia Provincia, between the Cevennes and the Cadurci occupying the district of France called Rouergue before the Revolution.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 4, chapter 17.

RUTENNU, The.

See ROTENNU.

{2787}

RÜTLI, GRÜTLI, The Meadow of.

See SWITZERLAND: THE THREE FOREST CANTONS.

RUTULIANS, The.

See LATIUM.

RUTUPIÆ.

The principal Kentish seaport of Roman Britain; now Richborough. It was celebrated for its oysters.

T. Wright, Celt, Roman and Saxon, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: _C. Roach Smith, Antiquities of Richborough._

See ENGLAND: A. D. 449-473.

RUWARD OF BRABANT.

"This office was one of great historical dignity, but somewhat anomalous in its functions. … A Ruward was not exactly dictator, although his authority was universal. He was not exactly protector, nor governor, nor stadholder. His functions … were commonly conferred on the natural heir to the sovereignty—therefore more lofty than those of ordinary stadholders."

J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic; part 5, chapter 4.

RYE-HOUSE PLOT, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1681-1683.

RYOTS OF BENGAL, The.

See INDIA: A. D. 1785-1793.

RYSWICK, The Peace of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1695-1696; and 1697.

S

SAARBRÜCK, OR SAARBRÜCKEN: United to France (1680).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1679-1681.

SAARBRÜCK, OR SAARBRÜCKEN, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JULY-AUGUST).

SABÆANS, The.

See ARABIA: ANCIENT SUCCESSION AND FUSION OF RACES.

SABANA DE LA CRUZ, Battle of (1859).

See VENEZUELA: A. D. 1829-1886.

SABBATHAISTS.

A Jewish sect, believers in the Messianic pretensions of one Sabbathai Sevi, of Smyrna, who made an extraordinary commotion in the Jewish world about the middle of the 17th century, and who finally embraced Mahometanism.

H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 28.

SABELLIANS, The.

See SABINES; also, ITALY: ANCIENT.

SABELLIANS, The sect of the.

See NOËTIANS.

SABINE CROSS ROADS, OR MANSFIELD, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MARCH-MAY: LOUISIANA).

SABINE WARS, The.

The Roman historians—Dionysius, Plutarch, Livy, and others— gave credit to traditions of a long and dangerous war, or series of wars, with the Sabines, following the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome and the founding of the Republic. But modern skeptical criticism has left little ground for any part of the story of these wars. It seems to have been derived from the chronicles of an ancient family, the Valerian family, and, as a recent writer has said, it is suspicious that "a Valerius never holds a magistracy but there is a Sabine war." Ihne conjectures that some annalist of the Valerian family used the term Sabine in relating the wars of the Romans with the Latins, and with the Tarquins, struggling to regain their lost throne, and that this gave a start to the whole fictitious narrative of Sabine wars.

W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 1, chapter 12.

SABINE WOMEN, The Rape of the.

See ROME: B. C. 753-510.

SABINES, OR SABELLIANS, The.

"The greatest of the Italian nations was the Sabellian. Under this name we include the Sabines, who are said by tradition to have been the progenitors of the whole race, the Samnites, the Picenians, Vestinians, Marsians, Marrucinians, Pelignians, and Frentanians. This race seems to have been naturally given to a pastoral life, and therefore fixed their early settlements in the upland valleys of the Apennines. Pushing gradually along this central range, they penetrated downwards towards the Gulf of Tarentum; and as their population became too dense to find support in their native hills, bands of warrior youths issued forth to settle in the richer plains below. Thus they mingled with the Opican and Pelasgian races of the south, and formed new tribes known by the names of Apulians, Lucanians, and Campanians. These more recent tribes, in turn, threatened the Greek colonies on the coast. … It is certain that the nation we call Roman was more than half Sabellian. Traditional history … attributes the conquest of Rome to a Sabine tribe. Some of her kings were Sabine; the name borne by her citizens was Sabine; her religion was Sabine; most of her institutions in war and peace were Sabine; and therefore it may be concluded that the language of the Roman people differed from that of Latium Proper by its Sabine elements, though this difference died out again as the Latin communities were gradually absorbed into the territory of Rome.'

H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, introduction, section 2.

See, also, ITALY, ANCIENT; and LATIUM.

SABINIAN, Pope, A. D. 604-606.

SABRINA.

The ancient name of the Severn river.

SAC AND SOC.

A term used in early English and Norman times to signify grants of jurisdiction to individual land-owners. The manorial court-leets were the products of these grants.

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 7, section 73.

See, also, MANORS.

SAC, OR SAUK, INDIANS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, and SACS, FOXES, ETC.

SACÆ, The.

"The Sacæ were neighbours of the Hyrcanians, the Parthians, and the Bactrians in the steppes of the Oxus. Herodotus tells us that the Sacæ were a nation of the tribe of the Scyths, and that their proper name was Amyrgians; the Persians called all the Scythians Sacæ."

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 8, chapter 2 (volume 5).

See, also, SCYTHIANS.

SACERDOTES.

These were the public priests of the ancient Romans, who performed the 'sacra publica' or religious rites for the people, at public expense.

_E. Guhl and W. Koner. Life of the Greeks and Romans, section 103. _

SACHEM. SAGAMORE.

"Each totem of the Lenape [or Delaware Indians of North America] recognized a chieftain, called sachem, 'sakima,' a word found in most Algonkin dialects, with slight variations (Chip., 'ogima,' Cree, 'okimaw, Pequot, 'sachimma '), and derived from a root 'ŏki,' signifying above in space, and, by a transfer frequent in all languages, above in power. … {2789} It appears from Mr. Morgan's inquiries, that at present and of later years, 'the office of sachem is hereditary in the gens, but elective among its members.' Loskiel, however, writing on the excellent authority of Zeisberger, states explicitly that the chief of each totem was selected and inaugurated by those of the remaining two. By common and ancient consent, the chief selected from the Turtle totem was head chief of the whole Lenape nation. The chieftains were the 'peace chiefs.' They could neither go to war themselves, nor send nor receive the war belt—the ominous string of dark wampum, which indicated that the tempest of strife was to be let loose. … War was declared by the people at the instigation of the 'war captains,' valorous braves of any birth or family who had distinguished themselves by personal prowess."

D. G. Brinton, The Lenape and their Legends, chapter 3.

"At the institution of the League [of the Iroquois] fifty permanent sachemships were created, with appropriate names; and in the sachems who held these titles were vested the supreme powers of the confederacy. … The sachems themselves were equal in rank and authority, and instead of holding separate territorial jurisdictions, their powers were joint, and coextensive with the League. As a safeguard against contention and fraud, each sachem was 'raised up' and invested with his title by a council of all the sachems, with suitable forms and ceremonies. … The sachemships were distributed unequally between the five nations, but without thereby giving to either a preponderance of political power. Nine of them were assigned to the Mohawk nation, nine to the Oneida, fourteen to the Onondaga, ten to the Cayuga and eight to the Seneca. The sachems united formed the Council of the League, the ruling body, in which resided the executive, legislative and judicial authority."

L. H. Morgan, The League of the Iroquois, book 1, chapter 3.

"The New England Indians had functionaries; … the higher class known as sachems, the subordinate, or those of inferior note or smaller jurisdiction, as sagamores. … This is the distinction commonly made (Hutchinson, Massachusetts, I. 410). But Williamson Maine, I. 494) reverses it; Dudley (Letter to the Countess of Lincoln) says, 'Sagamore, so are the kings with us called, as they are sachems southward' (that is, in Plymouth); and Gookin (Massachusetts Historical Collection., 1. 154) speaks of the two titles of office as equivalent."

J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, volume 1, chapter 1, and foot-note.

SACHEVERELL, Henry: Impeachment of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1710-1712.

SACKETT'S HARBOR: Naval headquarters in the war of 1812.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).

SÄCKINGEN: Capture by Duke Bernhard (1637).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

SACRAMENTARIANS.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1528-1531.

SACRED BAND OF CARTHAGE.

See CARTHAGE, THE DOMINION OF.

SACRED BAND OF THEBES.

See THEBES, GREECE: B. C. 378.

SACRED MONTH OF THE CHARTISTS, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1838-1842.

SACRED MOUNT AT ROME, The.

See ROME: B. C. 494-492.

SACRED PROMONTORY, The.

The southwestern extremity of Spain—Cape St. Vincent—was anciently called the Sacred Promontory, and supposed by early geographers to be the extreme western point of the known world.

E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, chapter 28, part 1 (volume 2).

SACRED ROADS IN GREECE.

"After the chariot races came into vogue [at the sacred festivals and games] these equally necessitated good carriage roads, which it was not easy to make in a rocky locality like Delphi. Thus arose the sacred roads, along which the gods themselves were said to have first passed, as Apollo once came through pathless tracks to Delphi. … Hence the art of road-making and of building bridges, which deprived the wild mountain streams of their dangers, took its first origin from the national sanctuaries, especially from those of Apollo. While the foot-paths led across the mountain ridges, the carriage-roads followed the ravines which the water had formed. The rocky surface was leveled, and ruts hollowed out which, carefully smoothed, served as tracks in which the wheels rolled on without obstruction. This style of roads made it necessary, in order to a more extended intercourse, to establish an equal gauge, since otherwise the festive as well as the racing chariots would have been prevented from visiting the various sanctuaries. And since as a matter of fact, as far as the influence of Delphi extended in the Peloponnesus and in central Greece, the same gauge of 5 ft. 4 in. demonstrably prevailed, not merely the extension, but also the equalization, of the net-work of Greek roads took its origin from Delphi."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 2, chapter 4.

SACRED TRUCE, The.

See OLYMPIC GAMES.

----------SACRED WAR: Start--------

SACRED WAR, The First.

See ATHENS: B. C. 610-586, and DELPHI.

SACRED WAR: The Second.

The Phocians, B. C. 449, counting on the support of Athens, whose allies they were, undertook to acquire possession of the sacred and wealthy city of Delphi. The Spartans sent an army to the defense of the sanctuary and expelled them;· whereupon the Athenians sent another and restored them.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 45.

SACRED WAR: The Ten Years.

See GREECE: B. C. 357-336.

----------SACRED WAR: End--------

SACRED WAY AT ATHENS.

The road which led from the great gate of Athens called Dipylum straight to Eleusis, along which the festive processions moved, was called the Sacred Way.

W. M. Leake, Topography of Athens, section 2.

SACRED WAY AT ROME, The.

See VIA SACRA.

SACRIPORTUS, Battle of (B. C. 83).

See ROME: B. C. 88-78.

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SADDUCEES, The.

"There is a tradition that the name of Sadducee was derived from Zadok, a disciple of Antigonus of Socko. But the statement is not earlier than the seventh century after the Christian Era, and the person seems too obscure to have originated so widespread a title. It has been also ingeniously conjectured that the name, as belonging to the whole priestly class, is derived from the famous high priest of the time of Solomon. But of this there is no trace in history or tradition. It is more probable that, as the Pharisees derived their name from the virtue of Isolation (pharishah) from the Gentile world on which they most prided themselves, so the Sadducees derived theirs from their own special virtue of Righteousness (zadikah), that is, the fulfillment of the Law, with which, as its guardians and representatives of the law, they were specially concerned. The Sadducees—whatever be the derivation of the word—were less of a sect than a class."

Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lecture 49.

"At the time when we first meet with them [the Sadducees] in history, that is to say, under Jonathan the Asmonean [B. C. 159-144—see JEWS: B. C. 166-40], they were, though in a modified form, the heirs and successors of the Hellenists [see JEWS: B. C. 332-167]. … Hellenism was conquered under the Asmoneans, and beaten out of the field, and a new gush of Jewish patriotism and zeal for the law had taken its place. The Sadducees, who from the first appear as a school suited for the times, including the rich and educated statesmen, adopted the prevailing tone among the people. They took part in the services and sacrifices of the temple, practised circumcision, observed the Sabbath, and so professed to be real Jews and followers of the law, but the law rightly understood, and restored to its simple text and literal sense. They repudiated, they said, the authority of the new teachers of the law (now the Pharisees), and of the body of tradition with which they had encircled the law. In this tradition they of course included all that was burdensome to themselves. … The peculiar doctrines of the Sadducees obviously arose from the workings of the Epicurean philosophy, which had found special acceptance in Syria. They admitted indeed the creation, as it seems, but denied all continuous operation of God in the world. … The Sadducees proved they were real followers of Epicurus, by denying the life of the soul after death. The soul, they said, passes away with the body. … The mass of the people stood aloof from the Sadducees, whom they regarded with mistrust and aversion."

J. J. I. Döllinger, The Gentile and the Jew in the Courts of the Temple of Christ, volume 2, page 302-303.

ALSO IN: _E. Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ, section 26 (division 2, volume 2). _

SADOWA, OR KÖNIGGRÄTZ, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

SAFFARY DYNASTY, The.

See SAMANIDES.

SAGAMORE.

See SACHEM.

