Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "English Language" to "Epsom Salts" (part 3)

ENSENADA, CENON DE SOMODEVILLA, Marques de la (1702-1781), Spanish statesman, was born at Alesanco near Logroño on the 2nd of June 1702. When he had risen to high office it was said that his pedigree was distinguished, but nothing is known of his parents—Francisco de Somodevilla and his wife Francisca de Bengoechea,—nor is anything known of his own life before he entered the civil administration of the Spanish navy as a clerk in 1720. He served in administrative capacities at the relief of Ceuta in that year and in the reoccupation of Oran in 1731. His ability was recognized by Don Jose Patiños, the chief minister of King Philip V. Somodevilla was much employed during the various expeditions undertaken by the Spanish government to put the king’s sons by his second marriage with Elizabeth Farnese, Charles and Philip, on the thrones of Naples and Parma. In 1736 Charles, afterwards King Charles III. of Spain, conferred on him the Neapolitan title of Marques de la Ensenada. The name can be resolved into the three Spanish words “en se nada,” meaning “in himself nothing.” The courtly flattery of the time, and the envy of the nobles who disliked the rise of men of Ensenada’s class, seized upon this poor play on words; an Ensenada is, however, a roadstead or small bay. In 1742 he became secretary of state and war to Philip, duke of Parma. In the following year (11th of April 1743), on the death of Patiños’s successor Campillo, he was chosen by Philip V. as minister of finance, war, the navy and the Indies (i.e. the Colonies). Ensenada met the nomination with a becoming nolo episcopari, professing that he was incapable of filling the four posts at once. His reluctance was overborne by the king, and he became in fact prime minister at the age of forty-one. During the remainder of the king’s reign, which lasted till the 11th of July 1746, and under his successor Ferdinand VI. until 1754, Ensenada was the effective prime minister. His administration is notable in Spanish history for the vigour of his policy of internal reform. The reports on the finances and general condition of the country, which he drew up for the new king on his accession, and again after peace was made with England at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 18th of October 1748, are very able and clear-sighted. Under his direction the despotism of the Bourbon kings became paternal. Public works were undertaken, shipping was encouraged, trade was fostered, numbers of young Spaniards were sent abroad for education. Many of them abused their opportunity, but on the whole the prosperity of the country revived, and the way was cleared for the more sweeping innovations of the following reign. Ensenada was a strong partizan of a French alliance and of a policy hostile to England. Sir B. Keene, the English minister, supported the Spanish court party opposed to him, and succeeded in preventing him from adding the foreign office to others which he held. Ensenada would probably have fallen sooner but for the support he received from the Portuguese queen, Barbara. In 1754 he offended her by opposing an exchange of Spanish and Portuguese colonial possessions in America which she favoured. On the 20th of July of that year he was arrested by the king’s order, and sent into mild confinement at Granada, which he was afterwards allowed to exchange for Puerto de Santa Maria. On the accession of Charles III. in 1759, he was released from arrest and allowed to return to Madrid. The new king named him as member of a commission appointed to reform the system of taxation. Ensenada could not renounce the hope of again becoming minister, and entered into intrigues which offended the king. On the 18th of April 1766 he was again exiled from court, and ordered to go to Medina del Campo. He had no further share in public life, and died on the 2nd of December 1781. Ensenada acquired wealth in office, but he was never accused of corruption. Though, like most of his countrymen, he suffered from the mania for grandeur, and was too fond of imposing schemes out of all proportion with the resources of the state, he was undoubtedly an able and patriotic man, whose administration was beneficial to Spain.

For his administration see W. Coxe, Memoirs of the Kings of Spain of the House of Bourbon (London, 1815), but the only complete account of Ensenada is by Don Antonio Rodriguez Villa, Don Cenon de Somodevilla, Marques de la Ensenada (Madrid, 1878).

(D. H.)

ENSIGN (through the Fr. enseigne from the Latin plural insignia), a distinguishing token, emblem or badge such as symbols of office, or in heraldry, the ornament or sign, such as the crown, coronet or mitre borne above the charge or arms. The word is more particularly used of a military or naval standard or banner. In the British navy, ensign has a specific meaning, and is the name of a flag having a red, white or blue ground, with the Union Jack in the upper corner next the staff. The white ensign (which is sometimes further distinguished by having the St George’s Cross quartered upon it) is only used in the royal navy and the royal yacht squadron, while the blue and red ensigns are the badges of the naval reserve, some privileged companies, and the merchant service respectively (see Flag). Until 1871 the lowest grade of commissioned officers in infantry regiments of the British army had the title of ensign (now replaced by that of second lieutenant). It is the duty of the officers of this rank to carry the colours of the regiment (see Colours, Military). In the 16th century ensign was corrupted into “ancient,” and was used in the two senses of a banner and the bearer of the banner. In the United States navy, the title ensign superseded in 1862 that of passed midshipman. It designates an officer ranking with second lieutenant in the army.

ENSILAGE, the process of preserving green food for cattle in an undried condition in a silo (from Gr. σιρός, Lat. sirus, a pit for holding grain), i.e. a pit, an erection above ground, or stack, from which air has been as far as possible excluded. The fodder which is the result of the process is called silage. In various parts of Germany a method of preserving green fodder precisely similar to that used in the case of Sauerkraut has prevailed for upwards of a century. Special attention was first directed to the practice of ensilage by a French agriculturist, Auguste Goffart of the district of Sologne, near Orleans, who in 1877 published a work (Manuel de la culture et de l’ensilage des maïs et autres fourrages verts) detailing the experiences of many years in preserving green crops in silos. An English translation of Goffart’s book by J.B. Brown was published in New York in 1879, and, as various experiments had been previously made in the United States in the way of preserving green crops in pits, Goffart’s experience attracted considerable attention. The conditions of American dairy farming proved eminently suitable for the ensiling of green maize fodder; and the success of the method was soon indisputably demonstrated among the New England farmers. The favourable results obtained in America led to much discussion and to the introduction of the system in the United Kingdom, where, with different conditions, success has been more qualified.

It has been abundantly proved that ensilage forms a wholesome and nutritious food for cattle. It can be substituted for root crops with advantage, because it is succulent and digestible; milk resulting from it is good in quality and taste; it can be secured largely irrespective of weather; it carries over grass from the period of great abundance and waste to times when none would otherwise be available; and a larger number of cattle can be supported on a given area by the use of ensilage than is possible by the use of green crops.

Early silos were made of stone or concrete either above or below ground, but it is recognized that air may be sufficiently excluded in a tightly pressed stack, though in this case a few inches of the fodder round the sides is generally useless owing to mildew. In America round erections made of wood and 35 or 40 ft. in depth are most commonly used. The crops suitable for ensilage are the ordinary grasses, clovers, lucerne, vetches, oats, rye and maize, the latter being the most important silage crop in America; various weeds may also be stored in silos with good results, notably spurrey (Spergula arvensis), a most troublesome plant in poor light soils. As a rule the crop should be mown when in full flower, and deposited in the silo on the day of its cutting. Maize is cut a few days before it is ripe and is shredded before being elevated into the silo. Fair, dry weather is not essential; but it is found that when moisture, natural and extraneous, exceeds 75% of the whole, good results are not obtained. The material is spread in uniform layers over the floor of the silo, and closely packed and trodden down. If possible, not more than a foot or two should be added daily, so as to allow the mass to settle down closely, and to heat uniformly throughout. When the silo is filled or the stack built, a layer of straw or some other dry porous substance may be spread over the surface. In the silo the pressure of the material, when chaffed, excludes air from all but the top layer; in the case of the stack extra pressure is applied by means of planks or other weighty objects in order to prevent excessive heating.

The closeness with which the fodder is packed determines the nature of the resulting silage by regulating the chemical changes which occur in the stack. When closely packed, the supply of oxygen is limited; and the attendant acid fermentation brings about the decomposition of the carbohydrates present into acetic, butyric and lactic acids. This product is named “sour silage.” If, on the other hand, the fodder be unchaffed and loosely packed, or the silo be built gradually, oxidation proceeds more rapidly and the temperature rises; if the mass be compressed when the temperature is 140°-160° F., the action ceases and “sweet silage” results. The nitrogenous ingredients of the fodder also suffer change: in making sour silage as much as one-third of the albuminoids may be converted into amino and ammonium compounds; while in making “sweet silage” a less proportion is changed, but they become less digestible. In extreme cases, sour silage acquires a most disagreeable odour. On the other hand it keeps better than sweet silage when removed from the silo.

ENSTATITE, a rock-forming mineral belonging to the group of orthorhombic pyroxenes. It is a magnesium metasilicate, MgSiO3, often with a little iron replacing the magnesium: as the iron increases in amount there is a transition to bronzite (q.v.), and with still more iron to hypersthene (q.v.). Bronzite and hypersthene were known long before enstatite, which was first described by G.A. Kenngott in 1855, and named from ἐνστάτης, “an opponent,” because the mineral is almost infusible before the blowpipe: the material he described consisted of imperfect prismatic crystals, previously thought to be scapolite, from the serpentine of Mount Zdjar near Schönberg in Moravia. Crystals suitable for goniometric measurement were later found in the meteorite which fell at Breitenbach in the Erzgebirge, Bohemia. Large crystals, a foot in length and mostly altered to steatite, were found in 1874 in the apatite veins traversing mica-schist and hornblende-schist at the apatite mine of Kjörrestad, near Brevig in southern Norway. Isolated crystals are of rare occurrence, the mineral being usually found as an essential constituent of igneous rocks; either as irregular masses in plutonic rocks (norite, peridotite, pyroxenite, &c.) and the serpentines which have resulted by their alteration, or as small idiormorphic crystals in volcanic rocks (trachyte, andesite). It is also a common constituent of meteoric stones, forming with olivine the bulk of the material: here it often forms small spherical masses, or chondrules, with an internal radiated structure.

Enstatite and the other orthorhombic pyroxenes are distinguished from those of the monoclinic series by their optical characters, viz. straight extinction, much weaker double refraction and stronger pleochroism: they have prismatic cleavages (with an angle of 88° 16′) as well as planes of parting parallel to the planes of symmetry in the prism-zone. Enstatite is white, greenish or brown in colour; its hardness is 5½, and sp. gr. 3.2-3.3.

(L. J. S.)

ENTABLATURE (Lat. in, and tabula, a tablet), the architectural term for the superstructure carried by the columns in the classic orders (q.v.). It usually consists of three members, the architrave (the supporting member carried from column to column, pier or wall); the frieze (the decorative member); and the cornice (the projecting and protective member). Sometimes the frieze is omitted, as in the entablature of the portico of the caryatides of the Erechtheum. There is every reason to believe that the frieze did not exist in the archaic temple of Diana at Ephesus; and it is not found in the Lycian tombs, which are reproductions in the rock of timber structures based on early Ionian work.

ENTADA, in botany, a woody climber belonging to the family Leguminosae and common throughout the tropics. The best-known species is Entada scandens, the sword-bean, so called from its large woody pod, 2 to 4 ft. in length and 3 to 4 in. broad, which contains large flat hard polished chestnut-coloured seeds or “beans.” The seeds are often made into snuff-boxes or match-boxes, and a preparation from the kernel is used as a drug by the natives in India. The seeds will float for a long time in water, and are often thrown up on the north-western coasts of Europe, having been carried by the Gulf-stream from the West Indies; they retain their vitality, and under favourable conditions will germinate. Linnaeus records the germination of a seed on the coast of Norway.

ENTAIL (from Fr. tailler, to cut; the old derivation from tales haeredes is now abandoned), in law, a limited form of succession (q.v.). In architecture, the term “entail” denotes an ornamental device sunk in the ground of stone or brass, and subsequently filled in with marble, mosaic or enamel.

ENTASIS (from Gr. ἐντείνειν, to stretch a line or bend a bow), in architecture, the increment given to the column (q.v.), to correct the optical illusion which produces an apparent hollowness in an extended straight line. It was referred to by Vitruvius (iii. 3), and was first noticed in the columns of the Doric orders in Greek temples by Allason in 1814, and afterwards measured and verified by Penrose. It varies in different temples, and is not found in some: it is most pronounced in the temple of Jupiter Olympius, most delicate in the Erechtheum. The entasis is almost invariably introduced in the spires of English churches.

ENTERITIS (Gr. ἔντερον, intestine), a general medical term for inflammation of the bowels. According to the anatomical part specially attacked, it is subdivided into duodenitis, jejunitis, ileitis, typhlitis, appendicitis, colitis, proctitis. The chief symptom is diarrhoea. The term “enteric fever” has recently come into use instead of “typhoid” for the latter disease; but see Typhoid Fever.

ENTHUSIASM, a word originally meaning inspiration by a divine afflatus or by the presence of a god. The Gr. ἐνθουσιασμός, from which the word is adapted, is formed from the verb ἐνθουσιάζειν, to be ἔνθεος, possessed by a god θέος. Applied by the Greeks to manifestations of divine “possession,” by Apollo, as in the case of the Pythia, or by Dionysus, as in the case of the Bacchantes and Maenads, it was also used in a transferred or figurative sense; thus Socrates speaks of the inspiration of poets as a form of enthusiasm (Plato, Apol. Soc. 22 C). Its uses, in a religious sense, are confined to an exaggerated or wrongful belief in religious inspiration, or to intense religious fervour or emotion. Thus a Syrian sect of the 4th century was known as “the Enthusiasts”; they believed that by perpetual prayer, ascetic practices and contemplation, man could become inspired by the Holy Spirit, in spite of the ruling evil spirit, which the fall had given to him. From their belief in the efficacy of prayer εὐχή, they were also known as Euchites. In ordinary usage, “enthusiasm” has lost its peculiar religious significance, and means a whole-hearted devotion to an ideal, cause, study or pursuit; sometimes, in a depreciatory sense, it implies a devotion which is partisan and is blind to difficulties and objections. (See further Inspiration, for a comparison of the religious meanings of “enthusiasm,” “ecstasy” and “fanaticism.”)

ENTHYMEME (Gr. ἐν, θυμός), in formal logic, the technical name of a syllogistic argument which is incompletely stated. Any one of the premises may be omitted, but in general it is that one which is most obvious or most naturally present to the mind. In point of fact the full formal statement of a syllogism is rare, especially in rhetorical language, when the deliberate omission of one of the premises has a dramatic effect. Thus the suppression of the conclusion may have the effect of emphasizing the idea which necessarily follows from the premises. Far commoner is the omission of one of the premises which is either too clear to need statement or of a character which makes its omission desirable. A famous instance quoted in the Port Royal Logic, pt. iii. ch. xiv., is Medea’s remark to Jason in Ovid’s Medea, “Servare potui, perdere an possim rogas?” where the major premise “Qui servare, perdere possunt” is understood. This use of the word enthymeme differs from Aristotle’s original application of it to a syllogism based on probabilities or signs (ἐξ εἰκότων ἤ σημείων), i.e. on propositions which are generally valid (εἰκότα) or on particular facts which may be held to justify a general principle or another particular fact (Anal. prior. β xxvii. 70 a 10).

See beside text-books on logic, Sir W. Hamilton’s Discussions (1547); Mansel’s ed. of Aldrich, Appendix F; H.W.B. Joseph, Introd. to Logic, chap. xvi.

ENTOMOLOGY (Gr. ἔντομα insects, and λόγος, a discourse), the science that treats of insects, i.e. of the animals included in the class Hexapoda of the great phylum (or sub-phylum) Arthropoda. The term, however, is somewhat elastic in its current use, and students of centipedes and spiders are often reckoned among the entomologists. As the number of species of insects is believed to exceed that of all other animals taken together, it is no wonder that their study should form a special division of zoology with a distinctive name.

Beetles (Scarabaei) are the subjects of some of the oldest sculptured works of the Egyptians, and references to locusts, bees and ants are familiar to all readers of the Hebrew scriptures. The interest of insects to the eastern races was, however, economic, religious or moral. The science of insects began with Aristotle, who included in a class “Entoma” the true insects, the arachnids and the myriapods, the Crustacea forming another class (“Malacostraca”) of the “Anaema” or “bloodless animals.” For nearly 2000 years the few writers who dealt with zoological subjects followed Aristotle’s leading.

In the history of the science, various lines of progress have to be traced. While some observers have studied in detail the structure and life-history of a few selected types (insect anatomy and development), others have made a more superficial examination of large series of insects to classify them and determine their relationships (systematic entomology), while others again have investigated the habits and life-relations of insects (insect bionomics). During recent years the study of fossil insects (palaeoëntomology) has attracted much attention.

The foundations of modern entomology were laid by a series of wonderful memoirs on anatomy and development published in the 17th and 18th centuries. Of these the most famous are M. Malpighi’s treatise on the silkworm (1669) and J. Swammerdam’s Biblia naturae, issued in 1737, fifty years after its author’s death, and containing observations on the structure and life-history of a series of insect types. Aristotle and Harvey (De generatione animalium, 1651) had considered the insect larva as a prematurely hatched embryo and the pupa as a second egg. Swammerdam, however, showed the presence under the larval cuticle of the pupal structures. His only unfortunate contribution to entomology—indeed to zoology generally—was his theory of pre-formation, which taught the presence within the egg of a perfectly formed but miniature adult. A year before Malpighi’s great work appeared, another Italian naturalist, F. Redi, had disproved by experiment the spontaneous generation of maggots from putrid flesh, and had shown that they can only develop from the eggs of flies.

Meanwhile the English naturalist, John Ray, was studying the classification of animals; he published, in 1705, his Methodus insectorum, in which the nature of the metamorphosis received due weight. Ray’s “Insects” comprised the Arachnids, Crustacea, Myriapoda and Annelida, in addition to the Hexapods. Ray was the first to formulate that definite conception of the species which was adopted by Linnaeus and emphasized by his binominal nomenclature. In 1735 appeared the first edition of the Systema naturae of Linnaeus, in which the “Insecta” form a group equivalent to the Arthropoda of modern zoologists, and are divided into seven orders, whose names—Coleoptera, Diptera, Lepidoptera, &c., founded on the nature of the wings—have become firmly established. The fascinating subjects of insect bionomics and life-history were dealt with in the classical memoirs (1734-1742) of the Frenchman R.A.F. de Réaumur, and (1752-1778) of the Swede C. de Geer. The freshness, the air of leisure, the enthusiasm of discovery that mark the work of these old writers have lessons for the modern professional zoologist, who at times feels burdened with the accumulated knowledge of a century and a half. From the end of the 18th century until the present day, it is only possible to enumerate the outstanding features in the progress of entomology. In the realm of classification, the work of Linnaeus was continued in Denmark by J.C. Fabricius (Systema entomologica, 1775), and extended in France by G.P.B. Lamarck (Animaux sans vertèbres, 1801) and G. Cuvier (Leçons d’anatomie comparée, 1800-1805), and in England by W.E. Leach (Trans. Linn. Soc. xi., 1815). These three authors definitely separated the Arachnida, Crustacea and Myriapoda as classes distinct from the Insecta (see Hexapoda). The work of J.O. Westwood (Modern Classification of Insects, 1839-1840) connects these older writers with their successors of to-day.

In the anatomical field the work of Malpighi and Swammerdam was at first continued most energetically by French students. P. Lyonnet had published in 1760 his elaborate monograph on the goat-moth caterpillar, and H.E. Strauss-Dürckheim in 1828 issued his great treatise on the cockchafer. But the name of J.C.L. de Savigny, who (Mém. sur les animaux sans vertèbres, 1816) established the homology of the jaws of all insects whether biting or sucking, deserves especial honour. Many anatomical and developmental details were carefully worked out by L. Dufour (in a long series of memoirs from 1811 to 1860) in France, by G. Newport (“Insecta” in Encyc. Anat. and Physiol., 1839) in England, and by H. Burmeister (Handbuch der Entomologie, 1832) in Germany. Through the 19th century, as knowledge increased, the work of investigation became necessarily more and more specialized. Anatomists like F. Leydig, F. Müller, B.T. Lowne and V. Graber turned their attention to the detailed investigation of some one species or to special points in the structure of some particular organs, using for the elucidation of their subject the ever-improving microscopical methods of research.