SAGAMOSO, Battle of (1819).

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1810-1819.

SAGARTIANS, The.

A nomadic people, described by Herodotus, who wandered on the western borders of the great Iranian desert—the desert region of modern Persia.

SAGAS.

See NORMANS.—NORTHMEN: A. D. 860-1100.

SAGGENASH, The.

See YANKEE.

SAGUENAY.

See CANADA: NAMES.

SAGUNTUM, Capture of, by Hannibal.

See PUNIC WAR, THE SECOND.

SAHAPTINS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: NEZ PERCÉS.

SAHAY, Battle of.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1742 (JUNE-DECEMBER).

SAILOR'S CREEK, Battle of.

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

SAIM.

See TIMAR.

SAINT ALBANS (England). Origin of.

See VERULAMIUM.

SAINT ALBANS (England): A. D. 1455-1461. Battles of York and Lancaster.

The town of St. Albans, in England, was the scene of two battles in the lamentable Wars of the Roses. The first collision of the long conflict between Lancaster and York occurred in its streets on the 23d of May, 1455, when King Henry VI. was taken prisoner by the Duke of York and 5,000 to 8,000 of his supporters were slain. Six years later, on the 17th of February, 1461, the contending forces met again in the streets of St. Albans with a different result. The Yorkists were put to flight by the Lancastrians under Queen Margaret.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.

SAINT ALBANS CONFEDERATE RAID.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (OCTOBER) THE ST. ALBANS RAID.

SAINT ALBANS FENIAN RAID.

See CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.

SAINT ANDREW, The Russian order of.

An order of knighthood instituted in 1698 by Peter the Great.

SAINT ANDREW, The Scottish order of.

"To keep pace with other sovereigns, who affected forming orders of knighthood, in which they themselves should preside, like Arthur at his round table, or Charlemagne among his paladins, James [IV. of Scotland, A. D. 1488-1513] established the order of Saint Andrew, assuming the badge of the thistle, which since that time has been the national emblem of Scotland."

Sir W. Scott, History of Scotland, chapter 21.

SAINT ANDREWS, Siege of the Castle of.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1546.

SAINT ANGELO, Castle.

See CASTLE ST. ANGELO.

SAINT AUGUSTINE, Canons of.

See AUSTIN CANONS.

----------SAINT AUGUSTINE, Florida: Start--------

SAINT AUGUSTINE, Florida: A. D. 1565. Founded by the Spaniards.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1565.

SAINT AUGUSTINE, Florida: A. D. 1701. Attack from South Carolina.

See SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1701-1706.

SAINT AUGUSTINE, Florida: A. D. 1740. Unsuccessful attack by the English of Georgia and Carolina.

See GEORGIA: A. D. 1738-1743.

SAINT AUGUSTINE, Florida: A. D. 1862. Temporary occupation by Union forces.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (FEBRUARY-APRIL: GEORGIA-FLORIDA).

----------SAINT AUGUSTINE, Florida: End--------

SAINT BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY, The Massacre of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1572 (AUGUST).

SAINT BRICE'S DAY, The Massacre of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 979-1016.

SAINT CHRISTOPHER, The Island: Ceded to England (1713).

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

{2790}

SAINT CLAIR, General Arthur. Campaign against the Indians, and defeat.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1790-1795.

SAINT CLOUD DECREE, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1810.

SAINT DENIS (France), Battle of (1567).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.

SAINT DENIS (Belgium), Battle of (1678).

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.

SAINT DIDIER, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).

SAINT DOMINGO, OR HAYTI, The Island.

See HAYTI.

SAINT DOMINGO, The Republic.

See HAYTI: A. D. 1804-1880.

SAINT GEORGE, Bank of.

See MONEY AND BANKING: GENOA; also GENOA: A. D. 1407-1448.

SAINT GEORGE, The order of.

Founded by Catherine II. of Russia in 1769.

SAINT GERMAIN-EN-LAYE, Peace of (1570).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.

SAINT GERMAINS, The French court.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1647-1648.

SAINT GERMAINS, The Jacobite court.

When James II., driven from England by the Revolution of 1688, took refuge in France, he was received with great hospitality by Louis XIV., who assigned to the exiled king the palace of Saint-Germains for his residence, with a pension or allowance which enabled him to maintain a regal court of imposing splendor. "There was scarcely in all Europe a residence more enviably situated than that which the generous Lewis had assigned to his suppliants. The woods were magnificent, the air clear and salubrious, the prospects extensive and cheerful. No charm of rural life was wanting; and the towers of the greatest city of the Continent were visible in the distance. The royal apartments were richly adorned with tapestry and marquetry, vases of silver, and mirrors in gilded frames. A pension of more than 40,000 pounds sterling was annually paid to James from the French treasury. He had a guard of honour composed of some of the finest soldiers in Europe. … But over the mansion and the domain brooded a constant gloom, the effect, partly of bitter regrets and of deferred hopes, but chiefly of the abject superstition which had taken complete possession of his own mind, and which was affected by all those who aspired to his favour. His palace wore the aspect of a monastery. … Thirty or forty ecclesiastics were lodged in the building; and their apartments were eyed with envy by noblemen and gentlemen who had followed the fortunes of their Sovereign, and who thought it hard that, when there was so much room under his roof, they should be forced to sleep in the garrets of the neighbouring town. … All the saints of the royal household were praying for each other and backbiting each other from morning to night."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 20 (volume 4).

SAINT GOTHARD, Battle of (1664).

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1660-1664.

SAINT GREGORY, Order of.

Instituted in 1831 by Pope Gregory XVI.

SAINT HELENA, Napoleon's captivity at.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (JUNE-AUGUST).

SAINT ILDEFONSO, Treaty of.

See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1580-1777; and LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

SAINT ILDEFONSO, University of.

See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.

SAINT JAGO, Knights of the order of.

See CALATRAVA.

SAINT JAMES, The Palace and Court of.

"Of the British Monarchy the official and diplomatic seat is St. James', a dingy and shabby pile of brick, which by its meanness, compared with the Tuileries and Versailles, aptly symbolizes the relation of the power which built it to that of the Monarchy of Louis XIV. … At St. James' are still held the Levees. But those rooms having been found too small for the prodigiously increasing crowds of ladies, foreign and colonial, who pant, by passing under the eye of Royalty, to obtain the baptism of fashion, the Drawing-Rooms are now held in Buckingham Palace. … The modern town residence of Royalty, Buckingham Palace, is large without being magnificent, and devoid of interest of any kind, historical or architectural."

Goldwin Smith, A Trip to England, page 54.

SAINT JAMES OF COMPOSTELLA, Knights of.

See CALATRAVA.

SAINT JEAN D'ACRE.

See ACRE.

SAINT JOHN, Knights of; or Hospitallers.

See HOSPITALLERS.

SAINT JOHN OF THE LATERAN, Order of.

An order of knighthood instituted in 1560 by Pope Pius IV.

SAINT JUST, and the French Revolutionary Committee of Public Safety.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JUNE-OCTOBER), to 1794 (JULY).

SAINT LAWRENCE: Discovery and naming of the River by Jacques Cartier.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1534-1535.

SAINT LAZARUS, Knights of.

"Some historians of the order of St. Lazarus have traced its origin to a supposed association of Christians in the first century against the persecution of their Jewish and Pagan enemies. This account is fabulous. It appears certain, however, that in very early times Christian charity founded establishments for the sick. … Lazarus became their tutelary saint and the buildings were styled Lazarettos. One of those hospitals was in existence at Jerusalem at the time of the first crusade. It was a religious order, as well as a charitable institution, and followed the rule of St. Augustin. For purposes of defence against the Muselman tyrants, the members of the society became soldiers, and insensibly they formed themselves into distinct bodies of those who attended the sick, and those who mingled with the world. The cure of lepers was their first object, and they not only received lepers into their order, for the benefit of charity, but their grand master was always to be a man who was afflicted with the disorder, the removal whereof formed the purpose of their institution. The cavaliers who were not lepers, and were in a condition to bear arms, were the allies of the Christian kings of Palestine. … The habits of those knights is not known; it only appears that the crosses on their breasts were always green, in opposition to those of the knights of St. John, which were white, and the red crosses of the Templars. … But neither the names nor the exploits of the knights of St. Lazarus often appear in the history of the Crusades."

C. Mills, History of the Crusades, chapter 8, with foot-notes.

{2791}

SAINT LEGER'S EXPEDITION.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777 (JULY-OCTOBER).

SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI: A. D. 1764. The founding of the city.

"St. Louis had arisen out of the transfer of the east bank of the Mississippi to Great Britain.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES.

Rather than live as aliens, under English laws, many French settlers went with Pierre Laclede, across the Mississippi, to a place already nicknamed by them Pain Court, where, in February, 1764, they founded a new town with the name of St. Louis, in honor of Louis XV. These people were mostly French Canadians."

S. A. Drake, The Making of the Great West, page 179.

See, also, ILLINOIS: A. D. 1765.

SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI: A. D. 1861. Events at the outbreak of the rebellion. The capture of Camp Jackson.

See MISSOURI: A. D. 1861 (FEBRUARY-JULY).

SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI: A. D. 1864. General Price's attempt against.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MARCH-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).

SAINT LOUIS, The Order of.

An order of knighthood instituted in 1693 by Louis XIV. of France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (JULY).

SAINT MAHÉ, Battle of.

A fierce naval fight, April 24, 1293, off St. Mahé, on the coast of Brittany, between English and French fleets, both of which were put afloat without open authority from their respective governments. The French were beaten with a loss of 8,000 men and 180 ships.

C. H. Pearson, History of England during the Early and Middle Ages, volume 2, chapter 13.

SAINT MALO: Abortive English expeditions against.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1758 (JUNE-AUGUST).

SAINT MARK, The winged lion of.

See LION OF ST. MARK, and VENICE: A. D. 829.

SAINT MARKS, Jackson's capture of.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818.

SAINT MICHAEL, Knights of the Order of, in France.

"Louis XI. [of France] determined on instituting an order of chivalry himself. It was to be select in its membership, limited in its number, generous in its professions, and he fondly hoped the Garter and Fleece would soon sink into insignificance compared to the Order of Saint Michael. The first brethren were named from the highest families in France; the remaining great feudatories, who had preserved some relics of their hereditary independence, were fixed upon to wear this mark of the suzerain's friendship. But when they came to read the oaths of admission, they found that the Order of St. Michael was in reality a bond of stronger obligation than the feudal laws had ever enjoined. It was a solemn association for the prevention of disobedience to the sovereign. … The brotherhood of noble knights sank, in the degrading treatment of its founder, into a confederation of spies."

J. White, History of France, chapter 7.

SAINT MICHAEL, Knights of the Order of, in Portugal.

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1095-1325.

SAINT MICHAEL AND SAINT GEORGE, The Order of.

A British Order of Knighthood, founded in 1818, "for the purpose of bestowing marks of Royal favour on the most meritorious of the Ionians [then under the protection of Great Britain] and Maltese, as well as on British subjects who may have served with distinction in the Ionian Isles or the Mediterranean Sea."

Sir B. Burke, Book of the Orders of Knighthood, page 107.

SAINT OMER: A. D. 1638. Unsuccessful siege by the French.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1635-1638.

SAINT OMER: A. D. 1677. Taken by Louis XIV.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.

SAINT OMER: A. D. 1679. Ceded to France.

See NIMEGUEN, THE PEACE OF.

SAINT PATRICK, The order of.

An order of knighthood instituted in 1783 by George III. of England.

SAINT PAUL, Republic of.

See BRAZIL: A. D. 1531-1641.

SAINT PAUL'S SCHOOL.

See EDUCATION, RENAISSANCE: ENGLAND.

SAINT PETER'S CHURCH AT ROME.

"The first church which existed on or near the site of the present building was the oratory founded in A. D. 90, by Anacletus, bishop of Rome, who is said to have been ordained by St. Peter himself, and who thus marked the spot where many Christian martyrs had suffered in the circus of Nero, and where St. Peter was buried after his crucifixion. In 306 Constantine the Great yielded to the request of Pope Sylvester, and began the erection of a basilica on this spot, labouring with his own hands at the work. … Of the old basilica, the crypt is now the only remnant. … Its destruction was first planned by Nicholas V. (1450), but was not carried out till the time of Julius II., who in 1506 began the new St. Peter's from designs of Bramante. … The next Pope, Leo X., obtained a design for a church in the form of a Latin cross from Raphael, which was changed, after his death (on account of expense) to a Greek cross, by Baldassare Peruzzi, who only lived to complete the tribune. Paul III. (1534) employed Antonio di Sangallo as an architect, who returned to the design of a Latin cross, but died before he could carry out any of his intentions. Giulio Romano succeeded him and died also. Then the pope, 'being inspired by God,' says Vasari, sent for Michael Angelo, then in his seventy-second year, who continued the work under Julius III., returning to the plan of a Greek cross, enlarging the tribune and transepts, and beginning the dome on a new plan, which he said would 'raise the Pantheon in the air.' … The present dome is due to Giacomo della Porta, who brought the great work to a conclusion in 1590, under Sixtus V. … The church was dedicated by Urban VIII., November 18th, 1626; the colonnade added by Alexander VII., 1667, the sacristy by Pius VI., in 1780. The building of the present St. Peter's extended altogether over 176 years, and its expenses were so great that Julius II. and Leo X. were obliged to meet them by the sale of indulgences, which led to the Reformation. The expense of the main building alone has been estimated at £10,000,000. The annual expense of repairs is £6,300."

A. J. C. Hare, Walks in Rome, chapter 15.

ALSO IN: H. Grimm, Life of Michael Angelo, chapters 15-16.

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SAINT PETERSBURG: The founding of the city.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1703-1718.

SAINT PRIVAT, OR GRAVELOTTE, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JULY-AUGUST).

SAINT QUENTIN: Origin of the town.

See BELGÆ.

SAINT QUENTIN, Battle and siege of (1557).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.

Battle of (1871).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870-1871.

SAINT SEBASTIAN, Siege and capture of (1813).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1812-1814.

SAINT STEPHEN, The Apostolic order.

This, the Hungarian national order of knighthood, was founded by Maria Theresa, on the day (May 5, 1764) when the Archduke, afterwards the Emperor Joseph II., was crowned King of Rome.

SAINT STEPHEN, The Crown of. The crown of Hungary.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 972-1114.

SAINT STEPHEN'S CHAPEL. The Chamber of the House of Commons.

See WESTMINSTER PALACE.

SAINT THOMAS OF ACRE, The Knights of.

"This was a little body of men who had formed themselves into a semi-religious order on the model of the Hospitallers. In the third Crusade, one William, an English priest, chaplain to Ralph de Diceto, Dean of S. Paul's, had devoted himself to the work of burying the dead at Acre, as the Hospitallers had given themselves at first to the work of tending the sick. He had built himself a little chapel there, and bought ground for a cemetery; like a thorough Londoner of the period, he had called it after S. Thomas the Martyr; and, somehow or other, as his design was better known, the family of the martyr seem to have approved of it; the brother-in-law and sister of Becket became founders and benefactors, and a Hospital of S. Thomas the Martyr of Canterbury, of Acre, was built in London itself on the site of the house where the martyr was born. … They [the knights] had their proper dress and cross: according to Favin their habit was white, and the cross a full red cross charged with a white scallop; but the existing cartulary of the order describes the habit simply as a mantle with a cross of red and white. … The Chronicle of the Teutonic knights, in relating the capture of Acre, places the knights of S. Thomas at the head of the 5,000 soldiers whom the king of England had sent to Palestine, and Herman Corner, who however wrote a century later, mentions them amongst the defenders of Acre. We know from their cartulary that they had lands in Yorkshire, Middlesex, Surrey, and Ireland."

W. Stubbs, Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Medieval and Modern History, lecture 8.

SAINT VALERY.

The port, at the mouth of the Somme, from which the fleet of William the Conqueror sailed for England, September 27, A. D. 1066.

SAINT VINCENT, Naval battle of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1797.

SAINTONGE, Origin of the name of.

See PICTONES.

SAIONES.

"The Saiones were apparently a class of men peculiar to the Ostrogothic monarchy [of Theodoric, in Italy]. More honoured than the Roman lictor (who was but a menial servant of the magistrate), but hardly perhaps rising to the dignity of a sheriff or a marshal, they were, so to speak, the arms by which Royalty executed its will. If the Goths had to be summoned to battle with the Franks, a Saio carried round the stirring call to arms. If a Prætorian Prefect was abusing his power to take away his neighbour's lands by violence, a Saio was sent to remind him that under Theodoric not even Prætorian Prefects should be allowed to transgress the law. … The Saiones seem to have stood in a special relation to the King. They are generally called 'our Saiones,' sometimes 'our brave Saiones,' and the official virtue which is always credited to them (like the 'Sublimity' or the 'Magnificence' of more important personages) is 'Your Devotion.' One duty which was frequently entrusted to the Saio was the 'tuitio' of some wealthy and unwarlike Roman. It often happened that such a person, unable to protect himself against the rude assaults of sturdy Gothic neighbours, appealed to the King for protection. … The chief visible sign of the King's protection, and the most effective guarantee of its efficiency, was the stout Gothic soldier who as Saio was quartered in the wealthy Roman's house."

T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 4, chapter 7 (volume 3).

SAJO, Battle of the (1241).

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1114-1301.

SAKKARAH, Necropolis of.

The most ancient and important cemetery of Memphis, Egypt.

A. Mariette, Monuments of Upper Egypt, page 86.

SAKKARAH, Tablet of.

An important list of Egyptian kings, found by M. Mariette and now preserved in the Museum of Cairo.

F. Lenormant, Manual of Ancient History of the East, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).

SALADIN: The Empire of.

Among the revolutions which attended the breaking up of the empire of the Seljuk Turks was one that brought about the rise to power in Syria and Mesopotamia of a vigorous and capable soldier named Zenghi or Zengui. Zenghi and his son Noureddin acquired a wide dominion, with its capital, as it enlarged, shifting from Mossoul to Aleppo, from Aleppo to Damascus, and they were the first formidable enemies with whom the Christians of the Crusade settlements in Syria had to contend. The dynasty of sultans which they founded was one of those called Atabecks, or Atabegs, signifying "governors of the prince." Having found an opportunity (A. D. 1162-1168) to interfere in the affairs of Egypt, where the Fatimite caliphs were still nominally reigning, Noureddin sent thither one of his most trusted officers, Shiracouh, or Shirkoh, a Koord, and Shiracouh's nephew, Saladin,—then a young man, much addicted to elegant society and the life of pleasure, at Damascus. Shiracouh established his master's authority in Egypt—still leaving the puppet caliph of the Fatimites on his throne—and he was succeeded by Saladin, as the representative of the sultan Noureddin, and grand vizier of the caliph. But in 1171, the latter, being on his death-bed, was quietly deposed and the sovereignty of the Abbaside caliph of Bagdad was proclaimed. "This great 'coup d'etat,' which won Egypt over to the Orthodox Mohammedan sect, and ultimately enabled Saladin to grasp the independent sovereignty of the country, was effected, as an Arab historian quaintly observes, 'so quietly, that not a brace of goats butted over it.'" {2793} Saladin had now developed great talents as a ruler, and great ambitions, as well. On the death of Nouraddin, in 1174, he was prepared to seize the sultan's throne, and succeeded, after a short period of civil war, in making himself master of the whole Atabeg dominion. From that he went on to the conquest of Jerusalem, and the expulsion of the Christians from all Palestine, except Tyre and a small strip of coast. By his defense of that conquest against the crusaders of the Third Crusade, and by the decided superiority of character which he evinced, compared with his Christian antagonists, Richard Cœur de Lion and the rest, Saladin acquired surpassing renown in the western world and became a great figure in history. He died at Damascus, in March, 1193, in his fifty-seventh year. The dynasty which he founded was called the Ayoubite (or Aiyubite) dynasty, from the name of Saladin's father, Ayoub (Job), a native Koord of Davin.

W. Besant and E. H. Palmer, Jerusalem, chapter 16.

"Saladin gave no directions respecting the order of succession, and by this want of foresight prepared the ruin of his empire. One of his sons, Alaziz, who commanded in Egypt, caused himself to be proclaimed sultan of Cairo; another took possession of the sovereignty of Aleppo, and a third of the principality of Amath. Malek-Adel [called Seïf Eddin, the Sword of Religion, by which latter name, in the corrupted form Saphadin, he was known commonly to the crusaders], the brother of Saladin, assumed the throne of Mesopotamia and the countries in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates. The principal emirs, and all the princes of the race of the Ayoubites, made themselves masters of the cities and provinces of which they held the command. Afdhal [Almelek Alafdhal], eldest son of Saladin, was proclaimed sultan of Damascus. Master of Syria, and of the capital of a vast empire, sovereign of Jerusalem and Palestine, he appeared to have preserved something of the power of his father; but all fell into disorder and confusion." After some years of disorder and of war between the brothers, Malek Adel, or Saphadin, the more capable uncle of the young princes, gathered the reins of power into his hands and reunited most of the provinces of Saladin's empire. On his death, in 1217, the divisions and the disorder reappeared. The Ayoubite dynasty, however, held the throne at Cairo (to the dominion of which Palestine belonged) until 1250, when the last of the line was killed by his Mamelukes. The lesser princes of the divided empire were swept away soon after by the Mongol invasion.

J. F. Michaud, History of the Crusades, books 9, 12-14.

See, also, JERUSALEM: A. D. 1149-1187.

SALADIN, The Tithe of.

"In England and in France, in order to defray expenses [of the Third Crusade], a tax called the Tithe of Saladin, consisting of a tenth part of all their goods, was levied on every person who did not take the Cross. … In every parish the Tithe of Saladin was raised in the presence of a priest, a Templar, a Hospitaller, a king's man, a baron's man and clerk, and a bishop's clerk."

W. Besant and E. H. Palmer, Jerusalem, chapter 15.

SALADO, OR GUADACELITO, Battle of (1340).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1273-1460.

SALAMANCA, Battle of.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-AUGUST).

SALAMANCA, University of.

See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.

SALAMIS, Cyprus, Battle of (B. C. 449).

See ATHENS: B. C. 460-449.

Battle of (B. C. 306).

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 310-301.

SALAMIS, Greece: B. C. 610-600. War of Athens and Megara for possession of the island.

See ATHENS: B. C. 610-586.

SALAMIS, Greece: B. C. 480. Great battle between Greeks and Persians.

See GREECE: B. C. 480.

SALANKAMENT, Battle of (1691).

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1699.

SALCES, OR SALSAS: A. D. 1639-1640. Siege and capture by the French. Recovery by the Spaniards.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1637-1640.

SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1628. The first settlement.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623-1629 THE DORCHESTER COMPANY.

SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1631-1636. Ministry and banishment of Roger Williams.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1636.

SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1692. The Witchcraft madness.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1692; and 1692-1693.

SALERNO, Principality of.

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 800-1016.

SALERNO, School of Medicine.

See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 12-17TH CENTURIES.

SALIAN FRANKS, The.

See FRANKS: ORIGIN, ETC.

----------SALIC LAW: Start--------

SALIC LAW, The.

"A greatly exaggerated importance has been attributed to the Salic Law. You are acquainted with the reason of this error; you know that at the accession of Philippe-le-Long, and during the struggle of Philippe· de-Valois and Edward III. for the crown of France, the Salic law was invoked in order to prevent the succession of women, and that, from that time, it has been celebrated by a crowd of writers as the first source of our public law, as a law always in vigor, as the fundamental law of monarchy. Those who have been the most free from this illusion, as, for example, Montesquieu, have yet experienced, to some degree, its influence, and have spoken of the Salic law with a respect which it is assuredly difficult to feel towards it when we attribute to it only the place that it really holds in our history. … I pray you to recall that which I have already told you touching the double origin and the incoherence of the barbarous laws; they were, at once, anterior and posterior to the invasion; at once, German and Germano-Roman: they belonged to two different conditions of society. This character has influenced all the controversies of which the Salic law has been the object; it has given rise to two hypotheses: according to one, this law was compiled in Germany, upon the right bank of the Rhine, long before the conquest, and in the language of the Franks. … According to the other hypothesis, the Salic law was, on the contrary, compiled after the conquest, upon the left bank of the Rhine, in Belgium or in Gaul, perhaps in the seventh century, and in Latin. … I believe, however, that the traditions which, through so many contradictions and fables, appear in the prefaces and epilogues annexed to the law, … indicate that, from the eighth century, it was a general belief, a popular tradition, that the customs of the Salian Franks were anciently collected. … {2794} We are not obliged to believe that the Salic law, such as we have it, is of a very remote date, nor that it was compiled as recounted, nor even that it was ever written in the German language; but that it was connected with customs collected and transmitted from generation to generation, when the Franks lived about the mouth of the Rhine, and modified, extended, explained, reduced into law, at various times, from that epoch down to the end of the eighth century—this, I think, is the reasonable result to which this discussion should lead. … At the first aspect it is impossible not to be struck with the apparent utter chaos of the law. It treats of all things—of political law, of civil law, of criminal law, of civil procedure, of criminal procedure, of rural jurisdiction, all mixed up together without any distinction or classification. … When we examine this law more closely, we perceive that it is essentially a penal regulation. … I say nothing of the fragments of political law, civil law, or civil procedure, which are found dispersed through it, nor even of that famous article which orders that 'Salic land shall not fall to woman; and that the inheritance shall devolve exclusively on the males.' No person is now ignorant of its true meaning. … When, in the fourteenth century, they invoked the Salic law, in order to regulate the succession to the crown, it had certainly been a long time since it had been spoken of, except in remembrance, and upon some great occasion."