Societies for the discussion and publication of papers on entomology were naturally established as the number of students increased. The Société Entomologique de France was founded in 1832, the Entomological Society of London in 1834. Few branches of zoology have been more valuable as a meeting-ground for professional and amateur naturalists than entomology, and not seldom has the amateur—as in the case of Westwood—developed into a professor. During the pre-Linnaean period, the beauty of insects—especially the Lepidoptera—had attracted a number of collectors; and these “Aurelians”—regarded as harmless lunatics by most of their friends—were the forerunners of the systematic students of later times. While the insect fauna of European countries was investigated by local naturalists, the spread of geographical exploration brought ever-increasing stores of exotic material to the great museums, and specialization—either in the fauna of a small district or in the world-wide study of an order or a group of families—became constantly more marked in systematic work. As examples may be instanced the studies of A.H. Haliday and H. Loew on the European Diptera, of John Curtis on British insects, of H.T. Stainton and O. Staudinger on the European Lepidoptera, of R. M’Lachlan on the European and of H.A. Hagen on the North American Neuroptera, of D. Sharp on the Dyticidae and other families of Coleoptera of the whole world.

The embryology of insects is entirely a study of the last century. C. Bonnet indeed observed in 1745 the virgin-reproduction of Aphids, but it was not until 1842 that R.A. von Kölliker described the formation of the blastoderm in the egg of the midge Chironomus. Later A. Weismann (1863-1864) traced details of the growth of embryo and of pupa among the Diptera, and A. Kovalevsky in 1871 first described the formation of the germinal layers in insects. Most of the recent work on the embryology of insects has been done in Germany or the United States, and among numerous students V. Graber, K. Heider, W.M. Wheeler and R. Heymons may be especially mentioned.

The work of de Réaumur and de Geer on the bionomics and life-history of insects has been continued by numerous observers, among whom may be especially mentioned in France J.H. Fabre and C. Janet, in England W. Kirby and W. Spence, J. Lubbock (Lord Avebury) and L.C. Miall, and in the United States C.V. Riley. The last-named may be considered the founder of the strong company of entomological workers now labouring in America. Though Riley was especially interested in the bearings of insect life on agriculture and industry—economic entomology (q.v.)—he and his followers have laid the science generally under a deep obligation by their researches.

After the publication of C. Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) a fresh impetus was given to entomology as to all branches of zoology, and it became generally recognized that insects form a group convenient and hopeful for the elucidation of certain problems of animal evolution. The writings of Darwin himself and of A.R. Wallace (both at one time active entomological collectors) contain much evidence drawn from insects in favour of descent with modification. The phylogeny of insects has since been discussed by F. Brauer, A.S. Packard and many others; mimicry and allied problems by H.W. Bates, F. Müller, E.B. Poulton and M.C. Piepers; the bearing of insect habits on theories of selection and use-inheritance by A. Weismann, G.W. and E. Peckham, G.H.T. Eimer and Herbert Spencer; variation by W. Bateson and M. Standfuss.

Bibliography.—References to the works of the above authors, and to many others, will be found under Hexapoda and the special articles on various insect orders. Valuable summaries of the labours of Malpighi, Swammerdam and other early entomologists are given in L.C. Miall and A. Denny’s Cockroach (London, 1886), and L. Henneguy’s Les Insectes (Paris, 1904).

(G. H. C.)

ENTOMOSTRACA. This zoological term, as now restricted, includes the Branchiopoda, Ostracoda and Copepoda. The Ostracoda have the body enclosed in a bivalve shell-covering, and normally unsegmented. The Branchiopoda have a very variable number of body-segments, with or without a shield, simple or bivalved, and some of the postoral appendages normally branchial. The Copepoda have normally a segmented body, not enclosed in a bivalved shell-covering, the segments not exceeding eleven, the limbs not branchial.

Under the heading Crustacea the Entomostraca have already been distinguished not only from the Thyrostraca or Cirripedes, but also from the Malacostraca, and an intermediate group of which the true position is still disputed. The choice is open to maintain the last as an independent subclass, and to follow Claus in calling it the Leptostraca, or to introduce it among the Malacostraca as the Nebaliacea, or with Packard and Sars to make it an entomostracan subdivision under the title Phyllocarida. At present it comprises the single family Nebaliidae. The bivalved carapace has a jointed rostrum, and covers only the front part of the body, to which it is only attached quite in front, the valve-like sides being under control of an adductor muscle. The eyes are stalked and movable. The first antennae have a lamellar appendage at the end of the peduncle, a decidedly non-entomostracan feature. The second antennae, mandibles and two pairs of maxillae may also be claimed as of malacostracan type. To these succeed eight pairs of foliaceous branchial appendages on the front division of the body, followed on the hind division by four pairs of powerful bifurcate swimming feet and two rudimentary pairs, the number, though not the nature, of these appendages being malacostracan. On the other hand, the two limbless segments that precede the caudal furca are decidedly non-malacostracan. The family was long limited to the single genus Nebalia (Leach), and the single species N. bipes (O. Fabricius). Recently Sars has added a Norwegian species, N. typhlops, not blind but weak-eyed. There are also now two more genera, Paranebalia (Claus, 1880), in which the branchial feet are much longer than in Nebalia, and Nebaliopsis (Sars, 1887), in which they are much shorter. All the species are marine.

Branchiopoda.—In this order, exclusion of the Phyllocarida will leave three suborders of very unequal extent, the Phyllopoda, Cladocera, Branchiura. The constituents of the last have often been classed as Copepoda, and among the Branchiopods must be regarded as aberrant, since the “branchial tail” implied in the name has no feet, and the actual feet are by no means obviously branchial.

Phyllopoda.—This “leaf-footed” suborder has the appendages which follow the second maxillae variable in number, but all foliaceous and branchial. The development begins with a free nauplius stage. In the outward appearance of the adults there is great want of uniformity, one set having their limbs sheltered by no carapace, another having a broad shield over most of them, and a third having a bivalved shell-cover within which the whole body can be enclosed. In accord with these differences the sections may be named Gymnophylla, Notophylla, Conchophylla. The equivalent terms applied by Sars are Anostraca, Notostraca, Conchostraca, involving a termination already appropriated to higher divisions of the Crustacean class, for which it ought to be reserved.

1. Gymnophylla.—These singular crustaceans have long soft flexible bodies, the eyes stalked and movable, the first antennae small and filiform, the second lamellar in the female, in the male prehensile; this last character gives rise to some very fanciful developments. There are three families, two of which form companies rather severely limited. Thus the Polyartemiidae, which compensate themselves for their stumpy little tails by having nineteen instead of the normal eleven pairs of branchial feet, consist exclusively of Polyartemia forcipata (Fischer, 1851). This species from the high north of Europe and Asia carries green eggs, and above them a bright pattern in ultramarine (Sars, 1896, 1897). The Thamnocephalidae have likewise but a single species, Thamnocephalus platyurus (Packard, 1877), which justifies its title “bushy-head of the broad tail” by a singularity at each end. Forward from the head extends a long ramified appendage described as the “frontal shrub,” backward from the fourth abdominal segment of the male spreads a fin-like expansion which is unique. In the ravines of Kansas, pools supplied by torrential rains give birth to these and many other phyllopods, and in turn “millions of them perish by the drying up of the pools in July” (Packard). The remaining family, the Branchipodidae, includes eight genera. In the long familiar Branchipus, Chirocephalus and Streptocephalus the males have frontal appendages, but these are wanting in the “brine-shrimp” Artemia, and the same want helps to distinguish Branchinecta (Verrill, 1869) from the old genus Branchipus. Of Branchiopsyllus (Sars, 1897) the male is not yet known, but in his genera of the same date, the Siberian Artemiopsis and the South African Branchipodopsis (1898), there is no such appendage. Of the last genus the type species B. hodgsoni belongs to Cape Colony, but the specimens described were born and bred and observed in Norway. For the study of fresh-water Entomostraca large possibilities are now opened to the naturalist. A parcel of dried mud, coming for example from Palestine or Queensland, and after an indefinite interval of time put into water in England or elsewhere, may yield him living forms, both new and old, in the most agreeable variety. Some caution should be used against confounding accidentally introduced indigenous species with those reared from the imported eggs. Those, too, who send or bring the foreign soil should exercise a little thought in the choice of it, since dry earth that has never had any Entomostraca near it at home will not become fertile in them by the mere fact of exportation.

2. Notophylla.—In this division the body is partly covered by a broad shield, united in front with the head; the eyes are sessile, the first antennae are small, the second rudimentary or wanting; of the numerous feet, sometimes sixty-three pairs, exceeding the number of segments to which they are attached, the first pair are more or less unlike the rest, and in the female the eleventh have the epipod and exopod (flabellum and sub-apical lobe of Lankester) modified to form an ovisac. Development begins with a nauplius stage. Males are very rare. The single family Apodidae contains only two genera, Apus and its very near neighbour Lepidurus. Apus australiensis (Spencer and Hall, 1896) may rank as the largest of the Entomostraca, reaching in the male, from front of shield to end of telson, a length of 70 mm., in the female of 64 mm. In a few days, or at most a fortnight, after a rainfall numberless specimens of these sizes were found swimming about, “and as not a single one was to be found in the water-pools prior to the rain, these must have been developed from the egg.” Similarly, in Northern India Apus himalayanus was “collected from a stagnant pool in a jungle four days after a shower of rain had fallen,” following a drought of four months (Packard).

3. Conchophylla.—Though concealed within the bivalved shell-cover, the mouth-parts are nearly as in the Gymnophylla, but the flexing of the caudal part is in contrast, and the biramous second antennae correspond with what is only a larval character in the other phyllopods. In the male the first one or two pairs of feet are modified into grasping organs. The small ova are crowded beneath the dorsal part of the valves. The development usually begins with a nauplius stage (Sars, 1896, 1900). There are four families: (a) The Limnadiidae, with feet from 18 to 32 pairs, comprise four (or five) genera. Of these Limnadella (Girard, 1855) has a single eye. It remains rather obscure, though the type species originally “was discovered in great abundance in a roadside puddle subject to desiccation.” Limnadia (Brongniart, 1820) is supposed to consist of species exclusively parthenogenetic. But when asked to believe that males never occur among these amazons, one cannot but remember how hard it is to prove a negative. (b) The Lynceidae, with not more than twelve pairs of feet. This family is limited to the species, widely distributed, of the single genus Lynceus, established by O.F. Müller in 1776 and 1781, and first restricted by Leach in 1816 in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (art. “Annulosa,” of that edition). Leach there assigns to it the single species L. brachyurus (Müller), and as this is included in the genus Limnetis (Lovén, 1846), that genus must be a synonym of Lynceus as restricted. (c) Leptestheriidae. Estheria (Rüppell, 1837) was instituted for the species dahalacensis, which Sars includes in his genus Leptestheria (1898); but Estheria was already appropriated, and of its synonyms Cyzicus (Audouin, 1837) is lost for vagueness, while Isaura (Joly, 1842) is also appropriated, so that Leptestheria becomes the name of the typical genus, and determines the name of the family. (d) Cyclestheriidae. This family consists of the single species Cyclestheria hislopi (Baird), reported from India, Ceylon, Celebes, Australia, East Africa and Brazil. Sars (1887) having had the opportunity of raising it from dried Australian mud, found that, unlike other phyllopods, but like the Cladocera, the parent keeps its brood within the shell until their full development.

Cladocera.—In this suborder the head is more or less distinct, the rest of the body being in general laterally compressed and covered by a bivalved test. The title “branching horns” alludes to the second antennae, which are two-branched except in the females of Holopedium, with each branch setiferous, composed of only two to four joints. The mandibles are without palp. The pairs of feet are four to six. The eye is single, and in addition to the eye there is often an “eye-spot,” Monospilus being unique in having the eye-spot alone and no eye, while Leydigiopsis (Sars, 1901) has an eye with an eye-spot equal to it or larger. The heart has a pair of venous ostia, often blending into one, and an anterior arterial aorta. Respiration is conducted by the general surface, by the branchial lamina (external branch) of the feet, and the vesicular appendage (when present) at the base of this branch. The “abdomen,” behind the limbs, is usually very short, occasionally very long. The “postabdomen,” marked off by the two postabdominal setae, usually has teeth or spines, and ends in two denticulate or ciliate claws, or it may be rudimentary, as in Polyphemus. Many species have a special glandular organ at the back of the head, which Sida crystallina uses for attaching itself to various objects. The Leydigian or nuchal organ is supposed to be auditory and to contain an otolith. The female lays two kinds of eggs—“summer-eggs,” which develop without fertilization, and “winter-eggs” or resting eggs, which require to be fertilized. The latter in the Daphniidae are enclosed in a modified part of the mother’s shell, called the ephippium from its resemblance to a saddle in shape and position. In other families a less elaborate case has been observed, for which Scourfield has proposed the term protoephippium. In Leydigia he has recently found a structure almost as complex as that of the Daphniidae. In some families the resting eggs escape into the water without special covering. Only the embryos of Leptodora are known to hatch out in the nauplius stage. Penilia (Dana, 1849) is perhaps the only exclusively marine genus. The great majority of the Cladocera belong to fresh water, but their adaptability is large, since Moina rectirostris (O.F. Müller) can equally enjoy a pond at Blackheath, and near Odessa live in water twice as salt as that of the ocean. In point of size a Cladoceran of 5 mm. is spoken of as colossal.

Dr Jules Richard in his revision (1895) retains the sections proposed by Sars in 1865, Calyptomera and Gymnomera. The former, with the feet for the most part concealed by the carapace, is subdivided into two tribes, the Ctenopoda, or “comb-feet,” in which the six pairs of similar feet, all branchial and nonprehensile, are furnished with setae arranged like the teeth of a comb, and the Anomopoda, or “variety-feet,” in which the front feet differ from the rest by being more or less prehensile, without branchial laminae.

The Ctenopoda comprise two families: (a) the Holopediidae, with a solitary species, Holopedium gibberum (Zaddach), queerly clothed in a large gelatinous involucre, and found in mountain tarns all over Europe, in large lakes of N. America, and also in shallow ponds and waters at sea-level; (b) the Sididae, with no such involucre, but with seven genera, and rather more than twice as many species. Of Diaphanosoma modiglianii Richard says that at different points of Lake Toba in Sumatra millions of specimens were obtained, among which he had not met with a single male.

The Anomopoda are arranged in four families, all but one very extensive. (a) Daphniidae. Of the seven genera, the cosmopolitan Daphnia contains about 100 species and varieties, of which Thomas Scott (1899) observes that “scarcely any of the several characters that have at one time or another been selected as affording a means for discriminating between the different forms can be relied on as satisfactory.” Though this may dishearten the systematist, Scourfield (1900) reminds us that “It was in a water-flea that Metschnikoff first saw the leucocytes (or phagocytes) trying to get rid of disease germs by swallowing them, and was so led to his epoch-making discovery of the part played by these minute amoeboid corpuscles in the animal body.” For Scapholeberis mucronata (O.F. Müller), Scourfield has shown how it is adapted for movement back downwards in the water along the underside of the surface film, which to many small crustaceans is a dangerously disabling trap. (b) Bosminidae. To Bosmina (Baird, 1845) Richard added Bosminopsis in 1895. (c) Macrotrichidae. In this family Macrothrix (Baird, 1843) is the earliest genus, among the latest being Grimaldina (Richard, 1892) and Jheringula (Sars, 1900). Dried mud and vegetable débris from S. Paulo in Brazil supplied Sars with representatives of all the three in his Norwegian aquaria, in some of which the little Macrothrix elegans “multiplied to such an extraordinary extent as at last to fill up the water with immense shoals of individuals.” “The appearance of male specimens was always contemporary with the first ephippial formation in the females.” For Streblocerus pygmaeus, grown under the same conditions, Sars observes: “This is perhaps the smallest of the Cladocera known, and is hardly more than visible to the naked eye,” the adult female scarcely exceeding 0.25 mm. Yet in the next family Alonella nana (Baird) disputes the palm and claims to be the smallest of all known Arthropoda. (d) Chydoridae. This family, so commonly called Lynceidae, contains a large number of genera, among which one may usually search in vain, and rightly so, for the genus Lynceus. The key to the riddle is to be found in the Encyclopaedia Britannica for 1816. There, as above explained, Leach began the subdivision of Müller’s too comprehensive genus, the result being that Lynceus belongs to the Phyllopoda, and Chydorus (Leach, 1816) properly gives its name to the present family, in which the doubly convoluted intestine is so remarkable. Of its many genera, Leydigia, Leydigiopsis, Monospilus have been already mentioned. Dadaya macrops (Sars, 1901), from South America and Ceylon, has a very large eye and an eye-spot fully as large, but it is a very small creature, odd in its behaviour, moving by jumps at the very surface of the water. “To the naked eye it looked like a little black atom darting about in a most wonderful manner.”

Fig. 1.—Dolops ranarum (Stuhlmann).

The Gymnomera, with a carapace too small to cover the feet, which are all prehensile, are divided also into two tribes, the Onychopoda, in which the four pairs of feet have a toothed maxillary process at the base, and the Haplopoda, in which there are six pairs of feet, without such a process. To the Polyphemidae, the well-known family of the former tribe, Sars in 1897 added two remarkable genera, Cercopagis, meaning “tail with a sling,” and Apagis, “without a sling,” for seven species from the Sea of Azov. The Haplopoda likewise have but a single family, the Leptodoridae, and this has but the single genus Leptodora (Lilljeborg, 1861). Dr Richard (1895, 1896) gives a Cladoceran bibliography of 601 references.

Branchiura.—This term was introduced by Thorell in 1864 for the Argulidae, a family which had been transferred to the Branchiopoda by Zenker in 1854, though sometimes before and since united with the parasitic Copepoda. Though the animals have an oral siphon, they do not carry ovisacs like the siphonostomous copepods, but glue their eggs in rows to extraneous objects. Their lateral, compound, feebly movable eyes agree with those of the Phyllopoda. The family are described by Claus as “intermittent parasites,” because when gorged they leave their hosts, fishes or frogs, and swim about in freedom for a considerable period. The long-known Argulus (O.F. Müller) has the second maxillae transformed into suckers, but in Dolops (Audouin, 1837) (fig. 1), the name of which supersedes the more familiar Gyropeltis (Heller, 1857), these effect attachment by ending in strong hooks (Bouvier, 1897). A third genus, Chonopeltis (Thiele, 1900), has suckers, but has lost its first antennae, at least in the female.

Ostracoda.—The body, seldom in any way segmented, is wholly encased in a bivalved shell, the caudal part strongly inflexed, and almost always ending in a furca. The limbs, including antennae and mouth organs, never exceed seven definite pairs. The first antennae never have more than eight joints. The young usually pass through several stages of development after leaving the egg, and this commonly after, even long after, the egg has left the maternal shell. Parthenogenesis is frequent.

The four tribes instituted by Sars in 1865 were reduced to two by G.W. Müller in 1894, the Myodocopa, which almost always have a heart, and the Podocopa, which have none.

Myodocopa.—These have the furcal branches broad, lamellar, with at least three pairs of strong spines or ungues. Almost always the shell has a rostral sinus. Müller divides the tribe into three families, Cypridinidae, Halocypridae, and the heartless Polycopidae, which constituted the tribe Cladocopa of Sars. From the first of these Brady and Norman distinguish the Asteropidae (fig. 3), remarkable for seven pairs of long branchial leaves which fold over the hinder extremity of the animal, and the Sarsiellidae, still somewhat obscure, besides adding the Rutidermatidae, knowledge of which is based on skilful maceration of minute and long-dried specimens. The Halocypridae are destitute of compound lateral eyes, and have the sexual orifice unsymmetrically placed.