F. Guizot, History of Civilization, volume 2 (France, volume 1), lecture 9.

ALSO IN: W. C. Perry, The Franks, chapter 10.

E. F. Henderson, Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, book 2, number 1.

SALIC LAW: Applied to the regal succession in France.

Louis X., surnamed Hutin, king of France, died in 1316, leaving a daughter, Jeanne, and his queen with child. The late king's brother, Philip the Long, became regent; but when the queen bore a son and the child died, this Philip "hastened to Rheims, filled the Cathedral with his own followers, and compelled the archbishop to consecrate him King [Philip V.]. Thence he returned to Paris, assembled the citizens, and, in the presence of a great concourse of barons and notables of the realm, declared that no female could succeed to the crown of France. Thus began the so-called Salic Law of France, through the determined violence of an unscrupulous man. The lawyers round the throne, seeking to give to the act of might the sanction of right, bethought them of that passage in the law of the Salian Franks which declares 'That no part or heritage of Salic land can fall to a woman'; and it is from this that the law obtained the name of 'the Salic Law.'"

G. W. Kitchin, History of France, volume 1, book 3, chapter 11, sections 1-2.

"In this contest [after the death of Louis X., as mentioned above], every way memorable, but especially on account of that which sprung out of it, the exclusion of females from the throne of France was first publicly discussed. … It may be fairly inferred that the Salic law, as it was called, was not so fixed a principle at that time as has been contended. But however this may be, it received at the accession of Philip the Long a sanction which subsequent events more thoroughly confirmed. Philip himself leaving only three daughters, his brother Charles [IV.] mounted the throne; and upon his death the rule was so unquestionably established, that his only daughter was excluded by the count of Valois, grandson of Philip the Bold. This prince first took the regency, the queen-dowager being pregnant, and, upon her giving birth to a daughter, was crowned king [Philip of Valois]. No competitor or opponent appeared in France; but one more formidable than any whom France could have produced was awaiting the occasion to prosecute his imagined right with all the resources of valour and genius, and to carry desolation over that great kingdom with as little scruple as if he was preferring a suit before a civil tribunal." This was King Edward III. of England, whose mother Isabel was the sister of the last three French kings, and who claimed through her a right to the French crown.

H. Hallam, The Middle Age, chapter 1, part 1.

See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1328-1339.

SALICE, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JANUARY-JUNE).

SALICES, Ad, Battle of.

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 378.

SALINÆ.

A Roman town in Britain, celebrated for its salt-works and salt-baths. Its site is occupied by modern Droitwich.

T. Wright, Celt, Roman and Saxon, chapter 5.

SALINAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SALINAN FAMILY.

SALISBURY, Gemot of.

William the Conqueror, while establishing feudalism in England, "broke into its 'most essential attribute, the exclusive dependence of a vassal upon his lord,' by requiring in accordance with the old English practice, that all landowners, mesne tenants as well as tenants-in-chief, should take the oath of fealty to the King. This was formally decreed at the celebrated Gemot held on Salisbury Plain, on the 1st of August, 1086, at which the Witan and all the landowners of substance in England whose vassals soever they were, attended, to the number, it is reported, of 60,000. The statute, as soon as passed, was carried into immediate effect."

T. P. Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional History, page 55.

SALISBURY MINISTRIES, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1885; 1885-1886; and 1892-1893.

SALISHAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: FLATHEADS.

SALLUVIANS.

See SALYES.

SALON, Origin of the French.

See RAMBOUILLET, HÔTEL DE.

SALONA, Ancient.

"Amidst the decay of the empire in the third century Dalmatia suffered comparatively little; indeed, Salonae probably only reached at that time its greatest prosperity. This, it is true, was occasioned partly by the fact that the regenerator of the Roman state, the emperor Diocletian, was by birth a Dalmatian, and allowed his efforts, aimed at the decapitalising of Rome, to redound chiefly to the benefit of the capital of his native land; he built alongside of it the huge palace from which the modern capital of the province takes the name Spalato, within which it has for the most part found a place, and the temples of which now serve it as cathedral and as baptistery. Diocletian, however, did not make Salonae a great city for the first time, but, because it was such, chose it for his private residence; commerce, navigation, and trade must at that time in these waters have been concentrated chiefly at Aquileia and at Salonae, and the city must have been one of the most populous and opulent towns of the west."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 6.

ALSO IN; _E. A. Freeman, Subject and Neighbor Lands of Venice._

_T. G. Jackson, Dalmatia, the Quarnero and Istria, chapters 1-2 and 10-12 (volumes 1-2). _

{2795}

SALONICA.

The modern name of ancient Thessalonica.

See THESSALONICA.

SALONIKI, The kingdom of.

The kingdom obtained by Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, in the partition of the Byzantine Empire after its conquest by the Crusaders, A. D. 1204, comprised the province of Macedonia, with Thessalonica for its capital, and was called the kingdom of Saloniki. Its duration was brief. In 1222 the neighboring Greek despot of Epirus took Thessalonica and conquered the whole kingdom. He then assumed the title of emperor of Thessalonica, in rivalry with the Greek emperors of Nicæa and Trebizond. The title of king of Saloniki was cherished by the family of Montferrat for some generations; but those who claimed it never made good their title by possession of the kingdom.

G. Finlay, History of Greece from the Conquest by the Crusaders, chapter 5.

See, also, BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 1204-1205.

SALOPIAN WARE.

Pottery manufactured by the Romans in Britain from the clay of the Severn valley. Two sorts are found in considerable abundance—one white, the other a light red color.

_L. Jewitt, Grave-Mounds, page 164. _

SALSBACH, Death of Turenne at (1675).

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.

SALT, French tax on.

See TAILLE AND GABELLE.

SALT LAKE CITY: The founding of (1847).

See MORMONS: A. D. 1846-1848.

SALYES, SALLUVIANS.

The Salyes or Saluvii or Salluvians, named Salvii Yalli in Livy's Epitome, "were Ligurians or a mixed race of Celts and Ligurians. They perhaps occupied part of the coast east of Massilia: they certainly extended inland behind that town to the Rhone on the west and to the north as far as the river Druentia (Durance). They occupied the wide plain which you may see from the highest point of the great amphitheatre of Arelate (Arles) stretching east from Tarascon and the Rhone as far as the eye can reach." The Salyes were dangerous to Massilia and in 125 B. C. the latter appealed to the Romans, as allies. The latter responded promptly and sent Flaccus, one of the consuls, to deal with the Salyes. He defeated them; but in two or three years they were again in arms, and consul C. Sextius Calvinius was sent against them. "The Salyes were again defeated and their chief city taken, but it is uncertain whether this capital was Arelate (ArIes) or the place afterwards named Aquae Sextiae (Aix). … The Roman general found in this arid country a pleasant valley well supplied with water from the surrounding hills, and here he established the colony named Aquae Sextiae." The chiefs of the conquered Salyes took refuge with the Allobroges, and that led to the subjugation of the latter (see ALLOBROGES).

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 1, chapters 17 and 21.

SALZBURG, Origin of.

"The foundation of a colony [by Hadrian] at Juvavium, or Salzburg, which received the name of Forum Hadriani, attests the vigilance which directed his view from the Rhine to the Salza, and the taste, I would willingly add, which selected for a town to bear his name the most enchanting site in central Europe."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 66.

SALZBURGERS, The.

See GEORGIA: A. D. 1734.

SALZWEDEL.

See BRANDENBURG.

SAM ADAMS REGIMENTS, The.

See BOSTON: A. D. 1770.

SAMANA, The proposed cession of.

See HAYTI: A. D. 1804-1880.

SAMANIDES OR SAMANIANS, The.

"As the vigour of the Khalifate began to pass away, and effeminate luxury crept imperceptibly into the palaces of Baghdad, the distant lieutenants gradually aspired to independence. At length, in 868 A. D., one Ya' kub-bin-Lais, the son of a brasier in Sistan, rose in rebellion, subdued Balkh, Kabul, and Fars, but died on his march to Baghdad. In former days he would have been treated as an audacious rebel against the authority of the Vicar of God; now the degenerate Khalifah appointed his brother 'Amr his lieutenant on the death of Ya' kub [A. D. 877], and allowed him to govern Fars, as the founder of the Saffary, or Brasier, dynasty. Ever fearful of the power of 'Amr, the Khalifah at length instigated a Tatar lord, named Isma'il Samany, to raise an army against the Saffaris, in Khurasan. 'Amr marched against him, and crossed the Oxus, but he was entirely defeated; and laughed heartily at a dog, who ran away with the little pot that was preparing the humble meal of the fallen king. That morning it had taken thirty camels to carry his kitchen retinue. 'Amr was sent to Baghdad, and put to death in 901 A. D. Isma'il, who traced his descent from a Persian noble who had rebelled against Khusru Parviz, now founded the Samany [or Samanide] dynasty, which ruled over Khurasan and the north of Persia, with their capital at Bukhara. The Dailamy [or Dilemite or Bouide] dynasty ruled in Fars and the south of Persia during the same period. To the Samanians Persia owes the restoration of its nationality, which had been oppressed and trodden under foot by the Arabian conquerors." The Samanide dynasty was overthrown in 998 by the founder of the Gaznevide Empire, which succeeded.

C. R. Markham, General Sketch of the History of Persia, chapter 6.

ALSO IN; Sir J. Malcolm, History of Persia, volume 1, chapter 6

See, also, TURKS: A. D. 999-1183.

SAMARAH, Battle of.

This was the battle in which the Roman emperor Julian was killed (June 26, A. D. 363), during the retreat from his ill·starred expedition beyond the Tigris, against the Persians.

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 10.

----------SAMARCAND: Start--------

SAMARCAND.

Ancient Maracanda, the capital city of Sogdiana.

See SOGDIANA; and BOKHARA.

SAMARCAND: 6th Century. Taken from the White Huns by the Turks.

See TURKS: 6TH CENTURY.

SAMARCAND: A. D. 1209-1220. Capital of the Khuarezmian empire.

See KHUAREZM.

{2796}

SAMARCAND: A. D. 1221. Conquest and destruction by Jingis Khan.

When Jingis Khan, the Mongol conqueror and devastator of Central Asia, invaded the Khahrezmian Empire, Samarkand was its capital and its most important city. "The fugitive Khahrezmian prince had left behind him for the defence 110,000 men—i. e., 60,000 Turks and 50,000 Tadjiks—with twenty elephants." But the Turkish mercenaries deserted in a body and the town was surrendered after a siege of three days. "The flourishing city of Samarkand and the fortress were laid even with the ground; and the inhabitants; stripped of all they possessed, shared the fate of their brethren of Bokhara. Those who had contrived to escape were lured back by false promises; all capable of bearing arms were compulsorily enrolled in the Mongolian army; the artistic gardeners of the place were sent off to the far East, where they were wanted to adorn the future Mongolo-Chinese capital with pleasure-grounds, after the fashion of those of Samarkand, and the celebrated artisans, especially the silk and cotton weavers, were either distributed as clever and useful slaves amongst the wives and relations of Djenghiz, or else carried with him to Khorasan. A few were sent as slaves to his sons Tchagatai and Oktai, who were then marching on Khahrezm. This was the end, in the year 618 (1221), of Samarkand, which Arabian geographers have described as the most brilliant and most flourishing spot on the face of the earth."

A. Vámbéry, History of Bokhara, chapter 8.

"Samarkand was not only the capital of Trans-Oxiana, but also one of the greatest entrepots of commerce in the world. Three miles in circumference, it was surrounded with a wall having castles at intervals, and pierced by twelve iron gates."

H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, part 1, page 79.

SAMARCAND: A. D. 1371-1405. The capital of Timour.

See TIMOUR, THE CONQUESTS OF.

SAMARCAND: A. D. 1868. Seizure by the Russians.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.

----------SAMARCAND: End--------

SAMARIA. SAMARITANS: Early history. The Kingdom of Israel. Overthrow by the Assyrians.

See JEWS: KINGDOMS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH.

SAMARITANS: Repopulation of the city and district by the Assyrian conqueror.

After the capture of the city of Samaria (B. C. 722) and the deportation of a large part of its inhabitants by the Assyrian conqueror (see as above), "these districts remained for many years in a condition of such desolation that they were overrun with wild beasts. In the meantime King Asarhaddon, whom we suppose to be Asarhaddon II., having reduced afresh several refractory towns about twenty years after the death of Sennacherib, and wishing to inflict on their inhabitants the favourite punishment of his predecessors, transported large bodies of their heathen populations into these deserted regions. … A great number of the settlers in Samaria, the former capital, appear to have come from the Babylonian city of Cuthah, from which arose the name of Cutheans, often applied in derision to the Samaritans by the later Jews. Other settlers were sent from Babylon itself," and "from the cities on the west of the Euphrates, Hamath, Ivah, and Sepharvaim."

H. Ewald, History of Israel, volume 4, pages 215-216.

SAMARIA: After the Exile.