Podocopa.—In these the furcal branches are linear or rudimentary, the shell is without rostral sinus, and, besides distinguishing characters of the second antennae, they have always a branchial plate well developed on the first maxillae, which is inconstant in the other tribe. There are five families: (a) Cyprididae (? including Cypridopsidae of Brady and Norman). In some of the genera parthenogenetic propagation is carried to such an extent that of the familiar Cypris it is said, “until quite lately males in this genus were unknown; and up to the present time no male has been found in the British Islands” (Brady and Norman, 1896). On the other hand, the ejaculatory duct with its verticillate sac in the male of Cypris and other genera is a feature scarcely less remarkable. (b) Bairdiidae, which have the valves smooth, with the hinge untoothed. (c) Cytheridae (? including Paradoxostomatidae of Brady and Norman), in which the valves are usually sculptured, with toothed hinge. Of this family the members are almost exclusively marine, but Limnicythere is found in fresh water, and Xestoleberis bromeliarum (Fritz Müller) lives in the water that collects among the leaves of Bromelias, plants allied to the pine-apples. (d) Darwinulidae, including the single species Darwinula stevensoni, Brady and Robertson, described as “perhaps the most characteristic Entomostracan of the East Anglian Fen District.” (e) Cytherellidae, which, unlike the Ostracoda in general, have the hinder part of the body segmented, at least ten segments being distinguishable in the female. They have the valves broad at both ends, and were placed by Sars in a separate tribe, called Platycopa.

The range in time of the Ostracoda is so extended that, in G.W. Müller’s opinion, their separation into the families now living may have already taken place in the Cambrian period. Their range in space, including carriage by birds, may be coextensive with the distribution of water, but it is not known what height of temperature or how much chemical adulteration of the water they can sustain, how far they can penetrate underground, nor what are the limits of their activity between the floor and the surface of aquatic expanses, fresh or saline. In individual size they have never been important, and of living forms the largest is one of recent discovery, Crossophorus africanus, a Cypridinid about three-fifths of an inch (15.5 mm.) long; but a length of one or two millimetres is more common, and it may descend to the seventy-fifth of an inch. By multitude they have been, and still are, extremely important.

Fig. 2.—Cythereis ornata (G.W. Müller). One eye-space is shown above on the left.

Fig. 3.—Asterope arthuri. Left valve removed.

M, End of adductor muscle.

OC, Eye.

AI, Second antenna.

MX. 1, First maxilla.

MX. 2, Second maxilla.

P. 1, First foot.

V.O, Vermiform organ.

BR, Seven branchial leaves.

F, Projecting ungues of the furca.

Though the exterior is more uniform than in most groups of Crustacea, the bivalved shell or carapace may be strongly calcified and diversely sculptured (fig. 2), or membranaceous and polished, hairy or smooth, oval or round or bean-shaped, or of some less simple pattern; the valves may fit neatly, or one overlap the other, their hinge may have teeth or be edentulous, and their front part may be excavated for the protrusion of the antennae or have no such “rostral sinus.” By various modifications of their valves and appendages the creatures have become adapted for swimming, creeping, burrowing, or climbing, some of them combining two or more of these activities, for which their structure seems at the first glance little adapted. Considering the imprisonment of the ostracod body within the valves, it is more surprising that the Asteropidae and Cypridinidae should have a pair of compound and sometimes large eyes, in addition to the median organ at the base of the “frontal tentacle,” than that other members of the group should be limited to that median organ of sight, or have no eyes at all. The median eye when present may have or not have a lens, and its three pigment-cups may be close together or wide apart and the middle one rudimentary. As might be expected, in thickened and highly embossed valves thin spaces occur over the visual organ. The frontal organ varies in form and apparently in function, and is sometimes absent. The first antennae, according to the family, may assist in walking, swimming, burrowing, climbing, grasping, and besides they carry sensory setae, and sometimes they have suckers on their setae (see Brady and Norman on Cypridina norvegica). The second antennae are usually the chief motor-organs for swimming, walking and climbing. The mandibles are normally five-jointed, with remnants of an outer branch on the second joint, the biting edge varying from strong development to evanescence, the terminal joints or “palp” giving the organ a leg-like appearance and function, which disappears in suctorial genera such as Paracytherois. The variable first maxillae are seldom pediform, their function being concerned chiefly with nutrition, sensation and respiration. The variability in form and function of the second maxillae is sufficiently shown by the fact that G.W. Müller, our leading authority, adopts the confusing plan of calling them second maxillae in the Cypridinidae (including Asteropidae), maxillipeds in the Halocypridae and Cyprididae, and first legs in the Bairdiidae, Cytheridae, Polycopidae and Cytherellidae, so that in his fine monograph he uses the term first leg in two quite different senses. The first legs, meaning thereby the sixth pair of appendages, are generally pediform and locomotive, but sometimes unjointed, acting as a kind of brushes to cleanse the furca, while in the Polycopidae they are entirely wanting. The second legs are sometimes wanting, sometimes pediform and locomotive, sometimes strangely metamorphosed into the “vermiform organ,” generally long, many-jointed, and distally armed with retroverted spines, its function being that of an extremely mobile cleansing foot, which can insert itself among the eggs in the brood-space, between the branchial leaves of Asterope (fig. 3), and even range over the external surface of the valves. The “brush-formed” organs of the Podocopa are medially placed, and, in spite of their sometimes forward situation, Müller believes among other possibilities that they and the penis in the Cypridinidae may be alike remnants of a third pair of legs, not homologous with the penis of other Ostracoda (Podocopa included). The furca is, as a rule, a powerful motor-organ, and has its laminae edged with strong teeth (ungues) or setae or both. The young, though born with valves, have at first a nauplian body, and pass through various stages to maturity.

Brady and Norman, in their Monograph of the Ostracoda of the North Atlantic and North-Western Europe (1889), give a bibliography of 125 titles, and in the second part (1896) they give 55 more. The lists are not meant to be exhaustive, any more than G.W. Müller’s literature list of 125 titles in 1894. They do not refer to Latreille, 1802, with whom the term Ostracoda originates.

Copepoda.—The body is not encased in a bivalved shell; its articulated segments are at most eleven, those behind the genital segment being without trace of limbs, but the last almost always carrying a furca. Sexes separate, fertilization by spermatophores. Ova in single or double or rarely several packets, attached as ovisacs or egg-strings to the genital openings, or enclosed in a dorsal marsupium, or deposited singly or occasionally in bundles. The youngest larvae are typical nauplii. The next, the copepodid or cyclopid, stage is characterized by a cylindrical segmented body, with fore- and hind-body distinct, and by having at most six cephalic limbs and two pairs of swimming feet.

The order thus defined (see Giesbrecht and Schmeil, Das Tierreich, 1898), with far over a thousand species (Hansen, 1900), embraces forms of extreme diversity, although, when species are known in all their phases and both sexes, they constantly tend to prove that there are no sharply dividing lines between the free-living, the semi-parasitic, and those which in adult life are wholly parasitic and then sometimes grotesquely unlike the normal standard. Giesbrecht and Hansen have shown that the mouth-organs consist of mandibles, first and second maxillae and maxillipeds; and Claus himself relinquished his long-maintained hypothesis that the last two pairs were the separated exopods and endopods of a single pair of appendages. Thorell’s classification (1859) of Gnathostoma, Poecilostoma, Siphonostoma, based on the mouth-organs, was long followed, though almost at the outset shown by Claus to depend on the erroneous supposition that the Poecilostoma were devoid of mandibles. Brady added a new section, Choniostomata, in 1894, and another, Leptostomata, in 1900, each for a single species. Canu in 1892 proposed two groups, Monoporodelphya and Diporodelphya, the copulatory openings of the female being paired in the latter, unpaired in the former. It may be questioned whether this distinction, however important in itself, would lead to a satisfactory grouping of families. In the same year Giesbrecht proposed his division of the order into Gymnoplea and Podoplea.

In appearance an ordinary Copepod is divided into fore- and hind-body, of its eleven segments the composite first being the head, the next five constituting the thorax, and the last five the abdomen. The coalescence of segments, though frequent, does not after a little experience materially confuse the counting. But there is this peculiarity, that the middle segment is sometimes continuous with the broader fore-body, sometimes with the narrower hind-body. In the former case the hind-body, consisting only of the abdomen, forms a pleon or tail-part devoid of feet, and the species so constructed are Gymnoplea, those of the naked or footless pleon. In the latter case the middle segment almost always carries with it to the hind-body a pair of rudimentary limbs, whence the term Podoplea, meaning species that have a pleon with feet. It may be objected that hereby the term pleon is used in two different senses, first applying to the abdomen alone and then to the abdomen plus the last thoracic segment. Even this verbal flaw would be obviated if Giesbrecht could prove his tentative hypothesis, that the Gymnoplea may have lost a pre-genital segment of the abdomen, and the Podoplea may have lost the last segment of the thorax. The classification is worked out as follows:—

1. Gymnoplea.—First segment of hind-body footless, bearing the orifices of the genital organs (in the male unsymmetrically placed); last foot of the fore-body in the male a copulatory organ; neither, or only one, of the first pair of antennae in the male geniculating; cephalic limbs abundantly articulated and provided with many plumose setae; heart generally present. Animals usually free-living, pelagic (Giesbrecht and Schmeil).

This group, with 65 genera and four or five hundred species, is divided by Giesbrecht into tribes: (a) Amphaskandria. In this tribe the males have both antennae of the first pair as sensory organs. There is but one family, the Calanidae, but this is a very large one, with 26 genera and more than 100 species. Among them is the cosmopolitan Calanus finmarchicus, the earliest described (by Bishop Gunner in 1770) of all the marine free-swimming Copepoda. Among them also is the peacock Calanid, Calocalanus pavo (Dana), with its highly ornamented antennae and gorgeous tail, the most beautiful species of the whole order (fig. 4). (b) Heterarthrandria. Here the males have one or the other of the first pair of antennae modified into a grasping organ for holding the female. There are four families, the Diaptomidae with 27 genera, the Pontellidae with 10, the Pseudocyclopidae and Candaciidae each with one genus. The first of these families is often called Centropagidae, but, as Sars has pointed out, Diaptomus (Westwood, 1836) is the oldest genus in it. Of 177 species valid in the family Giesbrecht and Schmeil assign 67 to Diaptomus. In regard to one of its species Dr Brady says: “In one instance, at least (Talkin Tarn, Cumberland) I have seen the net come up from a depth of 6 or 8 ft. below the surface with a dense mass consisting almost entirely of D. gracilis.” The length of this net-filling species is about a twentieth of an inch.

2. Podoplea.—The first segment of the hind-body almost always with rudimentary pair of feet; orifices of the genital organs (symmetrically placed in both sexes) in the following segment; neither the last foot of the fore-body nor the rudimentary feet just mentioned acting as a copulatory organ in the male; both or neither of the first pair of antennae in the male geniculating; cephalic limbs less abundantly articulated and with fewer plumose setae or none, but with hooks and clasping setae. Heart almost always wanting. Free-living (rarely pelagic) or parasitic (Giesbrecht and Schmeil).

This group is also divided by Giesbrecht into two tribes, Ampharthrandria and Isokerandria. In 1892 he distinguished the former as those in which the first antennae of the male have both members modified for holding the female, and the genital openings of the female have a ventral position, sometimes in close proximity, sometimes strongly lateral; the latter as those in which the first antennae of the male are similar to those of the female, the function of holding her being transferred to the male maxillipeds, while the genital openings of the female are dorsal, though at times strongly lateral. In 1899, with a view to the many modifications exhibited by parasitic and semi-parasitic species, the definitions, stripped of a too hampering precision, took a different form: (a) Ampharthrandria. “Swimming Podoplea with geniculating first antennae in the male sex, and descendants of such; first antennae in female and male almost always differently articulated.” The families occupy fresh water as well as the sea. Naturally “descendants” which have lost the characteristic feature of the definition cannot be recognized without some further assistance than the definition supplies. Of the families comprised, the Mormonillidae consist only of Mormonilla (Giesbrecht), and are not mentioned by Giesbrecht in 1899 in the grouping of this section. The Thaumatoessidae include Thaumatoessa (Kröyer), established earlier than its synonym Thaumaleus (Kröyer), or than Monstrilla (Dana, 1849). The species are imperfectly known. The defect of mouth-organs probably does not apply to the period of youth, which some of them spend parasitically in the body-cavity of worms (Giard, 1896). To the Cyclopidae six genera are allotted by Giesbrecht in 1900. Cyclops (O.F. Müller, 1776), though greatly restricted since Müller’s time, still has several scores of species abundantly peopling inland waters of every kind and situation, without one that can be relied on as exclusively marine like the species of Oithona (Baird). The Misophriidae are now limited to Misophria (Boeck). The presence of a heart in this genus helps to make it a link between the Podoplea and Gymnoplea, though in various other respects it approaches the next family. The Harpacticidae owe their name to the genus Arpacticus (Milne-Edwards, 1840). Brady in 1880 assigns to this family 33 genera and 81 species. Canu (1892) distinguishes eight sub-families, Longipediinae, Peltidiinae, Tachidiinae, Amymoninae, Harpacticinae, Idyinae, Canthocamptinae (for which Canthocampinae should be read), and Nannopinae, adding Stenheliinae (Brady) without distinctive characters for it. The Ascidicolidae have variable characters, showing a gradual adaptation to parasitic life in Tunicates. Giesbrecht (1900) considers Canu quite right in grouping together in this single family those parasites of ascidians, simple and compound, which had been previously distributed among families with the more or less significant names Notodelphyidae, Doropygidae, Buproridae, Schizoproctidae, Kossmechtridae, Enterocolidae, Enteropsidae. Further, he includes in it his own Enterognathus comatulae, not from an ascidian, but from the intestine of the beautiful starfish Antedon rosaceus. The Asterocheridae, which have a good swimming capacity, except in the case of Cancerilla tubulata (Dalyell), lead a semi-parasitic life on echinoderms, sponges, &c., imbibing their food. Giesbrecht, displacing the older name Ascomyzontidae, assigns to this family 21 genera in five subfamilies, and suggests that the long-known but still puzzling Nicothoë from the gills of the lobster might be placed in an additional subfamily, or be made the representative of a closely related family. The Dichelestiidae, on account of their sometimes many-jointed first antennae, are referred also to this tribe by Giesbrecht. (b) Isokerandria. “Swimming Podoplea without genicullating first antennae in the male sex, and descendants of such. First antennae of male and female almost always articulated alike.” To this tribe Giesbrecht assigns the families Clausidiidae, Corycaeidae, Oncaeidae, Lichomolgidae, Ergasilidae, Bomolochidae, Clausiidae, Nereicolidae. Here also must for the time be placed the Caligidae, Philichthyidae (Philichthydae of Vogt, Carus, Claus), Lernaeidae, Chondracanthidae, Sphaeronellidae (better known as Choniostomatidae, from H.J. Hansen’s remarkable study of the group), Lernaeopodidae, Herpyllobiidae, Entomolepidae. For the distinguishing marks of all these, the number of their genera and species, their habits and transformations and dwellings, the reader must be referred to the writings of specialists. Sars (1901) proposed seven suborders—Calanoida, Harpacticoida, Cyclopoida, Notodelphoida, Monstrilloida, Caligoida, Lernaeoida.

Authorities.—(The earlier memoirs of importance are cited in Giesbrecht’s Monograph of Naples, 1892); Canu, “Hersiliidae,” Bull. Sci. France belgique, ser. 3, vol. i. p. 402 (1888); and Les Copépodes du Boulonnais (1892); Cuenot, Rev. biol. Nord France, vol. v. (1892); Giesbrecht, “Pelag. Copepoden.” F. u. fl. des Golfes von Neapel (Mon. 19, 1892); Hansen, Entomol. Med. vol. iii. pt. 5 (1892); I.C. Thompson, “Copepoda of Liverpool Bay,” Trans. Liv. Biol. Soc. vol. vii. (1893); Schmeil, “Deutschlands Copepoden,” Bibliotheca zoologica (1892-1897); Brady, Journ. R. Micr. Soc. p. 168 (1894); T. Scott, “Entomostraca from the Gulf of Guinea,” Trans. Linn. Soc. London, vol. vi. pt. 1 (1894); Giesbrecht, Mitteil. Zool. Stat. Neapel, vol. xi. p. 631; vol. xii. p. 217 (1895); T. and A. Scott, Trans. Linn. Soc. London, ser. 2, vol. vi. p. 419 (1896); Hansen “Choniostomatidae” (1897); Sars, Proc. Mus. Zool. St Petersburg, “Caspian Entomostraca” (1897); Giesbrecht and Schmeil, “Copepoda gymnoplea,” Das Tierreich (1898); Giesbrecht, “Asterocheriden,” F. u. fl. Neapel (Mon. 25, 1899); Bassett-Smith, “Copepoda on Fishes,” Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 438 (1899); Brady, Trans. Zool. Soc. London, vol. xv. pt. 2, p. 31 (1899); Sars, Arch. Naturv. vol. xxi. No. 2 (1899); Giesbrecht, Mitteil. Zool. Stat. Neapel, vol. xiv. p. 39 (1900); Scott, “Fish Parasites,” Scottish Fishery Board, 18th Ann. Rep. p. 144 (1900); Stebbing, Willey’s Zool. Results, pt. 5, p. 664 (1900); Embleton, Journ. Linn. Soc. London, vol. xxviii. p. 211 (1901); Sars, Crustacea of Norway, vol. iv. (1901).

(T. R. R. S.)

ENTRAGUES, CATHERINE HENRIETTE DE BALZAC D’ (1579-1633), marquise de Verneuil, mistress of Henry IV., king of France, was the daughter of Charles Balzac d’Entragues and of Marie Touchet, mistress of Charles IX. Ambitious and intriguing, she succeeded in inducing Henry IV. to promise to marry her after the death of Gabrielle d’Estrées, a promise which led to bitter scenes at court when shortly afterwards Henry married Marie de’ Medici. She carried her spite so far as to be deeply compromised in the conspiracy of Marshal Biron against the king in 1606, but escaped with a slight punishment, and in 1608 Henry actually took her back into favour again. She seems then to have been involved in the Spanish intrigues which preceded the death of the king in 1610.

See H. de la Ferrière, Henri IV. le roi, l’amoureux (Paris, 1890).

ENTRECASTEAUX, JOSEPH-ANTOINE BRUNI D’ (1739-1793), French navigator, was born at Aix in 1739. At the age of fifteen he entered the navy. In the war of 1778 he commanded a frigate of thirty-two guns, and by his clever seamanship was successful in convoying a fleet of merchant vessels from Marseilles to the Levant, although they were attacked by two pirate vessels, each of which was larger than his own ship. In 1785 he was appointed to the command of the French fleet in the East Indies, and two years later he was named governor of the Mauritius and the Isle of Bourbon. While in command of the East India fleet he made a voyage to China, an achievement which, in 1791, led the French government to select him to command an expedition which it was sending out to seek some tidings of the unfortunate La Pérouse, of whom nothing had been heard since February 1788. Rear-admiral d’Entrecasteaux’s expedition comprised the “Recherche” and “L’Esperance,” with Captain Huon de Kermadec as second in command. No tidings were obtained of the missing navigator, but in the course of his search Entrecasteaux made important geographical discoveries. He traced the outlines of the eastern coast of New Caledonia, made extensive surveys round the Tasmanian coast, and touched at several places on the south coast of New Holland. The two ships entered Storm Bay, Tasmania, on the 21st of April 1792, and remained there until the 16th of May, surveying and naming the d’Entrecasteaux Channel, the entrances to the Huon and Derwent rivers, Bruni Island, Recherche Bay, Port Esperance and various other localities. Excepting the name of the river Derwent (originally called Riviere du Nord by its French discoverers), these foregoing appellations have been retained. Leaving Tasmania the expedition sailed northward for the East Indies, and while coasting near the island of Java, Entrecasteaux was attacked by scurvy and died on the 20th of July 1793.