In the second and third generations after the return of the Judæans from exile, there began to be connections formed by marriage with the neighboring peoples. These peoples, "particularly the Samaritans, had given up idolatry, and were longing earnestly and truly to take part in the divine service at Jerusalem. They were, in fact, proselytes to the religion of Judæa; and were they always to be sternly repulsed? The principal Judæan families determined to admit the foreigners into the community, and the high priest of that time, either Jehoiakim or his son Eliashib, was ready to carry these wishes into effect. Marriages were therefore contracted with the Samaritans and other neighbouring people." But when Ezra and his party came from Babylon (B. C. 459-458) bringing an access of religious zeal and narrower interpretations of the law, these marriages were condemned, and those who had contracted them were forced to repudiate their foreign wives and the children borne by such. This cruelly fanatical action changed the friendly feeling of the Samaritans to hatred. Their leader, Sanballat, was a man of power, and he began against the restored Judæans a war which drove them from Jerusalem. It was not until Nehemiah came from Susa, with the authority of King Artaxerxes to rebuild the walls, that they recovered the city. "The strict observance of the Law enjoined by Ezra was followed out by Nehemiah; he strengthened the wall of separation between Judæans and Gentiles so securely that it was almost impossible to break through it." Sanballat, whose son-in-law, a priest, had been exiled on account of his Samaritan marriage, now "cunningly conceived the plan of undermining the Judæan community, by the help of its own members. How would it be were he to raise a temple to the God of Israel, in rivalry to the one which held sway in Jerusalem?" He executed his plan and the Samaritan temple was raised on Mount Gerizim. Thus "the Samaritans had their temple, around which they gathered; they had priests from the house of Aaron; they compared Mount Gerizim … to Mount Moriah; they drew the inference from the Book of the Law that God had designed Mount Gerizim as a site for a sanctuary, and they proudly called themselves Israelites. Sanballat and his followers being intent upon attracting a great many Judæans to their community, tempted them with the offer of houses and land, and in every way helped to support them. Those who had been guilty of crime and who feared punishment, were received with open arms by the Samaritans. Out of such elements a new semi-Judæan community or sect was formed. Their home was in the somewhat limited district of Samaria, the centre of which was either the city that gave its name to the province or the town of Shechem. The members of the new community became an active, vigorous, intelligent people, as if Sanballat, the founder, had breathed his spirit into them. … They actually tried to argue away the right of the Judæans to exist as a community. They declared that they alone were the descendants of Israel, and they denied the sanctity of Jerusalem and its Temple, affirming that everything achieved by the Judæan people was a debasement of the old Israelite character. … Upon the Judæan side, the hatred against their Samaritan neighbours was equally great. … The enmity between Jerusalem and Samaria that existed in the time of the two kingdoms blazed out anew; it no longer bore a political character, but one of a religious tendency."

H. Graetz, History of the Jews, chapters 19-20 (volume 1).

{2797}

"While the Hebrew writers unanimously represent the Samaritans as the descendants of the Cuthæan colonists introduced by Esarhaddon, a foreign and idolatrous race, their own traditions derive their regular lineage from Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph. The remarkable fact, that this people have preserved the book of the Mosaic law in the ruder and more ancient character, while the Jews, after the return from Babylonia, universally adopted the more elegant Chaldean form of letters, strongly confirms the opinion that, although by no means pure and unmingled, the Hebrew blood still predominated in their race. In many other respects, regard for the Sabbath and even for the sabbatic year, and the payment of tithes to their priests, the Samaritans did not fall below their Jewish rivals in attachment to the Mosaic polity. The later events in the history of the kings of Jerusalem show that the expatriation of the ten tribes was by no means complete and permanent: is it then an unreasonable supposition, that the foreign colonists were lost in the remnant of the Israelitish people, and, though perhaps slowly and imperfectly weaned from their native superstitions, fell by degrees into the habits and beliefs of their adopted country? … Whether or not it was the perpetuation of the ancient feud between the two rival kingdoms, from this period [of the return from the captivity in Babylonia] the hostility of the Jews and Samaritans assumed its character of fierce and implacable animosity. No two nations ever hated each other with more unmitigated bitterness."

_H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 9. _

SAMARIA: Change of population by Alexander the Great.

After the submission of Palestine to Alexander the Great (B. C. 332), Samaria "rebelled and murdered the Macedonian governor, Andromachus. Alexander expelled the inhabitants, and planted a Macedonian colony in their room—another heathen element in the motley population of Samaria."

P. Smith, History of the World: Ancient, volume 3, chapter 34.

SAMARIA: Rebuilding of the city by Herod.

One of the measures of King Herod, for strengthening himself outside of Jerusalem, was "the rebuilding of Samaria, which he did (B. C. 25) on a scale of great magnificence and strength, and peopled it partly with his soldiers, partly with the descendants of the old Samaritans, who hoped to see their temple likewise restored." He changed the name of Samaria, however, to Sebaste—the August.

H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 11.

SAMARIA: Justinian's War.

The Christian zeal of the Emperor Justinian [A. D. 527-565] induced him to undertake the forcible conversion of all unbelievers in his empire. Among others, the Samaritans of Palestine were offered "the alternative of baptism or rebellion. They chose the latter: under the standard of a desperate leader they rose in arms, and retaliated their wrongs on the lives, the property, and the temples of a defenceless people. The Samaritans were finally subdued by the regular forces of the East; 20,000 were slain, 20,000 were sold by the Arabs to the infidels of Persia and India, and the remains of that unhappy nation atoned for the crime of treason by the sin of hypocrisy. It has been computed that 100,000 Roman subjects were extirpated in the Samaritan war, which converted the once fruitful province into a desolate and smoking wilderness."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 47.

----------SAMARIA: End--------

SAMARKAND.

See SAMARCAND.

SAMBUCA, The.

A great military engine, in ancient sieges, was a species of huge covered ladder, supported by two ships lashed together and floated up against the sea wall of the besieged town. The Greeks called it a Sambuca. Mithridates brought one into use when besieging Rhodes, B. C. 88, but with disastrous failure.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 2, chapter 20.

SAMIAN WARE.

An elegant species of Roman pottery, red in color, which was in great repute among the ancients.

SAMMARINESI, The.

The citizens of San Marino.

See SAN MARINO, THE REPUBLIC OF.

SAMNITE WARS, The.

See ROME: B. C. 343-290.

SAMNITES, The.

"The Samnite nation [see ITALY: ANCIENT], which, at the time of the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome, had doubtless already been for a considerable period in possession of the hill-country which rises between the Apulian and Campanian plains and commands them both, had hitherto found its further advance impeded on the one side by the Daunians, … on the other by the Greeks and Etruscans. But the fall of the Etruscan power towards the end of the third, and the decline of' the Greek colonies in the course of' the fourth century [B. C.], made room for them towards the west and south; and now one Samnite host after another marched down to, and even moved across, the south Italian seas. They first made their appearance in the plain adjoining the bay, with which the name of the Campanians has been associated from the beginning of the fourth century; the Etruscans there were suppressed, and the Greeks were confined within narrower bounds; Capua was wrested from the former [B. C. 424] Cumæ from the latter [B. C. 420]. About the same time, perhaps even earlier, the Lucanians appeared in Magna Graecia. … Towards the end of the fourth century mention first occurs of the separate confederacy of the Bruttii, who had detached themselves from the Lucanians—not, like the other Sabellian stocks, as a colony, but through a quarrel—and had become mixed up with many foreign elements. The Greeks of Lower Italy tried to resist the pressure of the barbarians. … But even the union of Magna Graecia no longer availed; for the ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius the Elder, made common cause with the Italians against his countrymen. … In an incredibly short time the circle of flourishing cities was destroyed or laid desolate. Only a few Greek settlements, such as Neapolis, succeeded with difficulty, and more by means of treaties than by force of arms, in preserving their existence and their nationality. Tarentum alone remained thoroughly independent and powerful. … About the period when Veii and the Pomptine plain came into the hands of Rome, the Samnite hordes were already in possession of all Lower Italy, with the exception of a few unconnected Greek colonies, and of the Apulo-Messapian coast."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 2, chapter 5.

SAMO, The Kingdom of.

See AVARS: 7TH CENTURY.

{2798}

SAMOA.

Samoa is the native name of the group of twelve volcanic islands in central Polynesea formerly known as the Navigator Islands. Their place on the chart is between the parallels of 13° and 15° south latitude, and 168° and 173° west longitude. The total area of the islands is about 1,700 square miles. The population consists of about 36,000 natives and a few hundred foreigners, English, American and German. The islands are said to have been first visited by the Dutch navigator, Roggewein, in 1722. A Christian mission was first established upon them in 1830, by the London Missionary Society. After some years the trade of the islands became important, and German traders acquired an influence which they seem to have used to bring about a state of civil war between rival kings. The United States, Great Britain and Germany, at length, in 1879, by joint action, intervened, and, after ten years more of disturbed and unsatisfactory government, the affairs of Samoa were finally settled at a conference of the three Powers held in Berlin in 1889. A treaty was signed by which they jointly guarantee the neutrality of the islands, with equal rights of residence, trade and personal protection to the citizens of the three signatory Powers. They recognize the independence of the Samoan Government, and the free right of the natives to elect their chief or king and choose the form of their government. The treaty created a supreme court, with jurisdiction over all questions arising under it. It stopped the alienation of lands by the natives, excepting town lots in Apia, the capital town; and it organized a municipal government for Apia, with an elected council under the presidency of a magistrate appointed by the three Powers. Other articles impose customs duties on foreign importations, and prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors to the natives.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopœdia, 1888 and 1889.

ALSO IN: The Statesman's Year-Book, 1894.

_R. L. Stevenson, A Foot-note to History._

G. H. Bates, Some Aspects of the Samoan Question, and Our Relations to Samoa (The Century, April and May, 1889).

----------SAMOS: Start--------

SAMOS. SAMIANS.

The island now called Samo, lying close to the coast of Asia Minor, in the part of the Ægean Sea which was anciently known as the Icarian Sea. It is of considerable size, being about eighty miles in circumference. The narrow strait which separates it from the mainland is only about three-fourths of a mile wide. The ancient Samians were early and important members of the Ionian confederacy [see ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES] and acquired an early prominence among Greek communities in navigation, commerce, colonizing enterprise and advancement in the arts. Shortly before the Persian wars, in the last half of the sixth century B. C. the island became subject to a profoundly able and ambitious usurper, Polycrates, the most famous of all the Greek "tyrants" of the age, and under whom Samos rose to great power and great splendor of development. "Samos was at that time the brilliant centre of all Ionia, as far as the latter was yet untouched by the barbarians. For such a position she was preeminently fitted: for nowhere had the national life of the Ionians attained to so many-sided and energetic a development as on this particular island. … An unwearying impulse for inventions was implanted in these islanders, and at the same time a manly and adventurous spirit of discovery, stimulated by the dangers of unknown seas. … Under Polycrates, Samos had become a perfectly organized piratical state; and no ship could quietly pursue its voyages without having first purchased a safe-conduct from Samos. … But Polycrates intended to be something more than a freebooter. After he had annihilated all attempts at resistance, and made his fleet the sole naval power of the Archipelago, he began to take steps for creating a new and lasting establishment. The defenceless places on the coast had to buy security by the regular payment of tribute; under his protection they united into a body, the interests and affairs of which came more and more to find their centre in Samos, which from a piratical state became the federal capital of an extensive and brilliant empire of coasts and islands."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 2, chapter 5 (volume 2).

Two of the great works of Polycrates in Samos, the aqueduct, for which a mountain was tunnelled, and the harbor breakwater, were among the wonders of antiquity. The Heræum, or temple of Here, was a third marvel. After the death of Polycrates, treacherously murdered by the Persians, Samos became subject to Persia. At a later time it came under the sovereignty of Athens, and its subsequent history was full of vicissitudes. It retained considerable importance even to Roman times.

SAMOS: B. C. 440. Revolt from Athens. Siege and subjugation.

See ATHENS: B. C. 440-437.

SAMOS: B. C. 413. Overthrow of the oligarchy. Concession of freedom and alliance by Athens.

See GREECE: B. C. 413-412.

SAMOS: B. C. 33-32. Antony and Cleopatra.

The winter of B. C. 33-32. before the battle of Actium, was passed by Mark Antony at Samos, in company with Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt. "The delicious little island was crowded with musicians, dancers and stage players; its shores resounded with the wanton strains of the flute and tabret."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 28.

SAMOS: A. D. 1824. Defeat of the Turks by the Greeks.

See GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.

----------SAMOS: End--------

SAMOSATA.

See COMMAGENE.

SAMOTHRACE.

A mountainous island in the northern part of the Ægean sea, so elevated that its highest point is over 5,000 feet above the sea level. In ancient times it derived its chief importance from the mysteries of the little understood worship of the Cabiri, of which it seems to have been the chief seat.