ENTRE MINHO E DOURO (popularly called Minho), a former province of Northern Portugal; bounded on the N. by Galicia in Spain, E. by Traz-os-Montes, S. by Beira and W. by the Atlantic Ocean. Pop. (1900) 1,170,361; area 2790 sq. m. Though no longer officially recognized, the old provincial name remains in common use. The coast-line of Entre Minho e Douro is level and unbroken except by the estuaries of the main rivers; inland, the elevation gradually increases towards the north and east, where several mountain ranges mark the frontier. Of these, the most important are the Serra da Peneda (4728 ft.), between the rivers Minho and Limia; the Serra do Gerez (4357 ft.), on the Galician border; the Serra da Cabreira (4021 ft.), immediately to the south; and the Serra de Marão (4642 ft.), in the extreme south-east. As its name implies, the province is bounded by two great rivers, the Douro (q.v.) on the south, and the Minho (Spanish Miño) on the north; but a small tract of land south of the Douro estuary is included also within the provincial boundary. There are three other large rivers which, like the Minho, flow west-south-west into the Atlantic. The Limia or Antela (Spanish Linia) rises in Galicia, and reaches the sea at Vianna do Castello; the Cavado springs from the southern foot hills of La Raya Seca, on the northern frontier of Traz-os-Montes, and forms, at its mouth, the small harbour of Espozende; and the Ave descends from its sources in the Serra da Cabreira to Villa do Conde, where it enters the Atlantic. A large right-hand tributary of the Douro, the Tamega, rises in Galicia, and skirts the western slopes of the Serra de Marão.

The climate is mild, except among the mountains, and such plants as heliotrope, fuchsias, palms, and aloes thrive in the open throughout the year. Wheat and maize are grown on the plains, and other important products are wine, fruit, olives and chestnuts. Fish abound along the coast and in the main rivers; timber is obtained from the mountain forests, and dairy-farming and the breeding of pigs and cattle are carried on in all parts. As the province is occupied by a hardy and industrious peasantry, and the density of population (419.5 per sq. m.) is more than twice that of any other province on the Portuguese mainland, the soil is very closely cultivated. The methods and implements of the farmers are, however, most primitive, and at the beginning of the 20th century it was not unusual to see a mule, or even a woman, harnessed with the team of oxen to an old-fashioned wooden plough. Small quantities of coal, iron, antimony, lead and gold are mined; granite and slate are quarried; and there are mineral springs at Monção (pop. 2283) on the Minho. The Oporto-Corunna railway traverses the western districts and crosses the Spanish frontier at Tuy; its branch lines give access to Braga, Guimarães and Povoa de Varzim; and the Oporto-Salamanca railway passes up the Douro valley. The greater part of the north and west can only be reached by road, and even the chief highways are ill-kept. In these regions the principal means of transport is the springless wooden cart, drawn by one or more of the tawny and under-sized but powerful oxen, with immense horns and elaborately carved yoke, which are characteristic of northern Portugal. For administrative purposes the province is divided into three districts: Vianna do Castello in the north, Braga in the centre, Oporto in the south. The chief towns are separately described; they include Oporto (167,955), one of the greatest wine-producing cities in the world; Braga (24,202), the seat of an archbishop who is primate of Portugal; the seaports of Povoa de Varzim (12,623) and Vianna do Castello (9990); and Guimarães (9104), a place of considerable historical interest.

ENTREPÔT (a French word, from the Lat. interpositum, that which is placed between), a storehouse or magazine for the temporary storage of goods, provisions, &c.; also a place where goods, which are not allowed to pass into a country duty free, are stored under the superintendence of the custom house authorities till they are re-exported. In a looser sense, any town which has a considerable distributive trade is called an entrepôt. The word is also used attributively to indicate the kind of trade carried on in such towns.

ENTRE RIOS (Span. “between rivers”), a province of the eastern Argentine Republic, forming the southern part of a region sometimes described as the Argentine Mesopotamia, bounded N. by Corrientes, E. by Uruguay with the Uruguay river as the boundary line, S. by Buenos Aires and W. by Santa Fé, the Paraná river forming the boundary line with these two provinces. Pop. (1895) 292,019; (1905, est.) 376,600. The province has an area of 28,784 sq. m., consisting for the most part of an undulating, well-watered and partly-wooded plain, terminating in a low, swampy district of limited extent in the angle between the two great rivers. The great forest of Monteil occupies an extensive region in the N., estimated at nearly one-fifth the area of the province. Its soil is exceptionally fertile and its climate is mild and healthy. The province is sometimes called the “garden of Argentina,” which would probably be sufficiently correct had its population devoted as much energy to agriculture as they have to political conflict and civil war. Its principal industry is that of stock-raising, exporting live cattle, horses, hides, jerked beef, tinned and salted meats, beef extract, mutton and wool. Its agricultural products are also important, including wheat, Indian corn, barley and fruits. Lime, gypsum and firewood are also profitable items in its export trade. The Paraná and Uruguay rivers provide exceptional facilities for the shipment of produce and the Entre Rios railways, consisting of a trunk line running E. and W. across the province from Paraná to Concepción del Uruguay and several tributary branches, afford ample transportation facilities to the ports. Another railway line follows the Uruguay from Concordia northward into Corrientes. Entre Rios has been one of the most turbulent of the Argentine provinces, and has suffered severely from political disorder and civil war. Comparative quiet reigned from 1842 to 1870 under the autocratic rule of Gen. J.J. Urquiza. After his assassination in 1870 these partizan conflicts were renewed for two or three years, and then the province settled down to a life of comparative peace, followed by an extraordinary development in her pastoral and agricultural industries. Among these is the slaughtering and packing of beef, the exportation of which has reached large proportions. The capital is Paraná, though the seat of government was originally located at Concepción del Uruguay, and was again transferred to that town during Urquiza’s domination. Concepción del Uruguay, or Concepción (founded 1778), is a flourishing town and port on the Uruguay, connected by railway with an extensive producing region which gives it an important export trade, and is the seat of a national college and normal school. Its population was estimated at 9000 in 1905. Other large towns are Gualeguay and Gualeguaychú.

ENVOY (Fr. envoyé, “sent”), a diplomatic agent of the second rank. The word envoyé comes first into general use in this connexion in the 17th century, as a translation of the Lat. ablegatus or missus (see Diplomacy). Hence the word envoy is commonly used of any one sent on a mission of any sort.

ENZIO (c. 1220-1272), king of Sardinia, was a natural son of the emperor Frederick II. His mother was probably a German, and his name, Enzio, is a diminutive form of the German Heinrich. His father had a great affection for him, and he was probably present at the battle of Cortenuova in 1237. In 1238 he was married, in defiance of the wishes of Pope Gregory IX., to Adelasia, widow of Ubaldo Visconti and heiress of Torres and Gallura in Sardinia. Enzio took at once the title of king of Torres and Gallura, and in 1243 that of king of Sardinia, but he only spent a few months in the island, and his sovereignty existed in name alone. In July 1239 he was appointed imperial vicegerent in Italy, and sharing in his father’s excommunication in the same year, took a prominent part in the war which broke out between the emperor and the pope. He commenced his campaign by subduing the march of Ancona, and in May 1241 was in command of the forces which defeated the Genoese fleet at Meloria, where he seized a large amount of booty and captured a number of ecclesiastics who were proceeding to a council summoned by Gregory to Rome. Later he fought in Lombardy. In 1248 he assisted Frederick in his vain attempt to take Parma, but was wounded and taken prisoner by the Bolognese at Fossalta on the 26th of May 1249. His captivity was a severe blow to the Hohenstaufen cause in Italy, and was soon followed by the death of the emperor. He seems to have been well treated by the people of Bologna, where he remained a captive until his death on the 14th of March 1272. He was apparently granted a magnificent funeral, and was buried in the church of St Dominic at Bologna. During his imprisonment Enzio is said to have been loved by Lucia da Viadagola, a well-born lady of Bologna, who shared his captivity and attempted to procure his release. Some doubt has, however, been cast upon this story, and the same remark applies to another which tells how two friends had almost succeeded in freeing him from prison concealed in a wine-cask, when he was recognized by a lock of his golden hair. His marriage with Adelasia had been declared void by the pope in 1243, and he left one legitimate, and probably two illegitimate daughters. Enzio forms the subject of a drama by E.B.S. Raupach and of an opera by A.F.B. Dulk.

See F.W. Grossman, König Enzio (Göttingen, 1883); and H. Blasius, König Enzio (Breslau, 1884).

ENZYME (Gr. ἔνζυμος, leavened, from ἐν, in, and ζύμη, leaven), a term, first suggested by Kühne, for an unorganized ferment (see Fermentation), a group of substances, in the constitution of plants and animals, which decompose certain carbon compounds occurring in association with them. See also Plants: Physiology; Nutrition, &c.

EOCENE (Gr. ἠώς, dawn, καινός, recent), in geology, the name suggested by Sir C. Lyell in 1833 for the lower subdivision of the rocks of the Tertiary Era. The term was intended to convey the idea that this was the period which saw the dawn of the recent or existing forms of life, because it was estimated that among the fossils of this period only 3½% of the species are still living. Since Lyell’s time much has been learned about the fauna and flora of the period, and many palaeontologists doubt if any of the Eocene species are still extant, unless it be some of the lowest forms of life. Nevertheless the name is a convenient one and is in general use. The Eocene as originally defined was not long left intact, for E. Beyrich in 1854 proposed the term “Oligocene” for the upper portion, and later, in 1874, K. Schimper suggested “Paleocene” as a separate appellation for the lower portion. The Oligocene division has been generally accepted as a distinct period, but “Paleocene” is not so widely used.

In north-western Europe the close of the Cretaceous period was marked by an extensive emergence of the land, accompanied, in many places, by considerable erosion of the Mesozoic rocks; a prolonged interval elapsed before a relative depression of the land set in and the first Eocene deposits were formed. The early Eocene formations of the London-Paris-Belgian basin were of fresh-water and brackish origin; towards the middle of the period they had become marine, while later they reverted to the original type. In southern and eastern Europe changes of sea-level were less pronounced in character; here the late Cretaceous seas were followed without much modification by those of the Eocene period, so rich in foraminiferal life. In many other regions, the great gap which separates the Tertiary from the Mesozoic rocks in the neighbourhood of London and Paris does not exist, and the boundary line is difficult to draw. Eocene strata succeed Cretaceous rocks without serious unconformity in the Libyan area, parts of Denmark, S.E. Alps, India, New Zealand and central N. America. The unconformity is marked in England, parts of Egypt, on the Atlantic coastal plain and in the eastern gulf region of N. America, as well as in the marine Eocene of western Oregon. The clastic Flysch formation of the Carpathians and northern Alps appears to be of Eocene age in the upper and Cretaceous in the lower part. The Eocene sea covered at various times a strip of the Atlantic coast from New Jersey southward and sent a great tongue or bay up the Mississippi valley; similar epicontinental seas spread over parts of the Pacific border, but the plains of the interior with the mountains on the west were meanwhile being filled with terrestrial and lacustrine deposits which attained an enormous development. This great extension of non-marine formations in the Eocene of different countries has introduced difficulties in the way of exact correlation; it is safer, therefore, in the present state of knowledge, to make no attempt to find in the Eocene strata of America and India, &c., the precise equivalent of subdivisions that have been determined with more or less exactitude in the London-Paris-Belgian area.

It is possible that in Eocene times there existed a greater continuity of the northern land masses than obtains to-day. Europe at that time was probably united with N. America through Iceland and Greenland; while on the other side, America may have joined Asia by the way of Alaska. On the other hand, the great central, mediterranean sea which stretched across the Eurasian continents sent an arm northward somewhere just east of the Ural mountains, and thus divided the northern land mass in that region. S. America, Australia and perhaps Africa may have been connected more or less directly with the Antarctic continent.

Associated, no doubt, with the crustal movements which closed the Cretaceous and inaugurated the Eocene period, there were local and intermittent manifestations of volcanic activity throughout the period. Diabases, gabbros, serpentines, soda-potash granites, &c., are found in the Eocene of the central and northern Apennines. Tuffs occur in the Veronese and Vicentin Alps—Ronca and Spelecco schists. Tuffs, basalts and other igneous rocks appear also in Montana, Wyoming, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Colorado; also in Central America, the Antillean region and S. America.

It has been very generally assumed by geologists, mainly upon the evidence of plant remains, that the Eocene period opened with a temperate climate in northern latitudes; later, as indicated by the London Clay, Alum Bay and Bournemouth beds, &c., the temperature appears to have been at least subtropical. But it should be observed that the frequent admixture of temperate forms with what are now tropical species makes it difficult to speak with certainty as to the degree of warmth experienced. The occurrence of lignites in the Eocene of the Paris basin, Tirol and N. America is worthy of consideration in this connexion. On the other hand, the coarse boulder beds in the lower Flysch have been regarded as evidence of local glaciation; this would not be inconsistent with a period of widespread geniality of climate, as is indicated by the large size of the nummulites and the dispersion of the marine Mollusca, but the evidence for glaciation is not yet conclusive.

Eocene Stratigraphy.—In Britain, with the exception of the Bovey beds (q.v.) and the leaf-bearing beds of Antrim and Mull, Eocene rocks are confined to the south-eastern portion of England. They lie in the two well-marked synclinal basins of London and Hampshire which are conterminous in the western area (Hampshire, Berkshire), but are separated towards the east by the denuded anticline of the Weald. The strata in these two basins have been grouped in the following manner:—

London Basin. Hampshire Basin.

Upper Upper Bagshot Sands. Headon Hill and Barton Sands.

Middle

Middle Bagshot Beds and part of Lower Bagshot Beds.

Bracklesham Beds and leaf beds of Bournemouth and Alum Bay.

Lower

Part of Lower Bagshot Beds, London Clay, Blackheath and Oldhaven Beds, Woolwich and Reading Beds, Thanet Sands.

London Clay and the equivalent Bognor Beds, Woolwich and Reading Beds.

The Thanet sands have not been recognized in the Hampshire basin; they are usually pale yellow and greenish sands with streaks of clay and at the base; resting on an evenly denuded surface of chalk is a very constant layer of green-coated, well-rounded chalk flint pebbles. It is a marine formation, but fossils are scarce except in E. Kent, where it attains its most complete development. The Woolwich and Reading beds (see Reading Beds) contain both marine and estuarine fossils. In western Kent, between the Woolwich beds and the London Clay are the Oldhaven beds or Blackheath pebbles, 20 to 40 ft., made up almost entirely of well-rounded flint pebbles set in sand; the fossils are marine and estuarine. The London Clay, 500 ft. thick, is a marine deposit consisting of blue or brown clay with sandy layers and septarian nodules; its equivalent in the Hampshire area is sometimes called the Bognor Clay, well exposed on the coast of Sussex. The Bagshot, Bracklesham and Barton beds will be found briefly described under those heads.

Crossing the English Channel, we find in northern France and Belgium a series of deposits identified in their general characters with those of England. The anticlinal ridge of the English Weald is prolonged south-eastwards on to the continent, and separates the Belgian from the French Eocene areas much as it separates the areas of London and Hampshire; and it is clear that at the time of deposition all four regions were intimately related and subject to similar variations of marine and estuarine conditions. With a series of strata so variable from point to point it is natural that many purely local phases should have received distinctive names; in the Upper Eocene of the Paris basin the more important formations are the highly fossiliferous marine sands known as the “Sands of Beauchamp” and the local fresh-water limestone, the “Calcaire de St Ouen.” The Middle Eocene is represented by the well-known “Calcaire grossier,” about 90 ft. thick. The beds in this series vary a good deal lithologically, some being sandy, others marly or glauconitic; fossils are abundant. The Upper Calcaire grossier or “Caillasses” is a fresh-water formation; the middle division is marine; while the lower one is partly marine, partly of fresh-water origin. The numerous quarries and mines for building stone in the neighbourhood of Paris have made it possible to acquire a very precise knowledge of this division, and many of the beds have received trade names, such as “Rochette,” “Roche,” “Banc franc,” “Banc vert,” “Cliquart,” “Saint Nom;” the two last named are dolomitic. Below these limestones are the nummulitic sands of Cuise and Soissons. The Lower Eocene contains the lignitic plastic clay (argile plastique) of Soissons and elsewhere; the limestones of Rilly and Sézanne and the greenish glauconitic sands of Bracheux. The relative position of the above formations with respect to those of Belgium and England will be seen from the table of Eocene strata. The Eocene deposits of southern Europe differ in a marked manner from those of the Anglo-Parisian basin. The most important feature is the great development of nummulitic limestone with thin marls and nummulitic sandstones. The sea in which the nummulitic limestones were formed occupied the site of an enlarged Mediterranean communicating with similar waters right round the world, for these rocks are found not only in southern Europe, including all the Alpine tracts, Greece and Turkey and southern Russia, but they are well developed in northern Africa, Asia Minor, Palestine, and they may be followed through Persia, Baluchistan, India, into China, Tibet, Japan, Sumatra, Borneo and the Philippines. The nummulitic limestones are frequently hard and crystalline, especially where they have been subjected to elevation and compression as in the Alpine region, 10,000 ft. above the sea, or from 16,000, to 20,000 ft., in the central Asian plateau. Besides being a widespread formation the nummulitic limestone is locally several thousand feet thick.

While the foraminiferal limestones were being formed over most of southern Europe, a series of clastic beds were in course of formation in the Carpathians and the northern Alpine region, viz. the Flysch and the Vienna sandstone. Some portions of this Alpine Eocene are coarsely conglomeratic, and in places there are boulders of non-local rocks of enormous dimensions included in the argillaceous or sandy matrix. The occurrence of these large boulders together with the scarceness of fossils has suggested a glacial origin for the formation; but the evidence hitherto collected is not conclusive. C.W. von Gümbel has classified the Eocene of the northern Alps (Bavaria, &c.) as follows:—

Upper Eocene

Flysch and Vienna sandstone, with younger nummulitic beds and Häring group.

Middle Eocene

Kressenberg Beds, with older nummulitic beds.

Lower Eocene

Burberg Beds, Greensands with small nummulites.

The Häring group of northern Tirol contains lignite beds of some importance. In the southern and S.E. Alps the following divisions are recognized.

Upper Eocene

Macigno or Tassello—Vienna Sandstone, conglomerates, marls and shales.

Middle Eocene

Nummulitic limestones, three subdivisions.

Lower Eocene

Liburnian stage (or Proteocene), foraminiferal limestones with fresh-water intercalations at the top and bottom, the Cosina beds, fresh-water in the middle of the series.

In the central and northern Apennines the Eocene strata have been subdivided by Prof. F. Sacco into an upper Bartonian, a middle Parisian and a lower Suessonian series. In the middle member are the representatives of the Flysch and the Macigno. These Eocene strata are upwards of 5500 ft. thick. In northern Africa the nummulitic limestones and sandstones are widely spread; the lower portions comprise the Libyan group and the shales of Esneh on the Nile (Flandrien), the Alveolina beds of Sokotra and others; the Mokattam stage of Egypt is a representative of the later Eocene. Much of the N. African Eocene contains phosphatic beds. In India strata of Eocene age are extensively developed; in Sind the marine Ranikot beds, 1500 to 2000 ft., consisting of clays with gypsum and lignite, shales and sandstones; these beds have, side by side with Eocene nummulites, a few fossils of Cretaceous affinities. Above the Ranikot beds are the massive nummulitic limestones and sandstones of the Kirthar group; these are succeeded by the nummulitic limestones and shales at the base of the Nari group. In the southern Himalayan region the nummulitic phase of Eocene deposit is well developed, but there are difficulties in fixing the line of demarcation between this and the younger formations. The lower part of the Sirmur series of the Simla district may belong to this period; it is subdivided into the Kasauli group and the Dagshai group with the Subáthu group at the base. Beneath the thick nummulitic Eocene limestone of the Salt Range are shales and marls with a few coal seams. The marine Eocene rocks of N. America are most extensively developed round the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, whence they spread into the valley of the Mississippi and, as a comparatively narrow strip, along the Atlantic coastal plain to New Jersey.

The series in Alabama, which may be taken as typical of the Gulf coast Eocene, is as follows:—

Upper Jacksonian White limestone of Alabama (and Vicksburg?).

Middle Claibornian Claiborne series,
Buhrstone series.