_G. S. Faber, Mysteries of the Cabiri_

"The temple and mysteries of Samothrace formed a point of union for many men from all countries: for a great portion of the world at that time, the temple of Samothrace was like the Caaba of Mecca, the tomb of the prophet at Medina, or the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. Samothrace and Dodona were to the Pelasgian nations what perhaps Delphi and Delos were to the Hellenic world."

B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome, lecture 1.

SAN.

See ZOAN.

SAN ANTONIO, Battle of.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1847 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).

SAN CARLOS, Battle of.

See VENEZUELA: A. D. 1829-1886.

SAN DOMINGO, OR HAYTI.

See HAYTI.

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----------SAN FRANCISCO: Start--------

SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1579. Supposed visit by Drake.

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1543-1781; and AMERICA: A. D. 1572-1580.

SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1772-1776. First exploration and naming of the Bay. Founding of the Mission.

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1543-1781.

SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1846. Possession taken by the Americans.

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1846-1847.

SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1846. The naming of the Golden Gate. The great Bay.

See GOLDEN GATE.

SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1848. On the eve of the Gold discoveries.

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1856. The Vigilance Committee.

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1856.

SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1877-1880. Kearney and the Sand Lot Party.

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1877-1880.

----------SAN FRANCISCO: End--------

SAN FRANCISCO, Battle of (1879).

See CHILE: A. D. 1833-1884.

SAN JACINTO, Battle of (1836).

See TEXAS: A. D. 1824-1836.

SAN JUAN OR NORTHWESTERN WATER-BOUNDARY QUESTION.

The treaty of 1846 which settled the Oregon boundary question left still in dispute the water-boundary between the territory of the United States and Vancouver's Island. Provision for submitting the determination of this San Juan water-boundary question, as it was called, to the Emperor of Germany was made in the Treaty of Washington.

See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1871.

"The Emperor, it appears, referred the arguments on both sides to three experts, Dr. Grimm, Dr. Kiepert, and Dr. Goldschmidt, personages among the most eminent of his subjects in jurisprudence and in science, upon whose report he decided, on the 21st of October, 1872, in the terms of the reference, that the claim of the United States to have the line drawn through the Canal de Haro is most in accordance with the true interpretation of the treaty concluded on the 15th of June, 1846, between Great Britain and the United States. 'This Award,' says the President's Message of December 2, 1872, 'confirms the United States in their claim to the important archipelago of islands lying between the continent and Vancouver's Island, which for more than 26 years … Great Britain had contested, and leaves us, for the first time in the history of the United States as a nation, without a question of disputed boundary between our territory and the possessions of Great Britain on this continent.'"

C. Cushing, The Treaty of Washington, page 222.

The Haro Archipelago, which formed the subject of dispute, is a group of many islands, mostly small, but containing one of considerable importance, namely the island of San Juan. The combined area of the islands is about 170 square miles. The archipelago is bounded on the north by the Canal de Haro and the Gulf of Georgia, on the east by Rosario Strait, on the west by the Canal de Haro, on the south by the Straits of Fuca. The entrance to the strait called the Canal de Haro is commanded by the Island of San Juan, which has, therefore, been called "'the Cronstadt of the Pacific.' Its position is such that a few batteries, skilfully placed, would render it almost impregnable." Hence the importance attached to the possession of this island, and especially on the part of Great Britain, looking to the future of British Columbia. By the decision of the Emperor of Germany the entire Archipelago became part of the recognized territory of the United States.

_Viscount Milton, History of the San Juan Water Boundary Question [to 1869]._

SAN MARINO, The Republic of.

"The Republic of San Marino is a survival unique in the political world of Europe. … The sovereign independence of San Marino is due to a series of happy accidents which were crystallised into a sentiment. The origin of the State is ascribed to a Dalmatian saint who fled from the early persecutions at Rome and dwelt in a hermitage on Mount Titanus. But it is impossible to believe that there was no earlier population. The mountain is a detached block standing free of the Apennines,—a short twelve miles from the sea-coast, easily defensible and commanding a fertile undulating district. The hill-villages must have existed before the towns of the coast. As old as Illyrian pirates were the highland townships of Verrucchio, San Leo, Urbino, Osimo, Loretto, and above all San Marino. Yet, but for the saint and his noble benefactress Felicitá, San Marino would have shared the fate of other highland communes. This lady was a Countess Matilda on a small scale. She gave to the young congregation the proprietorship of the mountain, and the lower table-land was acquired by subsequent purchase and by the generosity of Pope Æneas Sylvius. But Felicitá could not give sovereignty,—she could give no more than she possessed. The sovereignty had rested with the Roman Republic—the Empire—the Goths —the Greeks—the Germans. The Papacy itself had as much claim to San Marino as to anything which it possessed. It was included at all events in the donation of Pepin. In the Pontificate of John XXII. the Bishop of Feltro, who claimed the ownership of the town, proposed to sell it, partly because he needed money to restore his church, partly because the Sammarinesi were rebellious subjects,—'not recognising superiors here on earth, and perchance not believing upon a superior in heaven.' Yet the Papacy appears in the 13th century to have accepted a judicial decision as to the sovereign independence of the Republic, and Pius II. considerably increased its territory in 1463 at the expense of Sigismund Malatesta. The sovereignty of San Marino is therefore almost as complete a puzzle as that of the mysterious Royaume d' Yvetot. … The Malatestas, originally lords of the neighboring upland fortress of Verrucchio would willingly have made the whole ridge the backbone of their State of Rimini. But this very fact secured for the Sammarinesi the constant friendship of the lords of Urbino. … Neither power could allow the other to appropriate so invaluable a strategic position. … The existing constitution is a living lesson on medieval history. … Theoretically, sovereignty in the last resort belongs to the people, and of old this was practically exercised by the Arengo, which thus has some correspondence in meaning and functions to the Florentine Parlamento. The Sammarinesi, however, were wiser than the Florentines. When the increase of population and territory rendered a gathering of the whole people an incompetent engine of legislation, the Arengo was not allowed to remain as a mischievous survival with ill-defined authority at the mercy of the governmental wire-pullers. The prerogatives which were reserved to the Arengo were small but definite. … It was after the accession of territory granted by Pius II. in 1465 that the constitution of the State was fundamentally altered. … {2800} The people now delegated its sovereignty to the Council, which was raised to 60 members. … In 1600 an order of Patricians was established, to which was given one-third of the representation, and the Council now consists of 20 'nobili,' 20 'artisti,' artisans and shopkeepers, and 20 'contadini,' agriculturists. The harmony of the Republic is undisturbed by general elections, for the Council is recruited by co-optation. … At the head of the Executive stand the two Captains Regent. To them the statutes assign the sovereign authority and the power of the sword. … They draw a small salary, and during their six months of office are free from all State burdens."

_E. Armstrong, A Political Survival (Macmillan's Magazine, January, 1891)._

"Between this miniature country and its institutions there is a delicious disproportion. The little area of thin soil has for centuries maintained a complicated government. … There is a national post-office; there is an army of nine hundred and fifty men and eight officers; there are diplomatic agents in Paris and Montevideo, and consuls in various European cities. Services rendered to the State or to science may be rewarded by knighthood, and so late as 1876 San Marino expressed its gratitude to an English lady for her gift of a statue of liberty, by making her Duchess of Acquaviva. Titles are by no means the most undemocratic part of the republic. On examination it is seen to be in fact an oligarchy. … Yet an oligarchy among yeoman farmers is a very different thing from an oligarchy among merchant princes. San Marino may be compared with colonial Massachusetts. The few voters have always really represented the mass of the people. It has been a singularly united, courageous, honorable, public·spirited, and prudent people. Union was possible because it was and is a poor community, in which there were no powerful families to fight and expel each other, or exiles to come back with an enemy's army. The courage of the people is shown by their hospitality to Garibaldi when he was fleeing after his defeat of 1849. An excellent moral fibre was manifested when, in 1868, the Republic refused to receive the gambling establishments which had been made illegal in other countries. The new town-hall is a monument to the enlightened public spirit of the San Marinese, as well as to their taste. That the State is prudent is shown by its distinction, almost unique in Europe, of having no public debt. Other little states in Europe have had similar good qualities, yet have long since been destroyed. Why has San Marino outlived them all? … The perpetuation of the government is due in the first place to it singular freedom from any desire to extend its borders. The outlying villages have been added by gift or by their own free will; and when, in 1797, General Bonaparte invited the San Marinese to make their wishes known, 'if any part of the adjacent territory is absolutely necessary to you,' the hard-headed leaders declined 'an enlargement which might in time compromise their liberty.' On the other hand, the poor town had nothing worth plundering, and annexation was so difficult a task that Benedict XIV. said of Cardinal Alberoni's attempt in 1739: 'San Marino is a tough bread-crust; the man who tries to bite it gets his teeth broken.' Nevertheless, even peaceful and inoffensive communities were not safe during the last twelve centuries, without powerful protectors. The determining reason for the freedom of San Marino since 1300 has been the friendship of potentates, first of the neighboring Dukes of Urbino, then of the Popes, then of Napoleon, then of Italy. … When the kingdom of Italy was formed in 1860, no one cared to erase from the map a state which even the Pope had spared, and in which Europe was interested. Hence the San Marinese retained a situation comparable with that of the native states in India. A 'consolato' of the Italian Government resides in the town; the schools are assimilated to the Italian system; appeals may be had from the courts to the Italian upper courts, and precautions are taken to prevent the harboring of refugee criminals. Yet of the old sovereignty four important incidents are retained. San Marino has a post-office, a kind of national plaything; but the rare and beautiful stamps are much prized by collectors, and doubtless the sale helps the coffers of the state. The San Marinese manage, and well manage, their own local affairs, without any annoying interference from an Italian prefect. They owe no military service to Italy, and their own militia is no burden. Above all, they pay no taxes to Italy. If I were an Italian, I should like to be a San Marinese."

_A. B. Hart, The Ancient Commonwealth of San Marino (The Nation, February 1, 1894)._

SAN MARTIN, General Jose de, The liberation of Chile and Peru.

See CHILE: A. D. 1810-1818; and PERU: A. D. 1820-1826.

SAN MARTINO, Battle of (1859).

See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859.

SAN SALVADOR, Bahamas.

The name given by Columbus to the little island in the Bahama group which he first discovered, and the identity of which is in dispute.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1492.

SAN SALVADOR, Central America: A. D. 1821-1871. Independence of Spain. Brief annexation to Mexico. Attempted Federations and their failure.

See CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1821-1871.

SAN STEFANO, Treaty of.

See TURKS: A. D. 1877-1878, and 1878.

SANCHO I., King of Aragon, A. D. 1063-1094;

SANCHO IV. of Navarre, A. D. 1076-1094.

SANCHO I., King of Leon and the Asturias, or Oviedo, 955-967.

SANCHO I., King of Navarre, 905-925.

SANCHO I., King of Portugal, 1185-1211.

SANCHO II., King of Castile, 1065-1072.

SANCHO II. (called The Great), King of Navarre, 970-1035; and I. of Castile, 1026-1035.

SANCHO II., King of Portugal, 1223-1244.

SANCHO III., King of Castile, 1157-1158.

Sancho III., King of Navarre, 1054-1076.

SANCHO IV., King of Leon and Castile, 1284-1295.

SANCHO V., King of Navarre, 1150-1194.

SANCHO VI., King of Navarre, 1194-1236.

SAND LOT PARTY, The.

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1877-1880.

{2801}

SANDEMANIANS.

Robert Sandeman "was a Scotchman who held peculiar religious views: such as—that an intellectual belief would ensure salvation, without faith; and that this intellectual belief was certain to induce Christian virtues. He held these so strongly and urgently that he made a small sect; and in 1764 he came to Connecticut, and founded churches at Danbury and at some other places, where his followers were called 'Sandemanians,' and where some traces of them exist still. … The followers of Robert Sandeman were nearly all Loyalists [at the time of the American Revolution], and many of them emigrated from Connecticut to New Brunswick."

C. W. Elliott, The New England History., volume 2. page 370.

SANDJAKS, SANJAKS.

See BEY; also TIMAR.

SANDJAR, Seljuk Turkish Sultan, A. D. 1116-1157.

SANDWICH ISLANDS, The.

See HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.

SANGALA.

An ancient city in the Punjab, India, which was the easternmost of all the conquests of Alexander the Great. He took the town by storm (B. C. 326), slaying 17,000 of the inhabitants and taking 70,000 captives.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 94.

SANHEDRIM, The.

"Beside the priesthood [of the Jewish church], ever since the time of Ezra, there had been insensibly growing a body of scholars, who by the time of Herod had risen to a distinct function of the State. Already under John Hyrcanus there was a judicial body known as the House of Judgment (Beth Din). To this was given the Macedonian title of Synedrion [or Synhedrion], transformed into the barbarous Hebrew word Sanhedrim, or Sanhedrin."

Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lecture 50.