Lower Chickasawan Sands and lignites.
Midwayan or Clayton formation, limestones.

The above succession is not fully represented in the Atlantic coast states.

On the Pacific coast marine formations are found in California and Oregon; such are the Tejon series with lignite and oil; the Escondido series of S. California (7000 ft.), part of the Pascadero series of the Santa Cruz Mountains; the Pulaski, Tyee, Arago and Coaledo beds—with coals—in Oregon. In the Puget formation of Washington we have a great series of sediments, largely of brackish water origin, and in parts coal-bearing. The total thickness of this formation has been estimated at 20,000 ft. (it may prove to be less than this), but it is probable that only the lower portion is of Eocene age. The most interesting of the N. American Eocene deposits are those of the Rocky Mountains and the adjacent western plains, in Wyoming, Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, &c.; they are of terrestrial, lacustrine or aeolian origin, and on this account and because they were not strictly synchronous, there is considerable difficulty in placing them in their true position in the time-scale. The main divisions or groups are generally recognized as follows:—

Mammalian
Zonal Forms.

Upper 1 Uinta Group, 800 ft. (? = Jacksonian) Diplacodon.
Telmatotherium.

Middle 2 Bridger Group, 2000 ft. (? = Claibornian) Uintatherium.

Lower 3 Wind River Group, 800 ft. Bathyopsis.

4 Wasatch Group, 2000 ft. (? = Chickasawan) Coryphodon.

Basal 5 Torrejon Group, 300 ft. Pantolambda.

6 Puerco Group, 500 to 1000 ft. Polymastodon.

1 South of the Uinta Mts. in Utah.
2 Fort Bridger Basin.
3 Wind river in Wyoming. 4 Wasatch Mts. in Utah.
5 Torrejon in New Mexico.
6 Puerco river, New Mexico.

The Fort Union beds of Canada and parts of Montana and N. Dakota are probably the oldest Eocene strata of the Western Interior; they are some 2000 ft. thick and possibly are equivalent to the Midwayan group. But in these beds, as in those known as Arapahoe, Livingston, Denver, Ohio and Ruby, which are now often classed as belonging to the upper Laramie formation, it is safer to regard them as a transitional series between the Mesozoic and Tertiary systems. There is, however, a marked unconformity between the Eocene Telluride or San Miguel and Poison Canyon formations of Colorado and the underlying Laramie rocks.

Many local aspects of Eocene rocks have received special names, but too little is known about them to enable them to be correctly placed in the Eocene series. Such are the Clarno formation (late Eocene) of the John Day basin, Oregon, the Pinyon conglomerate of Yellowstone Park, the Sphinx conglomerate of Montana, the Whitetail conglomerate of Arizona, the Manti shales of Utah, the Mojave formation of S. California and the Amyzon formation of Nevada.

Of the Eocene of other countries little is known in detail. Strata of this age occur in Central and S. America (Patagonia-Megellanian series—Brazil, Chile, Argentina), in S. Australia (and in the Great Australian Bight), New Zealand, in Seymour Island near Graham Land in the Antarctic Regions, Japan, Java, Borneo, New Guinea, Moluccas, Philippines, New Caledonia, also in Greenland, Bear Island, Spitzbergen and Siberia.

Organic Life of the Eocene Period.—As it has been observed above, the name Eocene was given to this period on the ground that in its fauna only a small percentage of living species were present; this estimation was founded upon the assemblage of invertebrate remains in which, from the commencement of this period until the present day, there has been comparatively little change. The real biological interest of the period centres around the higher vertebrate types. In the marine mollusca the most noteworthy change is the entire absence of ammonoids, the group which throughout the Mesozoic era had taken so prominent a place, but disappeared completely with the close of the Cretaceous. Nautiloids were more abundant than they are at present, but as a whole the Cephalopods took a more subordinate part than they had done in previous periods. On the other hand, Gasteropods and Pelecypods found in the numerous shallow seas a very suitable environment and flourished exceedingly, and their shells are often preserved in a state of great perfection and in enormous numbers. Of the Gasteropod genera Cerithium with its estuarine and lagoonal forms Potamides, Potamidopsis, &c., is very characteristic; Rostellaria, Voluta, Fusus, Pleurotoma, Conus, Typhis, may also be cited. Cardium, Venericardia, Crassatella, Corbulomya, Cytherea, Lucina, Anomia, Ostrea are a few of the many Pelecypod genera. Echinoderms were represented by abundant sea-urchins, Echinolampas, Linthia, Conoclypeus, &c. Corals flourished on the numerous reefs and approximated to modern forms (Trochosmilia, Dendrophyllia). But by far the most abundant marine organisms were the foraminifera which flourished in the warm seas in countless myriads. Foremost among these are the Nummulites, which by their extraordinary numerical development and great size, as well as by their wide distribution, demand special recognition. Many other genera of almost equal importance as rock builders, lived at the same time: Orthophragma, Operculina, Assilina, Orbitolites, Miliola, Alveolina. Crustacea were fairly abundant (Xanthopsis, Portunus), and most of the orders and many families of modern insects were represented.

When we turn to the higher forms of life, the reptiles and mammals, we find a remarkable contrast between the fauna of the Eocene and those periods which preceded and succeeded it. The great group of Saurian reptiles, whose members had held dominion on land and sea during most of the Mesozoic time, had completely disappeared by the beginning of the Eocene; in their place placental mammals made their appearance and rapidly became the dominant group. Among the early Eocene mammals no trace can be found of the numerous and clearly-marked orders with which we are familiar to-day; instead we find obscurely differentiated forms, which cannot be fitted without violence into any of the modern orders. The early placental mammals were generalized types (with certain non-placental characters) with potentialities for rapid divergence and development in the direction of the more specialized modern orders. Thus, the Creodonta foreshadowed the Carnivora, the Condylarthra presaged the herbivorous groups; but before the close of this period, so favourable were the conditions of life to a rapid evolution of types, that most of the great orders had been clearly defined, though none of the Eocene genera are still extant. Among the early carnivores were Arctocyon, Palaeonictis, Amblyctonus, Hyaenodon, Cynodon, Provivera, Patriofelis. The primitive dog-like forms did not appear until late in the period, in Europe; and true cats did not arrive until later, though they were represented by Eusmilus in the Upper Eocene of France. The primitive ungulates (Condylarths) were generalized forms with five effective toes, exemplified in Phenacodus. The gross Amblypoda, with five-toed stumpy feet (Coryphodon), were prominent in the early Eocene; particularly striking forms were the Dinoceratidae, Dinoceras, with three pairs of horns or protuberances on its massive skull and a pair of huge canine teeth projecting downwards; Tinoceras, Uintatherium, Loxophodon, &c.; these elephantine creatures, whose remains are so abundant in the Eocene deposits of western America, died out before the close of the period. The divergence of the hoofed mammals into the two prominent divisions, the odd-toed and even-toed, began in this period, but the former did not get beyond the three-toed stage. The least differentiated of the odd-toed group were the Lophiodonts: tapirs were foreshadowed by Systemodon and similar forms (Palaeotherium, Paloplotherium); the peccary-like Hyracotherium was a forerunner of the horse, Hyrochinus was a primitive rhinoceros. The evolution of the horse through such forms as Hyracotherium, Pachynolophus, Eohippus, &c., appears to have proceeded along parallel lines in Eurasia and America, but the true horse did not arrive until later. Ancestral deer were represented by Dichobune, Amphitragulus and others, while many small hog-like forms existed (Diplopus, Eohyus, Hyopotamus, Homacodon). The primitive stock of the camel group developed in N. America in late Eocene time and sent branches into S. America and Eurasia. The edentates were very generalized forms at this period (Ganodonta); the rodents (Tillodontia) attained a large size for members of this group, e.g. Tillotherium. The Insectivores had Eocene forerunners, and the Lemuroids—probable ancestors of the apes—were forms of great interest, Anaptomorphus, Microsyops, Heterohyus, Microchaerus, Coenopithecus; even the Cetaceans were well represented by Zeuglodon and others.

Stages. Paris Basin. England. Belgian Basin. Mediterranean
regions and
Great Central
sea. Flysch
Phase. North America.

Bartonien. Limestone of Saint-Ouen.
Sands of Mortefontaine.
Sands of Beauchamp.
Sands of Auvers. Barton beds.

Upper Bagshot sands. Sands of Lede. Nummulitic limestones,
sandstones and
shales. Upper part of the
Alpine Flysch and
Vienna and Carpathian
sandstones.

Macigno of the
Apennines and
Maritime Alps. Unita Group and
Jacksonian.

Lutétien. Calcaire grossier. Bracklesham and
Bournemouth beds.
Lower Bagshot sands. Laekenien.
Bruxellien.
Panisélien. Bridger Group and
Claibornian.

Yprésien. Nummulitic sands of
Soissons and Sands of
Cuise and Aizy. Alum Bay leaf beds. Sands of Mons en
Pévèle.
Flanders Clay. Wind River Group.
Wasatch Group
and

Landé-
nien. Sparn-
acien. Plastic Clay and lignite
beds. London Clay.
Oldhaven beds.

Woolwich and Reading beds. Upper Landénien
sands.

Sands of Ostricourt. Chickasawan.

Thane-
tien. Limestones of Rilly and
Sézanne.

Sands of Rilly and
Bracheux.
Thanet sands.

Landénien tuffeau.

Marls of Gelinden. Torrejon Group
and
Midwayan.

Puerco Group.

The non-placental mammals although abundant were taking a secondary place; Didelphys, the primitive opossum, is noteworthy on account of its wide geographical range.

Among the birds, the large flightless forms, Eupterornis, Gastornis, were prominent, and many others were present, such as the ancestral forms of our modern gulls, albatrosses, herons, buzzards, eagles, owls, quails, plovers. Reptiles were poorly represented, with the exception of crocodilians, tortoises, turtles and some large snakes.

The flora of the Eocene period, although full of interest, does not convey the impression of newness that is afforded by the fauna of the period. The reason for this difference is this: the newer flora had been introduced and had developed to a considerable extent in the Cretaceous period, and there is no sharp break between the flora of the earlier and that of the later period; in both we find a mixed assemblage—what we should now regard as tropical palms, growing side by side with mild-temperate trees. Early Eocene plants in N. Europe, oaks, willows, chestnuts (Castanea), laurels, indicate a more temperate climate than existed in Middle Eocene when in the Isle of Wight, Hampshire and the adjacent portions of the continent, palms, figs, cinnamon flourished along with the cactus, magnolia, sequoia, cypress and ferns. The late Eocene flora of Europe was very similar to its descendant in modern Australasia.

See A. de Lapparent, Traité de géologie, vol. iii. (5th ed., 1906), which contains a good general account of the period, with numerous references to original papers. Also R.B. Newton, Systematic List of the Frederick E. Edwards Collection of British Oligocene and Eocene Mollusca in the British Museum (Natural History) (1891), pp. 299-325; G.D. Harris, “A Revision of our Lower Eocenes,” Proc. Geologists’ Assoc. x., 1887-1888; W.B. Clark, “Correlation Papers: Eocene” (1891), U.S. Geol. Survey Bull. No. 83. For more recent literature consult Geological Literature added to the Geological Society’s Library, published annually by the society.

(J. A. H.)

Bartonien from Barton, England.

Lutétien ” Lutetia = Paris.

Yprésien ” Ypres, Flanders.

Landénien ” Landen, Belgium.

Thanetien ” The Isle of Thanet.

Sparnacien ” Sparnacum = Épernay.

Laekenien ” Laeken, Belgium.

Bruxellien ” Brussels.

Panisélien ” Mont Panisel, near Mons.

Other names that have been applied to subdivisions of the Eocene not included in the table are Parisien and Suessonien (Soissons); Ludien (Ludes in the Paris basin) and Priabonien (Priabona in the Vicentine Alps); Heersien (Heer near Maastricht) and Wemmelien (Wemmel, Belgium); very many more might be mentioned.

EON DE BEAUMONT, Charles Geneviève Louise Auguste André Timothée d’ (1728-1810), commonly known as the Chevalier d’Eon, French political adventurer, famous for the supposed mystery of his sex, was born near Tonnerre in Burgundy, on the 7th of October 1728. He was the son of an advocate of good position, and after a distinguished course of study at the Collège Mazarin he became a doctor of law by special dispensation before the usual age, and adopted his father’s profession. He began literary work as a contributor to Fréron’s Année littéraire, and attracted notice as a political writer by two works on financial and administrative questions, which he published in his twenty-fifth year. His reputation increased so rapidly that in 1755 he was, on the recommendation of Louis François, prince of Conti, entrusted by Louis XV. (who had originally started his “secret” foreign policy—i.e. by undisclosed agents behind the backs of his ministers—in favour of the prince of Conti’s ambition to be king of Poland) with a secret mission to the court of Russia. It was on this occasion that he is said for the first time to have assumed the dress of a woman, with the connivance, it is supposed, of the French court. In this disguise he obtained the appointment of reader to the empress Elizabeth, and won her over entirely to the views of his royal master, with whom he maintained a secret correspondence during the whole of his diplomatic career. After a year’s absence he returned to Paris to be immediately charged with a second mission to St Petersburg, in which he figured in his true sex, and as brother of the reader who had been at the Russian court the year before. He played an important part in the negotiations between the courts of Russia, Austria and France during the Seven Years’ War. For these diplomatic services he was rewarded with the decoration of the grand cross of St Louis. In 1759 he served with the French army on the Rhine as aide-de-camp to the marshal de Broglie, and was wounded during the campaign. He had held for some years previously a commission in a regiment of dragoons, and was distinguished for his skill in military exercises, particularly in fencing. In 1762, on the return of the duc de Nivernais, d’Eon, who had been secretary to his embassy, was appointed his successor, first as resident agent and then as minister plenipotentiary at the court of Great Britain. He had not been long in this position when he lost the favour of his sovereign, chiefly, according to his own account, through the adverse influence of Madame de Pompadour, who was jealous of him as a secret correspondent of the king. Superseded by count de Guerchy, d’Eon showed his irritation by denying the genuineness of the letter of appointment, and by raising an action against Guerchy for an attempt to poison him. Guerchy, on the other hand, had previously commenced an action against d’Eon for libel, founded on the publication by the latter of certain state documents of which he had possession in his official capacity. Both parties succeeded in so far as a true bill was found against Guerchy for the attempt to murder, though by pleading his privilege as ambassador he escaped a trial, and d’Eon was found guilty of the libel. Failing to come up for judgment when called on, he was outlawed. For some years afterwards he lived in obscurity, appearing in public chiefly at fencing matches. During this period rumours as to the sex of d’Eon, originating probably in the story of his first residence at St Petersburg as a female, began to excite public interest. In 1774 he published at Amsterdam a book called Les Loisirs du Chevalier d’Eon, which stimulated gossip. Bets were frequently laid on the subject, and an action raised before Lord Mansfield in 1777 for the recovery of one of these bets brought the question to a judicial decision, by which d’Eon was declared a female. A month after the trial he returned to France, having received permission to do so as the result of negotiations in which Beaumarchais was employed as agent. The conditions were that he was to deliver up certain state documents in his possession, and to wear the dress of a female. The reason for the latter of these stipulations has never been clearly explained, but he complied with it to the close of his life. In 1784 he received permission to visit London for the purpose of bringing back his library and other property. He did not, however, return to France, though after the Revolution he sent a letter, using the name of Madame d’Eon, in which he offered to serve in the republican army. He continued to dress as a lady, and took part in fencing matches with success, though at last in 1796 he was badly hurt in one. He died in London on the 22nd of May 1810. During the closing years of his life he is said to have enjoyed a small pension from George III. A post-mortem examination of the body conclusively established the fact that d’Eon was a man.

The best modern accounts are in the duc de Broglie’s Le Secret du roi (1888); Captain J. Buchan Telfer’s Strange Career of the Chevalier d’Eon (1888); Octave Homberg and Fernand Jousselin, Le Chevalier d’Eon (1904); and A. Lang’s Historical Mysteries (1904).

But see Lang’s Historical Mysteries, pp. 241-242, where this traditional account is discussed and rejected.

EÖTVÖS, JÓZSEF, Baron (1813-1871), Hungarian writer and statesman, the son of Baron Ignacz Eötvös and the baroness Lilian, was born at Buda on the 13th of September 1813. After an excellent education he entered the civil service as a vice-notary, and was early introduced to political life by his father. He also spent many years in western Europe, assimilating the new ideas both literary and political, and making the acquaintance of the leaders of the Romantic school. On his return to Hungary he wrote his first political work, Prison Reform; and at the diet of 1839-1840 he made a great impression by his eloquence and learning. One of his first speeches (published, with additional matter, in 1841) warmly advocated Jewish emancipation. Subsequently, in the columns of the Pesti Hirlap, Eötvös disseminated his progressive ideas farther afield, his standpoint being that the necessary reforms could only be carried out administratively by a responsible and purely national government. The same sentiments pervade his novel The Village Notary (1844-1846), one of the classics of the Magyar literature, as well as in the less notable romance Hungary in 1514, and the comedy Long live Equality! In 1842 he married Anna Rosty, but his happy domestic life did not interfere with his public career. He was now generally regarded as one of the leading writers and politicians of Hungary, while the charm of his oratory was such that, whenever the archduke palatine Joseph desired to have a full attendance in the House of Magnates, he called upon Eötvös to address it. The February revolution of 1848 was the complete triumph of Eötvös’ ideas, and he held the portfolio of public worship and instruction in the first responsible Hungarian ministry. But his influence extended far beyond his own department. Eötvös, Deák and Szechényi represented the pacific, moderating influence in the council of ministers, but when the premier, Batthyány, resigned, Eötvös, in despair, retired for a time to Munich. Yet, though withdrawn from the tempests of the War of Independence, he continued to serve his country with his pen. His Influence of the Ruling Ideas of the 19th Century on the State (Pest, 1851-1854, German editions at Vienna and Leipzig the same year) profoundly influenced literature and public opinion in Hungary. On his return home, in 1851, he kept resolutely aloof from all political movements. In 1859 he published The Guarantees of the Power and Unity of Austria (Ger. ed. Leipzig, same year), in which he tried to arrive at a compromise between personal union and ministerial responsibility on the one hand and centralization on the other. After the Italian war, however, such a halting-place was regarded as inadequate by the majority of the nation. In the diet of 1861 Eötvös was one of the most loyal followers of Deák, and his speech in favour of the “Address” (see Deák, Francis) made a great impression at Vienna. The enforced calm which prevailed during the next few years enabled him to devote himself once more to literature, and, in 1866, he was elected president of the Hungarian academy. In the diets of 1865 and 1867 he fought zealously by the side of Deák, with whose policy he now completely associated himself. On the formation of the Andrássy cabinet (Feb. 1867) he once more accepted the portfolio of public worship and education, being the only one of the ministers of 1848 who thus returned to office. He had now, at last, the opportunity of realizing the ideals of a lifetime. That very year the diet passed his bill for the emancipation of the Jews; though his further efforts in the direction of religious liberty were less successful, owing to the opposition of the Catholics. But his greatest achievement was the National Schools Act, the most complete system of education provided for Hungary since the days of Maria Theresa. Good Catholic though he was (in matters of religion he had been the friend and was the disciple of Montalembert), Eötvös looked with disfavour on the dogma of papal infallibility, promulgated in 1870, and when the bishop of Fehérvár proclaimed it, Eötvös cited him to appear at the capital ad audiendum verbum regium. He was a constant defender of the composition with Austria (Ausgleich), and during the absence of Andrássy used to preside over the council of ministers; but the labours of the last few years were too much for his failing health, and he died at Pest on the 2nd of February 1871. On the 3rd of May 1879 a statue was erected to him at Pest in the square which bears his name.

Eötvös occupied as prominent a place in Hungarian literature as in Hungarian politics. His peculiarity, both as a politician and as a statesman, lies in the fact that he was a true philosopher, a philosopher at heart as well as in theory; and in his poems and novels he clothed in artistic forms all the great ideas for which he contended in social and political life. The best of his verses are to be found in his ballads, but his poems are insignificant compared with his romances. It was The Carthusians, written on the occasion of the floods at Pest in 1838, that first took the public by storm. The Magyar novel was then in its infancy, being chiefly represented by the historico-epics of Jósiká. Eötvös first modernized it, giving prominence in his pages to current social problems and political aspirations. The famous Village Notary came still nearer to actual life, while Hungary in 1514, in which the terrible Dozsa Jacquerie (see Dozsa) is so vividly described, is especially interesting because it rightly attributes the great national catastrophe of Mohács to the blind selfishness of the Magyar nobility and the intense sufferings of the people. Yet, as already stated, all these books are written with a moral purpose, and their somewhat involved and difficult style is, nowadays at any rate, a trial to those who are acquainted with the easy, brilliant and lively novels of Jókai.

The best edition of Eötvös’ collected works is that of 1891, in 17 vols. Comparatively few of his writings have been translated, but there are a good English version (London, 1850) and numerous German versions of The Village Notary, while The Emancipation of the Jews has been translated into Italian and German (Pest, 1841-1842), and a German translation of Hungary in 1514, under the title of Der Bauernkrieg in Ungarn was published at Pest in 1850.

See A. Bán, Life and Art of Baron Joseph Eötvös (Hung.) (Budapest, 1902); Zoltan Ferenczi Baron Joseph Eötvös (Hung.) (Budapest, 1903) [this is the best biography]; and M. Berkovics, Baron Joseph Eotvos and the French Literature (Hung.) (Budapest, 1904).

(R. N. B.)

EPAMINONDAS (c. 418-362), Theban general and statesman, born about 418 B.C. of a noble but impoverished family. For his education he was chiefly indebted to Lysis of Tarentum, a Pythagorean exile who had found refuge with his father Polymnis. He first comes into notice in the attack upon Mantineia in 385, when he fought on the Spartan side and saved the life of his future colleague Pelopidas. In his youth Epaminondas took little part in public affairs; he held aloof from the political assassinations which preceded the Theban insurrection of 379. But in the following campaigns against Sparta he rendered good service in organizing the Theban defence. In 371 he represented Thebes at the congress in Sparta, and by his refusal to surrender the Boeotian cities under Theban control prevented the conclusion of a general peace. In the ensuing campaign he commanded the Boeotian army which met the Peloponnesian levy at Leuctra, and by a brilliant victory on this site, due mainly to his daring innovations in the tactics of the heavy infantry, established at once the predominance of Thebes among the land-powers of Greece and his own fame as the greatest and most original of Greek generals. At the instigation of the Peloponnesian states which armed against Sparta in consequence of this battle, Epaminondas in 370 led a large host into Laconia; though unable to capture Sparta he ravaged its territory and dealt a lasting blow at Sparta’s predominance in Peloponnesus by liberating the Messenians and rebuilding their capital at Messene. Accused on his return to Thebes of having exceeded the term of his command, he made good his defence and was re-elected boeotarch. In 369 he forced the Isthmus lines and secured Sicyon for Thebes, but gained no considerable successes. In the following year he served as a common soldier in Thessaly, and upon being reinstated in command contrived the safe retreat of the Theban army from a difficult position. Returning to Thessaly next year at the head of an army he procured the liberation of Pelopidas from the tyrant Alexander of Pherae without striking a blow. In his third expedition (366) to Peloponnesus, Epaminondas again eluded the Isthmus garrison and won over the Achaeans to the Theban alliance. Turning his attention to the growing maritime power of Athens, Epaminondas next equipped a fleet of 100 triremes, and during a cruise to the Propontis detached several states from the Athenian confederacy. When subsequent complications threatened the position of Thebes in Peloponnesus he again mustered a large army in order to crush the newly formed Spartan league (362). After some masterly operations between Sparta and Mantineia, by which he nearly captured both these towns, he engaged in a decisive battle on the latter site, and by his vigorous shock tactics gained a complete victory over his opponents (see Mantineia). Epaminondas himself received a severe wound during the combat, and died soon after the issue was decided.

His title to fame rests mainly on his brilliant qualities both as a strategist and as a tactician; his influence on military art in Greece was of the greatest. For the purity and uprightness of his character he likewise stood in high repute; his culture and eloquence equalled the highest Attic standard. In politics his chief achievement was the final overthrow of Sparta’s predominance in the Peloponnese; as a constructive statesman he displayed no special talent, and the lofty pan-Hellenic ambitions which are imputed to him at any rate never found a practical expression.

Cornelius Nepos, Vita Epaminondae; Diodorus xv. 52-88; Xenophon, Hellenica, vii.; L. Pomtow, Das Leben des Epaminondas (Berlin, 1870); von Stein, Geschichte der spartanischen und thebanischen Hegemonie (Dorpat, 1884), pp. 123 sqq.; H. Swoboda in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, v. pt. 2 (Stuttgart, 1905), pp. 2674-2707; also Army: History, § 6.

(M. O. B. C.)

EPARCH, an official, a governor of a province of Roman Greece, ἐπαρχος, whose title was equivalent to, or represented that of the Roman praefectus. The area of his administration was called an eparchy (ἐπαρχία). The term survives as one of the administrative units of modern Greece, the country being divided into nomarchies, subdivided into eparchies, again subdivided into demarchies (see Greece: Local Administration). “Eparch” and “eparchy” are also used in the Russian Orthodox Church for a bishop and his diocese respectively.

EPAULETTE (a French word, from épaule, a shoulder), properly a shoulder-piece, and so applied to the shoulder-knot of ribbon to which a scapulary was attached, worn by members of a religious order. The military usage was probably derived from the metal plate (épaulière) which protected the shoulder in the defensive armour of the 16th century. It was first used merely as a shoulder knot to fasten the baldric, and the application of it to mark distinctive grades of rank was begun in France at the suggestion, it is said, of Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, duc de Belle-Isle, in 1759. In modern times it always appears as a shoulder ornament for military and naval uniforms. At first it consisted merely of a fringe hanging from the end of the shoulder-strap or cord over the sleeve, but towards the end of the 18th century it became a solid ornament, consisting of a flat shoulder-piece, extended beyond the point of the shoulder into an oval plate, from the edge of which hangs a thick fringe, in the case of officers of gold or silver. The epaulette is worn in the British navy by officers above the rank of sub-lieutenant; in the army it ceased to be worn about 1855. It is worn by officers in the United States navy above the rank of ensign; since 1872 it is only worn by general officers in the army. In most other countries epaulettes are worn by officers, and in the French army by the men also, with a fringe of worsted, various distinctions of shape and colour being observed between ranks, corps and arms of the service. The “scale” is similar to the epaulette, but has no fringe.

ÉPÉE, CHARLES-MICHEL, Abbé de l’ (1712-1789), celebrated for his labours in behalf of the deaf and dumb, was born at Paris on the 25th of November 1712, being the son of the king’s architect. He studied for the church, but having declined to sign a religious formula opposed to the doctrines of the Jansenists, he was denied ordination by the bishop of his diocese. He then devoted himself to the study of law; but about the time of his admission to the bar of Paris, the bishop of Troyes granted him ordination, and offered him a canonry in his cathedral. This bishop died soon after, and the abbé, coming to Paris, was, on account of his relations with Soanen, the famous Jansenist, deprived of his ecclesiastical functions by the archbishop of Beaumont. About the same time it happened that he heard of two deaf mutes whom a priest lately dead had been endeavouring to instruct, and he offered to take his place. The Spaniard Pereira was then in Paris, exhibiting the results he had obtained in the education of deaf mutes; and it has been affirmed that it was from him that Épée obtained his manual alphabet. The abbé, however, affirmed that he knew nothing of Pereira’s method; and whether he did or not, there can be no doubt that he attained far greater success than Pereira or any of his predecessors, and that the whole system now followed in the instruction of deaf mutes virtually owes its origin to his intelligence and devotion. In 1755 he founded, for this beneficent purpose, a school which he supported at his own expense until his death, and which afterwards was succeeded by the “Institution Nationale des Sourds Muets à Paris,” founded by the National Assembly in 1791. He died on the 23rd of December 1789. In 1838 a bronze monument was erected over his grave in the church of Saint Roch. He published various books on his method of instruction, but that published in 1784 virtually supersedes all others. It is entitled La Véritable Manière d’instruire les sourds et muets, confirmée par une longue expérience. He also began a Dictionnaire général des signes, which was completed by his successor, the abbé Sicard.

ÉPÉE-DE-COMBAT, a weapon still used in France for duelling, and there and elsewhere (blunted, of course) for exercise and amusement in fencing (q.v.). It has a sharp-pointed blade, about 35 in. long, without any cutting edge, and the guard, or shell, is bowl-shaped, having its convexity towards the point. The épée is the modern representative of the small-sword, and both are distinguished from the older rapier, mainly by being several inches shorter and much lighter in weight. The small-sword (called thus in opposition to the heavy cavalry broadsword), was worn by gentlemen in full dress throughout the 18th century, and it still survives in the modern English court costume.

Fencing practice was originally carried on without the protection of any mask for the face. Wire masks were not invented till near 1780 by a famous fencing-master, La Boëssière the elder, and did not come into general use until much later. Consequently, in order to avoid dangerous accidents to the face, and especially the eyes, it was long the rigorous etiquette of the fencing-room that the point should always be kept low.

In the 17th century a Scottish nobleman, who had procured the assassination of a fencing-master in revenge for having had one of his eyes destroyed by the latter at sword-play, pleaded on his trial for murder that it was the custom to “spare the face.”

Rowlandson’s well-known drawing of a fencing bout, dated 1787, shows two accomplished amateurs making a foil assault without masks, while in the background a less practised one is having a wire mask tied on.

For greater safety the convention was very early arrived at that no hits should count in a fencing-bout except those landing on the breast. Thus sword-play soon became so unpractical as to lose much of its value as a training for war or the duel. For, hits with “sharps” take effect wherever they are made, and many an expert fencer of the old school has been seriously wounded, or lost his life in a duel, through forgetting that very simple fact.

Strangely enough, when masks began to be generally worn, and the fleuret (anglice, “foil,” a cheap and light substitute for the real épée) was invented, fencing practice became gradually even more conventional than before. No one seems to have understood that with masks all the conventions could be safely done away with, root and branch, and sword-practice might assume all the semblance of reality. Nevertheless it should be clearly recognized that the basis of modern foil-fencing was laid with the épée or small-sword alone, in and before the days of Angelo, of Danet, and the famous chevalier de St George, who were among the first to adopt the fleuret also. All the illustrious French professors who came after them, such as La Boëssière the younger, Lafaugère, Jean Louis, Cordelois, Grisier, Bertrand and Robert, with amateurs like the baron d’Ezpeléta, were foil-players pure and simple, whose reputations were gained before the modern épée play had any recognized status. It was reserved for Jacob, a Parisian fencing-master, to establish in the last quarter of the 19th century a definite method of the épée, which differed essentially from all its forerunners. He was soon followed by Baudry, Spinnewyn, Laurent and Ayat. The methods of the four first-named, not differing much inter se, are based on the perception that in the real sword fight, where hits are effective on all parts of the person, the “classical” bent-arm guard, with the foil inclining upwards, is hopelessly bad. It offers a tempting mark in the exposed sword-arm itself, while the point requires a movement to bring it in line for the attack, which involves a fatal loss of time. The épée is really in the nature of a short lance held in one hand, and for both rapidity and precision of attack, as well as for the defence of the sword-arm and the body behind it, a position of guard with the arm almost fully extended, and épée in line with the forearm, is far the safest. Against this guard the direct lunge at the body is impossible, except at the risk of a mutual or double hit (le coup des deux veuves). No safe attack at the face or body can be made without first binding or beating, opposing or evading the adverse blade, and such an attack usually involves an initial forward movement. Beats and binds of the blade, with retreats of the body, or counter attacks with opposition, replace the old foil-parries in most instances, except at close quarters. And much of the offensive is reduced to thrusts at the wrist or forearm, intended to disable without seriously wounding the adversary. The direct lunge (coup-droit) at the body often succeeds in tournaments, but usually at the cost of a counter hit, which, though later in time, would be fatal with sharp weapons.

Ayat’s method, as might be expected from a first-class foil-player, is less simple. Indeed for years, too great simplicity marked the most successful épée-play, because it usually gained its most conspicuous victories over those who attempted a foil defence, and whose practice gave them no safe strokes for an attack upon the extended blade. But by degrees the épéists themselves discovered new ways of attacking with comparative safety, and at the present day a complete épée-player is master of a large variety of attractive as well as scientific movements, both of attack and defence.

It was mainly by amateurs that this development was achieved. Perhaps the most conspicuous representative of the new school is J. Joseph-Renaud, a consummate swordsman, who has also been a champion foil-player. Lucien Gaudin, Alibert and Edmond Wallace may be also mentioned as among the most skilful amateurs, Albert Ayat and L. Bouché as professors—all of Paris. Belgium, Italy and England have also produced épéists quite of the first rank.

The épée lends itself to competition far better than the foil, and the revival of the small-sword soon gave rise in France to “pools” and “tournaments” in which there was the keenest rivalry between all comers.

In considering the épée from a British point of view, it may be mentioned that it was first introduced publicly in London by C. Newton-Robinson at an important assault-at-arms held in the Steinway Hall on the 4th May 1900. Professor Spinnewyn was the principal demonstrator, with his pupil, the late Willy Sulzbacher. The next day was held at the Inns of Court R. V. School of Arms, Lincoln’s Inn, the first English open épée tournament for amateurs. It was won by W. Sulzbacher, C. Newton-Robinson being second, and Paul Ettlinger, a French resident in London, third. This was immediately followed by the institution of the Épée Club of London, which, under the successive residencies of a veteran swordsman, Sir Edward Jenkinson, and of Lord Desborough, subsequently held annual open international tournaments. The winners were: in 1901, Willy Sulzbacher; 1902, Robert Montgomerie; 1903, the marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat; 1904, J.J. Renaud; 1905, R. Montgomerie. In 1906 the Amateur Fencing Association for the first time recognized the best-placed Englishman, Edgar Seligman (who was the actual winner), as the English épée champion. In 1907 R. Montgomerie was again the winner, in 1908 C.L. Daniell, in 1909 R. Montgomerie.

Among the most active of the English amateurs who were the earliest to perceive the wonderful possibilities of épée-play, it is right to mention Captain Hutton, Lord Desborough, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, Bart., Sir Charles Dilke, Bart., Lord Howard de Walden, Egerton Castle, A.S. Cope, R.A., W.H.C. Staveley, C.F. Clay, Lord Morpeth, Evan James, Paul King, J.B. Cunliffe, John Norbury, Jr., Theodore A. Cook, John Jenkinson, R. Montgomerie, S. Martineau, E.B. Milnes, H.J. Law, R. Merivale, the Marquis of Dufferin, Hugh Pollock, R.W. Doyne, A.G. Ross, the Hon. Ivor Guest and Henry Balfour.

Among foreign amateurs who did most to promote the use of the épée in England were Messrs P. Ettlinger, Anatole Paroissien, J. Joseph-Renaud, W. Sulzbacher, René Lacroix, H.G. Berger and the Marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat.

Épée practice became popular among Belgian and Dutch fencers about the same time as in England, and this made it possible to set on foot international team-contests for amateurs, which have done much to promote good feeling and acquaintanceship among swordsmen of several countries. In 1903 a series of international matches between teams of six was inaugurated in Paris. Up to 1909 the French team uniformly won the first place, with Belgium or England second.

English fencers who were members of these international teams were Lord Desborough, Theodore A. Cook, Bowden, Cecil Haig, J. Norbury, Jr., R. Montgomerie, John Jenkinson, F. Townsend, W.H.C. Staveley, S. Martineau, C.L. Daniell, W. Godden, Captain Haig, M.D.V. Holt, Edgar Seligman, C. Newton-Robinson, A.V. Buckland, P.M. Davson, E.M. Amphlett and L.V. Fildes. In 1906 a British épée team of four, consisting of Lord Desborough, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, Bart., Edgar Seligman and C. Newton-Robinson, with Lord Howard de Walden and Theodore Cook as reserves (the latter acting as captain of the team), went to Athens to compete in the international match at the Olympic games. After defeating the Germans rather easily, the team opposed and worsted the Belgians. It thus found itself matched against the French in the final, the Greek team having been beaten by the French and the Dutch eliminated by the Belgians. After a very close fight the result was officially declared a tie. This was the first occasion upon which an English fencing team had encountered a French one of the first rank upon even terms. In fighting off the tie, however, the French were awarded the first prize and the Englishmen the second.

In the Olympic games of London, 1908, the Épée International Individual Tournament was won by Alibert (France), but Montgomerie, Haig and Holt (England) took the 4th, 5th, and 8th places in the final pool. The result of the International Team competition was also very creditable to the English representatives, Daniell, Haig, Holt, Montgomerie and Amphlett, who by defeating the Dutch, Germans, Danes and Belgians took second place to the French. Egerton Castle was captain of the English team.

In open International Tournaments on the Continent, English épéists have also been coming to the front. None had won such a competition up to 1909 outright, but the following had reached the final pool: C. Newton-Robinson, Brussels, 1901 (10th), Étretat, 1904 (6th); E. Seligman, Copenhagen, 1907 (2nd), and Paris, 1909 (12th); R. Montgomerie, Paris, 1909 (5th); and E.M. Amphlett, Paris, 1909 (10th).

The method of ascertaining the victor in épée “tournaments” is by dividing the competitors into “pools,” usually of six or eight fencers. Each of these fights an assault for first hit only, with every other member of the same pool, and he who is least often hit, or not at all, is returned the winner. If the competitors are numerous, fresh pools are formed out of the first two, three or four in each pool of the preliminary round, and so on, until a small number are left in for a final pool, the winner of which is the victor of the tournament.

Épée fencing can be, and often is, conducted indoors, but one of its attractions consists in its fitness for open-air practice in pleasant gardens.

In the use of the épée the most essential points are (1) the position of the sword-arm, which, whether fully extended or not, should always be so placed as to ensure the protection of the wrist, forearm and elbow from direct thrusts, by the intervention of the guard or shell; (2) readiness of the legs for instant advance or retreat; and (3) the way in which the weapon is held, the best position (though hard to acquire and maintain) being that adopted by J.J. Renaud with the fingers over the grip, so that a downward beat does not easily disarm.

The play of individuals is determined by their respective temperaments and physical powers. But every fencer should be always ready to deliver a well-aimed, swift, direct thrust at any exposed part of the antagonist’s arm, his mask or thigh. Very tall men, who are usually not particularly quick on their legs, should not as a rule attack, otherwise than by direct thrusts, when matched against shorter men. For if they merely extend their sword-arm in response to a simple attack, their longer reach will ward it off with a stop or counter-thrust. Short men can only attack them safely by beating, binding, grazing, pressing or evading the blade, and the taller fencers must be prepared with all the well-known parries and counters to such offensive movements, as well as with the stop-thrust to be made either with advancing opposition or with a retreat. Fencers of small stature must be exceedingly quick on their feet, unless they possess the art of parrying to perfection, and even then, if slow to shift ground, they will continually be in danger. With plenty of room, the quick mover can always choose the moment when he will be within distance, for an attack which his slower opponent will be always fearing and unable to prevent or anticipate.

It is desirable to put on record the modern form of the weapon. An average épée weighs, complete, about a pound and a half, while a foil weighs approximately one-third less. The épée blade is exactly like that of the old small-sword after the abandonment of the “colichemarde” form, in which the “forte” of the blade was greatly thickened. In length from guard or shell to point it measures about 35 in., and in width at the shell about 13⁄16ths of an inch. From this it gradually and regularly tapers to the point. There is no cutting edge. The side of the épée which is usually held uppermost is slightly concave, the other is strengthened with a midrib, nearly equal in thickness and similar in shape to either half of the true blade. The material is tempered steel. There is a haft or tang about 8 in. long, which is pushed through a circular guard or shell (“coquille”) of convex form, the diameter of which is normally 5 in. and the convexity 1¾ in. The shell is of steel or aluminium, and if of the latter metal, sometimes fortified at the centre with a disk of steel the size of a crown piece. The insertion of the haft or tang through the shell may be either central or excentric to the extent of about 1 in., for the better protection of the outside of the forearm.