"The Sanhedrin was the great court of judicature; it judged of all capital offences against the law; it had the power of inflicting punishment by scourging and by death. … The Great Sanhedrin was a court of appeal from the inferior Sanhedrins of twenty-three judges established in the other towns. The Sanhedrin was probably confined to its judicial duties —it was a plenary court of justice, and no more during the reigns of the later Asmonean princes, and during those of Herod the Great and his son Archelaus. … When Judæa became a Roman province, the Sanhedrin either, as is more likely, assumed for the first time, or recovered its station as a kind of senate or representative body of the nation. … At all events, they seem to have been the channel of intercourse between the Roman rulers and the body of the people. It is the Sanhedrin, under the name of the chief priests, scribes, and elders of the people, who take the lead in all the transactions recorded in the Gospels. Jesus Christ was led before the Sanhedrin, and by them denounced before the tribunal of Pilate."

H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 12.

SANHIKANS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

SANITARY COMMISSION, and Christian Commission, The United States.

"Soon after Mr. Lincoln issued his proclamation [April 15, 1861, at the outbreak of the American Civil War] … calling for 75,000 soldiers, many good men and women instituted what they termed 'Soldiers' Aid Societies.' At first the government did not look upon these with approval, under an apprehension that they might interfere with the discipline and efficiency of the armies. Certain physicians and clergymen who had interested themselves in these charitable undertakings perceived how much good could be accomplished by a more extensive and thorough organization. Seeking no remuneration, they applied to the government to give them recognition and moral support, and, after some difficulty, this being secured, they organized themselves and were recognized as 'the United States Sanitary Commission.' The Reverend Henry W. Bellows, D. D., was its president. Their intention was to aid by their professional advice the medical department of the government service; but soon, the field opening out before them, their operations were greatly enlarged. From being simply an advisory, they became more and more an executive body. … The Sanitary Commission now entered on an extraordinary career of usefulness. It ranged itself in affiliation with the government medical bureau. It gathered supporters from all classes of the people. … Soon the commission had an independent transportation of its own. It had hospital transports, wagons, ambulances, railroad ambulances, cars. Ingenious men devised for it inventions of better litters, better stretchers, better ambulances. It secured comfortable transportation for the wounded soldier from the battle-field to the hospital. On the railroad it soon had its hospital cars, with kitchen, dispensary, and a surgeon's car in the midst. As its work increased, so did its energies and the singular efficiency of its organization. It divided its services into several departments of duty.

(1.) Its preventive service, or sanitary inspection department, had a corps of medical inspectors, who examined thoroughly troops in the field, and reported their condition and needs to its own officers and to the government. It had also a corps of special hospital inspectors, who visited the general hospitals of the army, nearly 300 in number, their reports being confidential, and sent to the surgeon general of the army.

(2.) Its department of general relief. This consisted of twelve branches of the general commission, having depots in the large towns, each branch having from 150 to 1,200 auxiliaries engaged in obtaining supplies. These were sent to the main depot, and there assorted, repacked, and dispatched. One of these branches, the 'Woman's Central Association,' collected stores to the value of over a million of dollars; another, the Northwestern, at Chicago, furnished more than a quarter of a million. Care was taken to have no waste in the distribution. Soldiers of all the states were equally supplied; and even wounded enemies left on the field, or sick and abandoned in the hospitals, were tenderly cared for.

(3.) Its department of special relief. This took under its charge soldiers not yet under, or just out of the care of the government; men on sick leave, or found in the streets, or left by their regiments. For such it furnished 'homes.' About 7,500 men were, on an average, thus daily or nightly accommodated. It also had 'lodges' wherein a sick soldier might stay while awaiting his pay from the paymaster general, or, if unable to reach a hospital, might stop for a time. Still more, it had 'Homes for the Wives, Mothers, and Children of Soldiers.' where those visiting the wounded or sick man to minister to his necessities might find protection, defense, food, shelter. It had its 'Feeding Stations,' where a tired and hungry soldier passing by could have a gratuitous meal. On the great military lines these stations were permanently established. On the chief rivers, the Mississippi, the Cumberland, the Potomac, it had 'sanitary steamers' for transmitting supplies and transporting the sick and wounded. It established 'agencies' to see that no injustice was done to any soldier; that the soldier, his widow, his orphan, obtained pensions, back pay, bounties, or whatever money was due; that any errors in their papers were properly corrected, and especially that no sharper took advantage of them. It instituted hospital directories by which the friends of a soldier could obtain information without cost as to his place and condition, if within a year he had been an inmate of any hospital. It had such a record of not less than 900,000 names. Whenever permitted to do so, it sent supplies to the United States prisoners of war in confinement at Andersonville, Salisbury, Richmond. …

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(4.) Its department of field relief. The duty of this was to minister to the wounded on the field of battle; to furnish bandages, cordials, nourishment; to give assistance to the surgeons, and to supply any deficiencies it could detect in the field hospitals. It had a chief inspector for the armies of the East; another for the Military Department of the Mississippi, with a competent staff for each.

(5.) Its auxiliary relief corps. This supplied deficiencies in personal attendance and work in the hospitals, or among the wounded on the field. Between May, 1864, when it was first organized, and January, 1865, it gave its services to more than 75,000 patients. It waited on the sick and wounded; wrote letters for them, gave them stationery, postage stamps, newspapers, and whiled away the heavy hours of suffering by reading magazines and books to them. To the Sanitary Commission the government gave a most earnest support; the people gave it their hearts. They furnished it with more than three millions of dollars in money, of which one million came from the Pacific States; they sent it nine millions' worth of supplies. From fairs held in its interest very large sums were derived. One in New York yielded a million and a quarter of dollars; one in Philadelphia more than a million. In towns comparatively small, there were often collected at such fairs more than twenty thousand dollars. … The Christian Commission emulated the noble conduct of the United States Sanitary Commission. It, too, received the recognition and countenance of the government. Its object was to promote the physical and spiritual welfare of soldiers and sailors. Its central office was in Philadelphia, but it had agencies in all the large towns. 'It aided the surgeon, helped the chaplain, followed the armies in their marches, went into the trenches and along the picket-line. Wherever there was a sick, a wounded, a dying man, an agent of the Christian Commission was near by.' It gave Christian burial whenever possible; it marked the graves of the dead. It had its religious services, its little extemporized chapels, its prayer-meetings. The American Bible Society gave it Bibles and Testaments; the Tract Society its publications. The government furnished its agents and supplies free transportation; it had the use of the telegraph for its purposes. Steamboat and railroad companies furthered its objects with all their ability. It distributed nearly five millions of dollars in money and supplies."

J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, chapter 87 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: _L. P. Brockett, Woman's Work in the Civil War._

_Mrs. M, A. Livermore, My Story of the War._

_K. P. Wormeley, The Other Side of the War._

The Sanitary Commission: its Works and Purposes.

_J. S. Newberry, The U. S. Sanitary Commission in the Mississippi Valley._

_L. Moss, Annals of the United States Christian Commission._

SANITARY SCIENCE AND LEGISLATION.

See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 19TH CENTURY.

SANJAKS, SANDJAKS.

See BEY; also TIMAR.

SANQUHAR DECLARATION, The.

The Declaration affixed by the Cameronians to the market-cross of Sanquhar, in 1680, renouncing allegiance to King Charles II.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1681-1689.

SANS ARCS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.

SANSCULOTTES.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (OCTOBER).

SANSCULOTTIDES. of the French Republican Calendar, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER) THE NEW REPUBLICAN CALENDAR.

SANSKRIT.

"The name Sanskrit as applied to the ancient language of the Hindus is an artificial designation for a highly elaborated form of the language originally brought by the Indian branch of the great Aryan race into India. This original tongue soon became modified by contact with the dialects of the aboriginal races who preceded the Aryans, and in this way converted into the peculiar language ('bhasha') of the Aryan immigrants who settled in the neighbourhood of the seven rivers of the Panjab and its outlying districts ('Sapta-Sindhavas'=in Zand 'Hapta Hendu'). The most suitable name for the original language thus moulded into the speech of the Hindus is Hindu-i (= Sindhu-i), its principal later development being called Hindi, just as the Low German dialect of the Saxons when modified in England was called Anglo-Saxon. But very soon that happened in India which has come to pass in all civilized countries. The spoken language, when once its general form and character had been settled, separated into two lines, the one elaborated by the learned, the other popularized and variously provincialized by the unlearned. In India, however, … this separation became more marked, more diversified, and progressively intensified. Hence, the very grammar which with other nations was regarded only as a means to an end, came to be treated by Indian Pandits as the end itself, and was subtilized into an intricate science, fenced around by a bristling barrier of technicalities. The language, too, elaborated 'pari passu' with the grammar, rejected the natural name of Hindu-i, or 'the speech of the Hindus,' and adopted an artificial designation, viz. Sanskrita, 'the perfectly constructed speech,' … to denote its complete severance from vulgar purposes, and its exclusive dedication to religion and literature; while the name Prakrita—which may mean 'the original' as well as 'the derived' speech—was assigned to the common dialect."

M. Williams, Indian Wisdom., introduction, page xxviii.

SANTA ANNA, The career of.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1820-1826, to 1848-1861, and TEXAS: A. D. 1824-1836.

SANTA HERMANDAD.

See HOLY BROTHERHOOD.

SANTA INES, Battle of (1859).

See VENEZUELA: A. D. 1829-1886.

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SANTA LUCIA, Battle of (1848).

See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.

SANTALS, The.

See INDIA: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

SANTAREM, Battle of (1184).

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1095-1325.

SANTEES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.

SANTIAGO, The founding of the city (1541).

See CHILE: A. D. 1450-1724.

SANTIAGO. OR ST. JAGO, Knights of the Order of.

See CALATRAVA.

SANTONES, The.

See PICTONES.

SAPAUDIA. The early name of Savoy.

See BURGUNDIANS: A. D. 443-451.

SAPEIRES, The.

See IBERIANS, EASTERN.

SAPIENZA, OR PORTOLONGO; Battle of (1354).

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1348-1355.

SARACENIC EMPIRE.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE.

SARACENIC SCHOOLS.

See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL.

SARACENS, The name.

"From Mecca to the Euphrates, the Arabian tribes were confounded by the Greeks and Latins under the general appellation of Saracens. … The name which, used by Ptolemy and Pliny in a more confined, by Ammianus and Procopius in a larger, sense, has been derived, ridiculously, from Sarah, the wife of Abraham, obscurely from the village of Saraka, … more plausibly from the Arabic words which signify a thievish character, or Oriental situation. … Yet the last and most popular of these etymologies is refuted by Ptolemy (Arabia, p. 2. 18. in Hudson, tom. iv.), who expressly remarks the western and southern position of the Saracens, then an obscure tribe on the borders of Egypt. The appellation cannot, therefore, allude to any national character; and, since it was imposed by strangers, it must be found, not in the Arabic, but in a foreign language."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 50, and note.

"Dr. Clarke (Travels, volume ii., page 391) after expressing contemptuous pity for Gibbon's ignorance, derives the word from Zara, Zaara, Sara, the Desert, whence Saraceni, the children of the Desert. De Marlès adopts the derivation from Sarrik, a robber, History des Arabes, volume 1, page 36; St. Martin from Scharkioun, or Sharkün, Eastern, volume xi., page 55."

H. Milman, note to Gibbon, as above.

The Kadmonites "are undoubtedly what their name expresses, Orientals, Saracens, otherwise B'ne Kedem,' or Suns of the East; a name restricted in practice to the cast contiguous to Palestine, and comprising only the Arabian nations dwelling between Palestine and the Euphrates. … The name Saraceni was in use among the Romans long before Islam, apparently from the time of Trajan's and Hadrian's wars."

H. Ewald, History of Israel, introduction, section 4, with foot-note (volume 1).

In the Middle Ages the term Saracen became common in its application to the Arabs, and, in fact, to the Mahometan races pretty generally.

See ROME: A. D. 96-138.

----------SARAGOSSA: Start--------

SARAGOSSA: Origin.

See CÆSAR-AUGUSTA.

SARAGOSSA: A. D. 543. Siege by the Franks.

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 507-711.

SARAGOSSA: A. D. 713. Siege and conquest by the Arab-Moors.

See SPAIN: A. D.711-713.

SARAGOSSA: A. D. 778. Siege by Charlemagne.

See SPAIN: A. D. 778.

SARAGOSSA: A. D. 1012-1146. The seat of a Moorish kingdom.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1031-1086.

SARAGOSSA: A. D. 1710.- Defeat of the Spaniards by the Allies.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1707-1710.

SARAGOSSA: A. D. 1808. Fruitless siege by the French.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER).

SARAGOSSA: A. D. 1808-1809. Siege and capture by the French. Extraordinary defense of the city.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1808-1809 (DECEMBER-MARCH).

SARAGOSSA: A. D. 1809. Siege by the French.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (FEBRUARY-JULY).

SARAGOSSA: A. D. 1809. Battle and Spanish defeat.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (FEBRUARY-JUNE).

----------SARAGOSSA: End--------

SARANGIANS.

The name given by Herodotus to a warlike people who dwelt anciently on the shores of the Hamun and in the Valley of the Hilmend—southwestern Afghanistan. By the later Greeks they were called Zarangians and Drangians; by the Persians Zaraka.

_M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 7, chapter 1 (volume 5). _

SARATOGA, Burgoyne's surrender at.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D.1777 (JULY-OCTOBER).

SARATOGA, The proposed State of.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1784.

SARCEES (TINNEH).

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: BLACKFEET, AND ATHAPASCAN FAMILY.

----------SARDINIA: Start--------

SARDINIA (The Island): Name and early history.

"The name of the island 'Sardo' is derived with probability from the Phœnician, and describes its resemblance to the human footstep. … Diodorus reckons this island among the places to which the Phœnicians sent colonies, after they had enriched themselves by the silver of Spain. … What the primitive population of the island was, which the Phœnicians found there when they touched at its southern ports on their way to Spain, whether it had come from the coast of Italy, or Africa, we can only conjecture. In historical times it appears to have been derived from three principal sources,—immigrations from Africa, represented by the traditions of Sardus and Aristæus; from Greece, represented by Iolaus, and from the south and south-east of Spain, represented by Norax. … The name Norax has evidently a reference to those singular remains of ancient architecture, the Nuraghi of Sardinia,—stone towers in the form of a truncated cone, with a spiral staircase in the thickness of the wall, which to the number of 3,000 are scattered over the island, chiefly in the southern and western parts. Nothing entirely analogous to these has been found in any other part of the world; but they resemble most the Athalayas [or Talajots] of Minorca, whose population was partly Iberian, partly Libyan. … The Carthaginians, at the time when their naval power was at its height, in the sixth and fifth centuries B. C., subdued all the level country, the former inhabitants taking refuge among the mountains, where their manners receded towards barbarism."

J. Kenrick, Phœnicia, chapter 4, section 3.

SARDINIA: A. D. 1017. Conquest from the Saracens by the Pisans and Genoese.

See PISA: ORIGIN OF THE CITY.

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SARDINIA: A. D. 1708. Taken by the Allies.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1707-1710.

SARDINIA: A. D. 1713. Ceded to the Elector of Bavaria with the title of King.

See UTRECHT: A.D. 1712-1714.

SARDINIA: A. D. 1714. Exchanged with the emperor for the Upper Palatinate.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

SARDINIA: A. D. 1717. Retaken by Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.

SARDINIA: A. D. 1719.

Given up by Spain and acquired by the Duke of Savoy in exchange for Sicily, giving its name to his kingdom.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725; also ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

----------SARDINIA: End--------

----------SARDINIA (The Kingdom): Start--------

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1742. The king joins Austria in the War of the Austrian Succession.

See ITALY: A. D. 1741-1743.

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1743. Treaty of Worms, with Austria and England.

See ITALY: A. D. 1743.

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1743. The Bourbon Family Compact against the king.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1743 (OCTOBER).

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1774. The War of the Austrian Succession: French and Spanish invasion of Piedmont.

See ITALY: A. D. 1744.

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1745. The War of the Austrian Succession: Overwhelming reverses.

See ITALY: A. D. 1745.

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1746-1747. The War of the Austrian Succession: The French and Spaniards driven out.

See ITALY: A. D. 1746-1747.

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1748. Termination and results of the War of the Austrian Succession.

See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: THE CONGRESS.

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1792. Annexation of Savoy and Nice to the French Republic.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1793. Joined in the Coalition against Revolutionary France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1794. Passes of the Alps secured by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (OCTOBER-MAY).

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1795. French victory at Loano.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (JUNE-DECEMBER).

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1796. Submission to the French under Bonaparte. Treaty of peace. Cession of Savoy to the Republic.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1798. Piedmont taken by the French. Its sovereignty relinquished by the king.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL).

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1799. French evacuation of Piedmont.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER).

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1800. Recovery of Piedmont by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1802. Annexation of part of Piedmont to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1802 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1814-1815. The king recovers his kingdom. Annexation of Genoa. Cession of part of Savoy to France.

See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF: also FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE).

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1815. Accession to the Holy Alliance.

See HOLY ALLIANCE.

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1820-1821. Abortive revolutionary rising and war with Austria. The defeat at Novara.

See ITALY: A. D. 1820-1821.

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1831. Death of Charles Felix. Accession of Charles Albert.

See ITALY: A. D. 1830-1832.

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1848-1849. Alliance with insurgent Lombardy and Venetia. War with Austria. Defeat. Abdication of Charles Albert. Accession of Victor Emmanuel II.

See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1855. In the Alliance of the Crimean War against Russia.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1854-1856.

SARDINIA (The Kingdom): A. D. 1856-1870. The great work of Count Cavour and King Victor Emmanuel. Liberation of the whole Peninsula and creation of the kingdom of Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859, to 1867-1870.

----------SARDINIA (The Kingdom): End--------

SARDIS.

When Cyrus the Great founded the Persian empire by the overthrow of that of the Medes, B. C. 558, his first enterprise of conquest, outside of the Median dominion, was directed against the kingdom of Lydia, then, under its famous king Crœsus, dominant in Asia Minor and rapidly increasing in wealth and power. After an indecisive battle, Crœsus retired to his capital city, Sardis, which was then the most splendid city of Asia Minor, and was followed by Cyrus, who captured and plundered the town, at the end of a siege of only fourteen days. The fall of Sardis was the fall of the Lydian kingdom, which was absorbed into the great empire of Persia.

G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies: Persia, chapter 7.

Fifty-eight years later (about 500 B. C.) at the beginning of the Ionian Revolt, when the Greek cities of Asia Minor attempted to throw off the Persian yoke, Sardis was again plundered and burned by an invading force of Ionians and Athenians.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 14.

See, also, PERSIA: B. C. 521-493.

SARGASSO SEA, The.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1492.

SARISSA, The.

See PHALANX.

SARK, Battle of (1448).

This was a severe defeat inflicted by the Scots upon an English force, invading Scottish territory, under Lord Percy. The English lost 3,000 men and Percy was taken prisoner.

Sir W. Scott, History of Scotland. chapter 19.

SARMATIA. SARMATIANS.

"The Scythians of the time of Herodotus were separated only by the river Tanais [modern Don] from the Sarmatians, who occupied the territory for several days' journey north-cast of the Palus Mæôtis; on the south, they were divided by the Danube from the section of Thracians called Getæ. Both these nations were nomadic, analogous to the Scythians in habits, military efficiency, and fierceness. Indeed, Herodotus and Hippokrates distinctly intimate that the Sarmatians were nothing but a branch of Scythians, speaking a Scythian dialect, and distinguished from their neighbours on the other side of the Tanais chiefly by this peculiarity,—that the women among them were warriors hardly less daring and expert than the men."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 17.

The Sarmatians ultimately gave their name to the whole region of northeastern Europe, and some writers have considered them to be, not Scythic or Mongolic in race, but progenitors of the modern Slavonic family. "By Sarmatia [Tacitus] seems to have understood what is now Moldavia and Wallachia, and perhaps part of the south of Russia."

_Church and Brodribb, Geographical Notes to The Germany of Tacitus._

See SLAVONIC PEOPLES.

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SARMATIAN AND MARCOMANNIAN WARS OF MARCUS AURELIUS.

It was during the reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus that the inroads of the barbarians along the Danubian frontier of the Roman Empire began to be seriously frequent and bold. "It is represented as a simultaneous, and even a combined attack, of all the races on the northern frontier, who may be ranged under the three national divisions of Germans, Scythians, and Sarmatians; though we may question the fact of an actual league among tribes so many, so various, and so distant." The Marcomanni and the Quadi on the upper Danube, and the Sarmatian tribes on the lower, were the prominent intruders, and the campaigns which Aurelius conducted against them, A. D. 167-180, are generally called either the Marcomannian or the Sarmatian Wars. During these thirteen years, the noblest of all monarchs surrendered repeatedly the philosophic calm which he loved so well, and gave himself to the hateful business of frontier war, vainly striving to arrest in its beginning the impending flood of barbaric invasion. Repeatedly, he won the semblance of a peace with the unrelenting foe, and as repeatedly it was broken. He died in his soldier's harness, at Vindobona (Vienna), and happily did not live to witness the peace . which Rome, in the end, stooped to buy from the foes she had no more strength to overcome.

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 68.

ALSO IN: P. B. Watson, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, chapters 4-6.

See, also, THUNDERING LEGION.

SARN HELEN, The.

A Roman road running through Wales, called by the Welsh the Sarn Helen, or road of Helen, from a notion that the Empress Helena caused it to be made.

T. Wright, Celt, Roman and Saxon, chapter 5.

SARPI, Fra Paolo, and the contest of Venice with the Papacy.

See VENICE: A. D. 1606-1607.

SARRE-LOUIS: A. D. 1680. The founding of the city.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1679-1681.

SARUS, Battle of the.

One of the victories of the Emperor Heraclius, A. D. 625, in his war with the Persians.

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 24.

SASKATCHEWAN, The district of.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORIES OF CANADA.

SASSANIAN DYNASTY.

Artaxerxes I., who resurrected the Persian empire, or called a new Persian empire into existence, A. D. 226, by the overthrow of the Parthian monarchy and the subjection of its dominions, founded a dynasty which took the name of the Sassanian, or the family of the Sassanidæ, from one Sasan, who, according to some accounts was the father, according to others a remoter progenitor of Artaxerxes. This second Persian monarchy is, itself, often called the Sassanian, to distinguish it from the earlier Achæmenian Persian empire.

_G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy._

See, also, PERSIA: B. C. 150-A. D. 226.

SASTEAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SASTEAN FAMILY.

SATOLLI, Apostolic Delegate in America.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1892.

SATRAP. SATRAPIES.

Darius Hystaspis "has been well called 'the true founder of the Persian state.' He found the Empire a crude and heterogeneous mass of ill-assorted elements, hanging loosely together by the single tie of subjection to a common head; he left it a compact and regularly organized body, united on a single well-ordered system, permanently established everywhere. … It was the first, and probably the best, instance of that form of government which, taking its name from the Persian word for provincial ruler, is known generally as the system of 'satrapial' administration. Its main principles were, in the first place, the reduction of the whole Empire to a quasi-uniformity by the substitution of one mode of governing for several; secondly, the substitution of fixed and definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable and uncertain calls; and thirdly, the establishment of a variety of checks and counterpoises among the officials to whom it was necessary that the crown should delegate its powers. … The authority instituted by Darius was that of his satraps. He divided the whole Empire into a number of separate governments—a number which must have varied at different times, but which seems never to have fallen short of twenty. Over each government he placed a satrap, or supreme civil governor, charged with the collection and transmission of the revenue, the administration of justice, the maintenance of order, and the general supervision of the territory. These satraps were nominated by the king at his pleasure from any class of his subjects, and held office for no definite term, but simply until recalled, being liable to deprivation or death at any moment, without other formality than the presentation of the royal 'firman.' While, however, they remained in office they were despotic—they represented the Great King, and were clothed with a portion of his majesty. … They wielded the power of life and death. They assessed the tribute on the several towns and villages within their jurisdiction at their pleasure, and appointed deputies—called sometimes, like themselves, satraps—over cities or districts within their province, whose office was regarded as one of great dignity. … Nothing restrained their tyranny but such sense of right as they might happen to possess, and the fear of removal or execution if the voice of complaint reached the monarch."

G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies: Persia, chapter 7.

SATTAGYDÆ, The.

See GEDROSIANS.

SATURNALIA, The Roman.

"The Saturnalia, first celebrated in Rome at the dedication [of the temple of Saturn, on the southern slope of the Capitoline Hill] … extended originally over three, but finally over seven days, during which all social distinctions were ignored; slaves were admitted to equality with their masters; and the chains which the emancipated from slavery used to hang, as thanksgiving, on or below the statue of the god, were taken down to intimate that perfect freedom had been enjoyed by all alike under the thrice-happy Saturnian reign. Varro mentions the practice of sending wax tapers as presents during this festival; and when we remember the other usage of suspending wax masks, during the Saturnalia, in a chapel beside the temple of the beneficent Deity, the analogies between these equalizing fêtes and the modern Carnival become more apparent."

_C. I. Hemans, Historic and Monumental Rome, chapter 6. _

SAUCHIE BURN, Battle of (1488).

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1482-1488.

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SAUCY CASTLE.

See CHÂTEAU GAILLARD.

SAUK, OR SAC, Indians.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, and SACS.

SAULCOURT, Battle of (A. D. 881).

A notable defeat inflicted upon the invading Northmen or Danes in 881 by the French king Louis III., one of the last of the Carolingian line. The battle is commemorated in a song which is one of the earliest specimens of Teutonic verse.

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