After passing through the shell, the haft of the blade is inserted in a grip or handle (“poignet”), averaging 7 in. in length and of quadrangular section, which is made of tough wood covered with leather, india-rubber, wound cord or other strong material with a rough surface. The grip is somewhat wider than its vertical thickness when held in the usual way, and it diminishes gradually from shell to pommel for convenience of holding. It should have a slight lateral curvature, so that in executing circular movements the pommel is kept clear of the wrist. The pommel, usually of steel, is roughly spherical or eight-sided, and serves as a counterbalance. The end of the haft is riveted through it, except in the case of “épées démontables,” which are the most convenient, as a blade may be changed by simply unscrewing or unlocking the pommel.

An épée is well balanced and light in hand when, on poising the blade across the forefinger, about 1 in. in advance of the shell, it is in equilibrium.

For practice, the point is blunted to resemble the flat head of a nail, and is made still more incapable of penetration by winding around it a small ball of waxed thread, such as cobblers use. This is called the “button.” In competitions various forms of “boutons marqueurs,” all of which are unsatisfactory, are occasionally used. The “pointe d’arrêt,” like a small tin-tack placed head downwards on the flattened point of the épée, and fastened on by means of the waxed thread, is, on the contrary, most useful, by fixing in the clothes, to show where and when a good hit has been made. The point need only protrude about 1⁄16th of an inch from the button. There are several kinds of pointes d’arrêt. The best is called, after its inventor, the “Léon Sazie,” and has three blunt points of hardened steel each slightly excentric. The single point is sometimes prevented by the thickness of the button from scoring a good hit.

A mask of wire netting is used to protect the face, and a stout glove on the sword hand. It is necessary to wear strong clothes and to pad the jacket and trousers at the most exposed parts, in case the blade should break unnoticed. A vulnerable spot, which ought to be specially padded, is just under the sword-arm.

Bibliography.—Among the older works on the history and practice of the small-sword, or épée, are the following:—The Scots Fencing-Master, or Compleat Small-swordsman, by W.H. Gent (Sir William Hope, afterwards baronet) (Edinburgh, 1687), and several other works by the same author, of later date, for which see Schools and Masters of Fence, by Egerton Castle; Nouveau traité de la perfection sur le fait des armes, by P.G.F. Girard (Paris, 1736); L’École des armes, by M. Angelo (London, 1763); L’Art des armes, by M. Danet (2 vols., Paris, 1766-1767); Nouveau traité de l’art des armes, by Nicolas Demeuse (Liège, 1778).

More modern are: Traité de l’art des armes, by la Böessière, Jr. (Paris, 1818); Les Armes et le duel, by A. Grisier (2nd ed., Paris, 1847); Les Secrets de l’épée, by the baron de Bazancourt (Paris, 1862); Schools and Masters of Fence, by Egerton Castle (London, 1885); Le Jeu de l’épée, by J. Jacob and Émil André (Paris, 1887); L’Escrime pratique au XIXe siècle, by Ambroise Baudry (Paris); L’Escrime a l’épée, by A. Spinnewyn and Paul Manonry (Paris, 1898); The Sword and the Centuries, by Captain Hutton (London,1901); “The Revival of the Small-sword,” by C. Newton-Robinson, in the Nineteenth Century and After (London, January 1905); Nouveau Traité de l’épée, by Dr Edom, privately published (Paris, 1908); and, most important of all, Méthode d’escrime à l’épée, by J. Joseph-Renaud, privately published (Paris, 1909).

(C. E. N. R.)

EPERJES, a town of Hungary, capital of the county of Sáros, 190 m. N.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900) 13,098. It is situated on the left bank of the river Tarcza, an affluent of the Theiss, and has been almost completely rebuilt since a great fire in 1887. Eperjes is one of the oldest towns of Hungary, and is still partly surrounded by its old walls. It is the seat of a Greek-Catholic bishop, and possesses a beautiful cathedral built in the 18th century in late Gothic style. It possesses manufactures of cloth, table-linen and earthenware, and has an active trade in wine, linen, cattle and grain. About 2 m. to the south is Sóvár with important salt-works.

In the same county, 28 m. by rail N. of Eperjes, is situated the old town of Bártfa (pop. 6098), which possesses a Gothic church from the 14th century, and an interesting town-hall, dating from the 15th century, and containing very valuable archives. In its neighbourhood, surrounded by pine forests, are the baths of Bártfa, with twelve mineral springs—iodate, ferruginous and alkaline—used for bathing and drinking.

About 6 m. N.W. of Eperjes is situated the village of Vörösvágás, which contains the only opal mine in Europe. The opal was mined here 800 years ago, and the largest piece hitherto found, weighing 2940 carats and estimated to have a value of £175,000, is preserved in the Court Museum at Vienna.

Eperjes was founded about the middle of the 12th century by a German colony, and was elevated to the rank of a royal free town in 1347 by Louis I. (the Great). It was afterwards fortified and received special privileges. The Reformation found many early adherents here, and the town played an important part during the religious wars of the 17th century. It became famous by the so-called “butchery of Eperjes,” a tribunal instituted by the Austrian general Caraffa in 1687, which condemned to death and confiscated the property of a great number of citizens accused of Protestantism. During the 16th and the 17th centuries its German educational establishments enjoyed a wide reputation.

ÉPERNAY, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Marne, 88 m. E.N.E. of Paris on the main line of the Eastern railway to Châlons-sur-Marne. Pop. (1906) 20,291. The town is situated on the left bank of the Marne at the extremity of the pretty valley of the Cubry, by which it is traversed. In the central and oldest quarter the streets are narrow and irregular; the surrounding suburbs are modern and more spacious, and that of La Folie, on the east, contains many handsome villas belonging to rich wine merchants. The town has also extended to the right bank of the Marne. One of its churches preserves a portal and stained-glass windows of the 16th century, but the other public buildings are modern. Épernay is best known as the principal entrepôt of the Champagne wines, which are bottled and kept in extensive vaults in the chalk rock on which the town is built. The manufacture of the apparatus and material used in the champagne industry occupies many hands, and the Eastern Railway Company has important workshops here. Brewing, and the manufacture of sugar and of hats and caps, are also carried on. Épernay is the seat of a sub-prefect and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, and communal colleges for girls and boys.

Épernay (Sparnacum) belonged to the archbishops of Reims from the 5th to the 10th century, at which period it came into the possession of the counts of Champagne. It suffered severely during the Hundred Years’ War, and was burned by Francis I. in 1544. It resisted Henry of Navarre in 1592, and Marshal Biron fell in the attack which preceded its capture. In 1642 it was, along with Château-Thierry, erected into a duchy and assigned to the duke of Bouillon.

ÉPERNON, a town of northern France in the department of Eure-et-Loir, at the confluence of the Drouette and the Guesle, 17 m. N.E. of Chartres by rail. Pop. (1906) 2370. It belonged originally to the counts of Montfort, who, in the 11th century, built a castle here of which the ruins are still left, and granted a charter to the town. In the 13th century it became an independent lordship, which remained attached to the crown of Navarre till, in the 16th century, it was sold by King Henry (afterwards King Henry IV. of France) to Jean Louis de Nogaret, for whom it was raised to the rank of a duchy in 1581. The new duke of Épernon was one of the favourites of Henry III., who were called les Mignons; the king showered favours upon him, giving him the posts of colonel-general in the infantry and of admiral of France. Under the reign of Henry IV. he made himself practically independent in his government of Provence. He was instrumental in giving the regency to Marie de’ Medici in 1610, and as a result exercised a considerable influence upon the government. During his governorship of Guienne in 1622 he had some scandalous scenes with the parlement and the archbishop of Bordeaux. He died in 1642. His eldest son, Henri de Nogaret de la Valette, duke of Candale, served under Richelieu, in the armies of Guienne, of Picardy and of Italy. The second son of Jean Louis de Nogaret, Bernard, who was born in 1592, and died in 1661, was, like his father, duke of Épernon, colonel-general in the infantry and governor of Guienne. After his death, the title of duke of Épernon was borne by the families of Goth and of Pardaillan.

EPHEBEUM (from Gr. ἔφηβος, a young man), in architecture, a large hall in the ancient Palaestra furnished with seats (Vitruvius v. 11), the length of which should be a third larger than the width. It served for the exercises of youths of from sixteen to eighteen years of age.

EPHEBI (Gr. ἐπί, and ἣβη, i.e. “those who have reached puberty”), a name specially given, in Athens and other Greek towns, to a class of young men from eighteen to twenty years of age, who formed a sort of college under state control. On the completion of his seventeenth year the Athenian youth attained his civil majority, and, provided he belonged to the first three property classes and passed the scrutiny (δοκιμασία) as to age, civic descent and physical capability, was enrolled on the register of his deme (ληξιαρχικὸν γραμματεῖον). He thereby at once became liable to the military training and duties, which, at least in the earliest times, were the main object of the Ephebia. In the time of Aristotle the names of the enrolled ephebi were engraved on a bronze pillar (formerly on wooden tablets) in front of the council-chamber. After admission to the college, the ephebus took the oath of allegiance, recorded in Pollux and Stobaeus (but not in Aristotle), in the temple of Aglaurus, and was sent to Munychia or Acte to form one of the garrison. At the end of the first year of training, the ephebi were reviewed, and, if their performance was satisfactory, were provided by the state with a spear and a shield, which, together with the chlamys (cloak) and petasus (broad-brimmed hat), made up their equipment. In their second year they were transferred to other garrisons in Attica, patrolled the frontiers, and on occasion took an active part in war. During these two years they were free from taxation, and were not allowed (except in certain cases) to appear in the law courts as plaintiffs or defendants. The ephebi took part in some of the most important Athenian festivals. Thus during the Eleusinia they were told off to fetch the sacred objects from Eleusis and to escort the image of Iacchus on the sacred way. They also performed police duty at the meetings of the ecclesia.

After the end of the 4th century B.C. the institution underwent a radical change. Enrolment ceased to be obligatory, lasted only for a year, and the limit of age was dispensed with. Inscriptions attest a continually decreasing number of ephebi, and with the admission of foreigners the college lost its representative national character. This was mainly due to the weakening of the military spirit and the progress of intellectual culture. The military element was no longer all-important, and the ephebia became a sort of university for well-to-do young men of good family, whose social position has been compared with that of the Athenian “knights” of earlier times. The institution lasted till the end of the 3rd century A.D.

It is probable that the ephebia was in existence in the 5th century B.C., and controlled by the Areopagus and strategus as its moral and military supervisors. In the 4th century their place was taken by ten sophronistae (one for each tribe), who, as the name implies, took special interest in the morals of those under them, their military training being in the hands of experts, of whom the chief were the hoplomachus, the acontistes, the toxotes and the aphetes (instructors respectively in the use of arms, javelin-throwing, archery and the use of artillery engines). Later, the sophronistae were superseded by a single official called cosmetes, elected for a year by the people, who appointed the instructors. When the ephebia instead of a military college became a university, the military instructors were replaced by philosophers, rhetoricians, grammarians and artists. In Roman imperial times several new officials were introduced, one of special importance being the director of the Diogeneion, where youths under age were trained for the ephebia. At this period the college of ephebi was a miniature city; its members called themselves “citizens,” and it possessed an archon, strategus, herald and other officials, after the model of ancient Athens.

There is an extensive class of inscriptions, ranging from the 3rd century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D., containing decrees relating to the ephebi, their officers and instructors, and lists of the same, and a whole chapter (42) of the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens is devoted to the subject. The most important treatises on the subject are: W. Dittenberger, De ephebis Atticis (Göttingen, 1863); A. Dumont, Essai sur l’éphébie attique (1875-1876); L. Grasberger, Erziehung und Unterricht im klassichen Altertum, iii. (Würzburg, 1881); J.P. Mahaffy, Old Greek Education (1881); P. Girard, L’Éducation athénienne au Ve et IVe siècle avant J.-C. (2nd ed., 1891), and article in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités which contains further bibliographical references; G. Gilbert, The Constitutional Antiquities of Athens (Eng. tr., 1895); G. Busolt, Die griechischen Staats- und Rechtsaltertümer (1892); T. Thalheim and J. Öhler in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, v. pt. 2 (1905); W.W. Capes, University Life in Ancient Athens (1877).

EPHEMERIS (Greek for a “diary”), a table giving for stated times the apparent position and other numerical particulars relating to a heavenly body. The Astronomical Ephemeris, familiarly known as the “Nautical Almanac,” is a national annual publication containing ephemerides of the principal or more conspicuous heavenly bodies, elements and other data of eclipses, and other matter useful to the astronomer and navigator. The governments of the United Kingdom, United States, France, Germany and Spain publish such annals.

EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO THE. This book of the New Testament, the most general and least occasional and polemic of all the Pauline epistles, a large section of which seems almost like the literary elaboration of a theological topic, may best be described as a solemn oration, addressed to absent hearers, and intended not primarily to clarify their minds but to stir their emotions. It is thus a true letter, but in the grand style, verging on the nature not of an essay but a poem. Ephesians has been called “the crown of St Paul’s writings,” and whether it be measured by its theological or its literary interest and importance, it can fairly dispute with Romans the claim to be his greatest epistle. In the public and private use of Christians some parts of Ephesians have been among the most favourite of all New Testament passages. Like its sister Epistle to the Colossians, it represents, whoever wrote it, deep experience and bold use of reflection on the meaning of that experience; if it be from the pen of the Apostle Paul, it reveals to us a distinct and important phase of his thought.

To the nature of the epistle correspond well the facts of its title and address. The title “To the Ephesians” is found in the Muratorian canon, in Irenaeus, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria, as well as in all the earliest MSS. and versions. Marcion, however (c. A.D. 150), used and recommended copies with the title “To the Laodiceans.” This would be inexplicable if Eph. i. 1 had read in Marcion’s copies, as it does in most ancient authorities, “To the saints which are at Ephesus”; but in fact the words ἐν Ἐφέσῳ of verse 1 were probably absent. They were not contained in the text used by Origen (d. 253); Basil (d. 379) says that “ancient copies” omitted the words; and they are actually omitted by Codices B (Vaticanus, 4th century) and א (Sinaiticus, 4th century), together with Codex 67 (11th century). The words “in Ephesus” were thus probably originally lacking in the address, and were inserted from the suggestion of the title. Either the address was general (“to the saints who are also faithful”) or else a blank was left. In the latter case the name may have been intended to be supplied orally, in communicating the letter, or a different name may have been written in each of the individual copies. Under any of these hypotheses the address would indicate that we have a circular letter, written to a group of churches, doubtless in Asia Minor. This would account for the general character of the epistle, as well as for the entire and striking absence of personal greetings and of concrete allusions to existing circumstances among the readers. It appears to have drawn its title, “To the Ephesians,” from one of the churches for which it was intended, perhaps the one from which a copy was secured when Paul’s epistles were collected, shortly before or after the year 100. That our epistle is the one referred to in Col. iv. 16, which was to be had by the Colossians from Laodicea, is not unlikely. Such an identification doubtless led Marcion to alter the title in his copies.

The structure of Ephesians is epistolary; it opens with the usual salutation (i. 1-2) and closes with a brief personal note and formal farewell (vi. 21-24). In the intervening body of the epistle the writer also follows the regular form of a letter. In an ordinary Greek letter (as the papyri show) we should find the salutation followed by an expression of gratification over the correspondent’s good health and of prayer for its continuance. Paul habitually expanded and deepened this, and, in this case, that paragraph is enormously enlarged, so that it may be regarded as including chapters i.-iii., and as carrying the main thought of the epistle. Chapters iv.-vi. merely make application of the main ideas worked out in chapters i.-iii. Throughout the epistle we have a singular combination of the seemingly desultory method of a letter, turning aside at a word and straying wherever the mood of the moment leads, with the firm, forward march of earnest and mature thought. In this combination resides the doubtless unconscious but nevertheless real literary art of the composition.

The fundamental theme of the epistle is The Unity of Mankind in Christ, and hence the Unity and Divinity of the Church of Christ. God’s purpose from eternity was to unite mankind in Christ, and so to bring human history to its goal, the New Man, the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. Those who have believed in Christ are the present representatives and result of this purpose; and a clear knowledge of the purpose itself, the secret of the ages, has now been revealed to men. This theme is not formally discussed, as in a theological treatise, but is rather, as it were, celebrated in lofty eulogy and application. First, in chapters i.-iii., under the mask of a conventional congratulatory paragraph, the writer declares at length the privileges which this great fact confers upon those who by faith receive the gift of God, and he is thus able to touch on the various aspects of his subject. Then, in chapters iv.-vi., he turns, with a characteristic and impressive “therefore,” to set forth the obligations which correspond to the privileges he has just expounded. This author is indeed interested to prosecute vigorous and substantial thinking, but the mainspring of his interest is the conviction that such thought is significant for inner and outer life.

The relationship, both literary and theological, between the epistle to the Ephesians and that to the Colossians (q.v.) is very close. It is to be seen in many of the prominent ideas of the two writings, especially in the developed view of the central position of Christ in the whole universe; in the conception of the Church as Christ’s body, of which He is the head; in the thought of the great Mystery, once secret, now revealed. There is further resemblance in the formal moral code, arranged by classes of persons, and having much the same contents in the two epistles (Eph. v. 22-vi. 9; Col. iii. 18-iv. 1). In both, also, Tychicus carries the letter, and in almost identical language the readers are told that he will by word of mouth give fuller information about the apostle’s affairs (Eph. vi. 21-22; Col. iv. 7-8). Moreover, in a great number of characteristic phrases and even whole verses the two are alike. Compare, for instance, Eph. i. 7, Col. i. 14; Eph. i. 10, Col. i. 20; Eph. i. 21, Col. i. 16; Eph. i. 22, 23, Col. i. 18, 19; Eph. ii. 5, Col. ii. 13; Eph. ii. 11, Col. ii. 11; Eph: ii. 16, Col. i. 20; Eph. iii. 2, 3, Col. i. 25, 26, and many other parallels. Only a comparison in detail will give a true impression of the extraordinary degree of resemblance. Yet the two epistles do not follow the same course of thought, and their contents cannot be successfully exhibited in a common synoptical abstract. Each has its independent occasion, purpose, character and method; but they draw largely on a common store of thought and use common means of expression.

The question of the authorship of Ephesians is less important to the student of the history of Christian thought than in the case of most of the Pauline epistles, because of the generalness of tone and the lack of specific allusion in the work. It purports to be by Paul, and was held to be his by Marcion and in the Muratorian canon, and by Irenaeus, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria, all writing at the end of the 2nd century. No doubt of the Pauline authorship was expressed in ancient times; nor is there any lack of early use by writers who make no direct quotation, to raise doubts as to the genuineness of the epistle. The influence of its language is probably to be seen in Ignatius, Polycarp and Hermas, less certainly in the epistle of Barnabas. Some resemblances of expression in Clement of Rome and in Second Clement may have significance. There is here abundant proof that the epistle was in existence, and was highly valued and influential with leaders of Christian thought, about the year 100, when persons who had known Paul well were still living.

To the evidence given above may be added the use of Ephesians in the First Epistle of Peter. If the latter epistle could be finally established as genuine, or its date fixed, it would give important evidence with regard to Ephesians; but in the present state of discussion we must confine ourselves to pointing out the fact. Some of the more striking points of contact are the following: Eph. i. 3, 1 Peter i. 3; Eph. i. 20, 21, 1 Peter iii. 22; Eph. ii. 2, 3, iv. 17, 1 Peter iv. 3; Eph. ii. 21, 22, 1 Peter ii. 5; Eph. v. 22, 1 Peter iii. 1, 2; Eph. v. 25, 1 Peter iii. 7, 8; Eph. vi. 5, 1 Peter ii. 18, 19. A similar relation exists between Romans and 1 Peter. In both cases the dependence is clearly on the part of 1 Peter; for ideas and phrases that in Ephesians and Romans have their firm place in closely wrought sequences, are found in 1 Peter with less profound significance and transformed into smooth and pointed maxims and apophthegmatic sentences.

Objections to the genuineness of Ephesians have been urged since the early part of the 19th century. The influence of Schleiermacher, whose pupil Leonhard Usteri in his Entwickelung der paulinischen Lehrbegriffs (1824) expressed strong doubts as to Ephesians, carried weight. He held that Tychicus was the author. De Wette first (1826) doubted, then (1843) denied that the epistle was by Paul. The chief attack came, however, from Baur (1845) and his colleagues of the Tübingen school. Against the genuineness have appeared Ewald, Renan, Hausrath, Hilgenfeld, Ritschl, Pfleiderer, Weizsäcker, Holtzmann, von Soden, Schmiedel, von Dobschütz and many others. On the other hand, the epistle has been defended by Bleek, Neander, Reuss, B. Weiss, Meyer, Sabatier, Lightfoot, Hort, Sanday, Bacon, Jülicher, Harnack, Zahn and many others. In recent years a tendency has been apparent among critics to accept Ephesians as a genuine work of Paul. This has followed the somewhat stronger reaction in favour of Colossians.

Before speaking of the more fundamental grounds urged for the rejection of Ephesians, we may look at various points of detail which are of less significance.

(1) The style has unquestionably a slow and lumbering movement, in marked contrast with the quick effectiveness of Romans and Galatians. The sentences are much longer and less vivacious, as any one can see by a superficial examination. But nevertheless there are parts of the earlier epistles where the same tendency appears (e.g. Rom. iii. 23-26), and on the whole the style shows Paul’s familiar traits. (2) The vocabulary is said to be peculiar. But it can be shown to be no more so than that of Galatians (Zahn, Einleitung, i. pp. 365 ff.). On the other hand, some words characteristic of Paul’s use appear (notably διό, five times), and the most recent and careful investigation of Paul’s vocabulary (Nägeli, Wortschatz der paulinischen Briefe, 1905) concludes that the evidence speaks for Pauline authorship. (3) Certain phrases have aroused suspicion, for instance, “the devil” (vi. 11, instead of Paul’s usual term “Satan”); “his holy apostles and prophets” (iii. 5, as smacking of later fulsomeness); “I Paul” (iii. 1); “unto me, who am less than the least of all the saints” (iii. 8, as exaggerated). But these cases, when properly understood and calmly viewed, do not carry conviction against the epistle. (4) The relation of Ephesians to Colossians would be a serious difficulty only if Colossians were held to be not by Paul. Those who hold to the genuineness of Colossians find it easier to explain the resemblances as the product of the free working of the same mind, than as due to a deliberate imitator. Holtzmann’s elaborate and very ingenious theory (1872) that Colossians has been expanded, on the basis of a shorter letter of Paul, by the same later hand which had previously written the whole of Ephesians, has not met with favour from recent scholars.

But the more serious difficulties which to many minds still stand in the way of the acceptance of the epistle have come from the developed phase of Pauline theology which it shows, and from the general background and atmosphere of the underlying system of thought, in which the absence of the well-known earlier controversies is remarkable, while some things suggest the thought of John and a later age. Among the most important points in which the ideas and implications of Ephesians suggest an authorship and a period other than that of Paul are the following:

(a) The union of Gentiles and Jews in one body is already accomplished. (b) The Christology is more advanced, uses Alexandrian terms, and suggests the ideas of the Gospel of John. (c) The conception of the Church as the body of Christ is new. (d) There is said to be a general softening of Pauline thought in the direction of the Christianity of the 2nd century, while very many characteristic ideas of the earlier epistles are absent.

With regard to the changed state of affairs in the Church, it must be said that this can be a conclusive argument only to one who holds the view of the Tübingen scholars, that the Apostolic Age was all of a piece and was dominated solely by one controversy. The change in the situation is surely not greater than can be imagined within the lifetime of Paul. That the epistle implies as already existent a developed system of Gnostic thought such as only came into being in the 2nd century is not true, and such a date is excluded by the external evidence. As to the other points, the question is, whether the admittedly new phase of Paul’s theological thought is so different from his earlier system as to be incompatible with it. In answering this question different minds will differ. But it must remain possible that contact with new scenes and persons, and especially such controversial necessities as are exemplified in Colossians, stimulated Paul to work out more fully, under the influence of Alexandrian categories, lines of thought of which the germs and origins must be admitted to have been present in earlier epistles. It cannot be maintained that the ideas of Ephesians directly contradict either in formulation or in tendency the thought of the earlier epistles. Moreover, if Colossians be accepted as Pauline (and among other strong reasons the unquestionable genuineness of the epistle to Philemon renders it extremely difficult not to accept it), the chief matters of this more advanced Christian thought are fully legitimated for Paul.

On the other hand, the characteristics of the thought in Ephesians give some strong evidence confirmatory of the epistle’s own claim to be by Paul. (a) The writer of Eph. ii. 11-22 was a Jew, not less proud of his race than was the writer of Rom. ix.-xi. or of Phil. iii. 4 ff. (b) The centre in all the theology of the epistle is the idea of redemption. The use of Alexandrian categories is wholly governed by this interest. (c) The epistle shows the same panoramic, pictorial, dramatic conception of Christian truth which is everywhere characteristic of Paul. (d) The most fundamental elements in the system of thought do not differ from those of the earlier epistles.

The view which denies the Pauline authorship of Ephesians has to suppose the existence of a great literary artist and profound theologian, able to write an epistle worthy of Paul at his best, who, without betraying any recognizable motive, presented to the world in the name of Paul an imitation of Colossians, incredibly laborious and yet superior to the original in literary workmanship and power of thought, and bearing every appearance of earnest sincerity. It must further be supposed that the name and the very existence of this genius were totally forgotten in Christian circles fifty years after he wrote. The balance of evidence seems to lie on the side of the genuineness of the Epistle.

If Ephesians was written by Paul, it was during the period of his imprisonment, either at Caesarea or at Rome (iii. 1, iv. 1, vi. 20). At very nearly the same time he must have written Colossians and Philemon; all three were sent by Tychicus. There is no strong reason for holding that the three were written from Caesarea. For Rome speaks the greater probability of the metropolis as the place in which a fugitive slave would try to hide himself, the impression given in Colossians of possible opportunity for active mission work (Col. iv. 3, 4; cf. Acts xxviii. 30, 31), the fact that Philippians, which in a measure belongs to the same group, was pretty certainly written from Rome. As to the Christians addressed, they are evidently converts from heathenism (ii. 1, 11-13, 17 f., iii. 1, iv. 17); but they are not merely Gentile Christians at large, for Tychicus carries the letter to them, Paul has some knowledge of their special circumstances (i. 15), and they are explicitly distinguished from “all the saints” (iii. 18, vi. 18). We may most naturally think of them as the members of the churches of Asia. The letter is very likely referred to in Col. iv. 16, although this theory is not wholly free from difficulties.

Bibliography.—The best commentaries on Ephesians are by C.J. Ellicott (1855, 4th ed. 1868), H.A.W. Meyer (4th ed., 1867), (Eng. trans. 1880), T.K. Abbott (1897), J.A. Robinson (1903, 2nd ed. 1904); in German by H. von Soden (in Hand-Commentar) (1891, 2nd ed. 1893), E. Haupt (in Meyer’s Kommentar) (8th ed., 1902). J.B. Lightfoot’s commentary on Colossians (1875, 3rd ed. 1879) is important for Ephesians also. On the English text see H.C.G. Moule (in Cambridge Bible for Schools) (1887). R.W. Dale, Epistle to the Ephesians; its Doctrine and Ethics (1882), is a valuable series of expository discourses.

Questions of genuineness, purpose, &c., are discussed in the New Testament Introductions of H. Holtzmann (1885, 3rd ed. 1892); B. Weiss (1886, 3rd ed. 1897, Eng. trans. 1887); G. Salmon (1887, 8th ed. 1897); A. Jülicher (1894, 5th and 6th ed. 1906, Eng. trans. 1904); T. Zahn (1897-1899, 2nd ed. 1900); and in the thorough investigations of H. Holtzmann, Kritik der Epheser- und Kolosserbriefe (1872), and F.J.A. Hort, Prolegomena to St Paul’s Epistles to the Romans and the Ephesians (1895). See also the works on the Apostolic Age of C. Weizsäcker (1886, 2nd ed. 1892, Eng. trans. 1894-1895); O. Pfleiderer (Das Urchristenthum) (1887, 2nd ed. 1902, Eng. trans. 1906); and A.C. McGiffert (1897).

On early attestation see A.H. Charteris, Canonicity (1880) and the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford, 1905).

The theological ideas of Ephesians are also discussed in some of the works on Paul’s theology; see especially F.C. Baur, Paulus (1845, 2nd ed. 1866-1867, Eng. trans. 1873-1874); O. Pfleiderer, Der Paulinismus (1873, 2nd ed. 1890, Eng. trans. 1877); and in the works on New Testament theology by B. Weiss (1868, 7th ed. 1903, Eng. trans. 1882-1883); H. Holtzmann (1897), and G.B. Stevens (1899). See also Somerville, St Paul’s Conception of Christ (1897).

For a guide to other literature see W. Lock, art. “Ephesians, Epistle to,” in Hastings’s Dictionary of the Bible, the various works of Holtzmann above referred to, and T.K. Abbott’s Commentary, pp. 35-40.

(J. H. Rs.)

EPHESUS, an ancient Ionian city on the west coast of Asia Minor. In historic times it was situate on the lower slopes of the hills, Coressus and Prion, which rise out of a fertile plain near the mouth of the river Caÿster, while the temple and precinct of Artemis or Diana, to the fame of which the town owed much of its celebrity, were in the plain itself, E.N.E. at a distance of about a mile. But there is reason to think both town and shrine had different sites in pre-Ionian times, and that both lay farther south among the foot-hills of Mt. Solmissus. The situation of the city was such as at all times to command a great commerce. Of the three great river basins of Ionia and Lydia, those of the Hermus, Caÿster and Maeander, it commanded the second, and had already access by easy passes to the other two.

The earliest inhabitants assigned to Ephesus by Greek writers are the “Amazons,” with whom we hear of Leleges, Carians and Pelasgi. In the 11th century B.C., according to tradition (the date is probably too early), Androclus, son of the Athenian king Codrus, landed on the spot with his Ionians and a mixed body of colonists; and from his conquest dates the history of the Greek Ephesus. The deity of the city was Artemis; but we must guard against misconception when we use that name, remembering that she bore close relation to the primitive Asiatic goddess of nature, whose cult existed before the Ionian migration at the neighbouring Ortygia, and that she always remained the virgin-mother of all life and especially wild life, and an embodiment of the fertility and productive power of the earth. The well-known monstrous representation of her, as a figure with many breasts, swathed below the waist in grave-clothes, was probably of late and alien origin. In early Ionian times she seems to have been represented as a natural matronly figure, sometimes accompanied by a child, and to have been a more typically Hellenic goddess than she became in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

Twice in the period 700-500 B.C. the city owed its preservation to the interference of the goddess; once when the swarms of the Cimmerians overran Asia Minor in the 7th century and burnt the Artemision itself; and once when Croesus besieged the town in the century succeeding, and only retired after it had solemnly dedicated itself to Artemis, the sign of such dedication being the stretching of a rope from city to sanctuary. Croesus was eager in every way to propitiate the goddess, and since about this time her temple was being restored on an enlarged scale, he presented most of the columns required for the building as well as some cows of gold. That is to say, these gifts were probably paid for out of the proceeds of the sequestration of the property of a rich Lydian merchant, Sadyattes, which Croesus presented to Ephesus (Nic. Damasc. fr. 65). To counteract, perhaps, the growing Lydian influence, Athens, the mother-city of Ephesus, despatched one of her noblest citizens, Aristarchus, to restore law on the basis of the Solonian constitution. The labours of Aristarchus seem to have borne fruit. It was an Ephesian follower of his, Hermodorus, who aided the Decemviri at Rome in their compilation of a system of law. And in the same generation Heraclitus, probably a descendant of Codrus, quitted his hereditary magistracy in order to devote himself to philosophy, in which his name became almost as great as that of any Greek. Poetry had long flourished at Ephesus. From very early times the Homeric poems found a home and admirers there; and to Ephesus belong the earliest elegiac poems of Greece, the war songs of Callinus, who flourished in the 7th century B.C. and was the model of Tyrtaeus. The city seems to have been more than once under tyrannical rule in the early Ionian period; and it fell thereafter first to Croesus of Lydia, and then to Cyrus, the Persian, and when the Ionian revolt against Persia broke out in the year 500 B.C. under the lead of Miletus, the city remained submissive to Persian rule. When Xerxes returned from the march against Greece, he honoured the temple of Artemis, although he sacked other Ionian shrines, and even left his children behind at Ephesus for safety’s sake. We hear again of Persian respect for the temple in the time of Tissaphernes (411 B.C.). After the final Persian defeat at the Eurymedon (466 B.C.), Ephesus for a time paid tribute to Athens, with the other cities of the coast, and Lysander first and Agesilaus afterwards made it their headquarters. To the latter fact we owe a contemporary description of it by Xenophon. In the early part of the 4th century it fell again under Persian influence, and was administered by an oligarchy.

Alexander was received by the Ephesians in 334, and established democratic government. Soon after his death the city fell into the hands of Lysimachus, who introduced fresh Greek colonists from Lebedus and Colophon and, it is said, by means of an artificial inundation compelled those who still dwelt in the plain by the temple to migrate to the city on the hills, which he surrounded by a solid wall. He renamed the city after his wife Arsinoë, but the old name was soon resumed. Ephesus was very prosperous during the Hellenistic period, and is conspicuous both then and later for the abundance of its coinage, which gives us a more complete list of magistrates’ names than we have for any other Ionian city. The Roman coinage is remarkable for the great variety and importance of its types. After the defeat of Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, by the Romans, Ephesus was handed over by the conquerors to Eumenes, king of Pergamum, whose successor, Attalus Philadelphus, unintentionally worked the city irremediable harm. Thinking that the shallowness of the harbour was due to the width of its mouth, he built a mole part-way across the latter; the result, however, was that the silting up of the harbour proceeded more rapidly than before. The third Attalus of Pergamum bequeathed Ephesus with the rest of his possessions to the Roman people, and it became for a while the chief city, and for longer the first port, of the province of Asia, the richest in the empire. Henceforth Ephesus remained subject to the Romans, save for a short period, when, at the instigation of Mithradates Eupator of Pontus, the cities of Asia Minor revolted and massacred their Roman residents. The Ephesians even dragged out and slew those Romans who had fled to the precinct of Artemis for protection, notwithstanding which sacrilege they soon returned from their new to their former masters, and even had the effrontery to state, in an inscription preserved to this day, that their defection to Mithradates was a mere yielding to superior force. Sulla, after his victory over Mithradates, brushed away their pretexts, and inflicting a very heavy fine told them that the punishment fell far short of their deserts. In the civil wars of the 1st century B.C. the Ephesians twice supported the unsuccessful party, giving shelter to, or being made use of by, first, Brutus and Cassius, and afterwards Antony, for which partisanship or weakness they paid very heavily in fines.

All this time the city was gradually growing in wealth and in devotion to the service of Artemis. The story of St Paul’s doings there illustrates this fact, and the sequel is very suggestive,—the burning, namely, of books of sorcery of great value. Addiction to the practice of occult arts had evidently become general in the now semi-orientalized city. The Christian Church which Paul planted there was governed by Timothy and John, and is famous in Christian tradition as a nurse of saints and martyrs. According to local belief, Ephesus was also the last home of the Virgin, who was lodged near the city by St John and there died. But to judge from the Apocalyptic Letter to this Church (as shown by Sir W.M. Ramsay), the latter showed a dangerous tendency to lightness and reaction, and later events show that the pagan tradition of Artemis continued very strong and perhaps never became quite extinct in the Ephesian district. It was, indeed, long before the spread of Christianity threatened the old local cult. The city was proud to be termed neocorus or servant of the goddess. Roman emperors vied with wealthy natives in lavish gifts, one Vibius Salutaris among the latter presenting a quantity of gold and silver images to be carried annually in procession. Ephesus contested stoutly with Smyrna and Pergamum the honour of being called the first city of Asia; each city appealed to Rome, and we still possess rescripts in which the emperors endeavoured to mitigate the bitterness of the rivalry. One privilege Ephesus secured; the Roman governor of Asia always landed and first assumed office there: and it was long the provincial centre of the official cult of the emperor, and seat of the Asiarch. The Goths destroyed both city and temple in the year A.D. 262, and although the city revived and the cult of Artemis continued, neither ever recovered its former splendour. A general council of the Christian Church was held there in 431 in the great double church of St Mary, which is still to be seen. On this occasion Nestorius was condemned, and the honour of the Virgin established as Theotokus, amid great popular rejoicing, due, doubtless, in some measure to the hold which the cult of the virgin Artemis still had on the city. (On this council see below.) Thereafter Ephesus seems to have been gradually deserted owing to its malaria; and life transferred itself to another and higher site near the Artemision, the name of which, Ayassoluk (written by early Arab geographers Ayathulukh), is now known to be a corruption of the title of St John Theológos, given to a great cathedral built on a rocky hill near the present railway station, in the time of Justinian I. This church was visited by Ibn Batuta in A.D. 1333; but few traces are now visible. The ruins of the Artemision, after serving as a quarry to local builders, were finally covered deep with mud by the river Caÿster, or one of its left bank tributaries, the Selinus, and the true site remained unsuspected until 1869.

Excavations.—The first light thrown on the topography of Ephesus was due to the excavations conducted by the architect, J.T. Wood, on behalf of the trustees of the British Museum, during the years 1863-1874. He first explored the Odeum and the Great Theatre situate in the city itself, and in the latter place had the good fortune to find an inscription which indicated to him in what direction to search for the Artemision; for it stated that processions came to the city from the temple by the Magnesian gate and returned by the Coressian. These two gates were next identified, and following up that road which issued from the Magnesian gate, Wood lighted first on a ruin which he believed to be the tomb of Androclus, and afterwards on an angle of the peribolus wall of the time of Augustus. After further tentative explorations, he struck the actual pavement of the Artemision on the last day of 1869.

The Artemision.—Wood removed the whole stratum of superficial deposit, nearly 20 ft. deep, which overlay the huge area of the temple, and exposed to view not only the scanty remains of the latest edifice, built after 350 B.C., but the platform of an earlier temple, now known to be that of the 6th century to which Croesus contributed. Below this he did not find any remains. He discovered and sent to England parts of several sculptured drums (columnae caelatae) of the latest temple, and archaic sculptures from the drums and parapet of the earlier building. He also made accurate measurements and a plan of the Hellenistic temple, found many inscriptions and a few miscellaneous antiquities, and had begun to explore the Precinct, when the great expense and other considerations induced the trustees of the British Museum to suspend his operations in 1874. Wood made two subsequent attempts to resume work, but failed; and the site lay desolate till 1904, when the trustees, wishing to have further information about the earlier strata and the Precinct, sent D.G. Hogarth to re-examine the remains. As a result of six months’ work, Wood’s “earliest temple” was re-cleared and planned, remains of three earlier shrines were found beneath it, a rich deposit of offerings, &c., belonging to the earliest shrine was discovered, and tentative explorations were made in the Precinct. This deep digging, however, which reached the sand of the original marsh, released much ground water and resulted in the permanent flooding of the site.

Ground plan of the 6th Century (“Croesus”) Temple at Ephesus, conjecturally restored by A.E. Henderson.

The history of the Artemision, as far as it can be inferred from the remains, is as follows. (1) There was no temple on the plain previous to the Ionian occupation, the primeval seat of the nature-goddess having been in the southern hills, at Ortygia (near mod. Arvalia). Towards the end of the 8th century B.C. a small shrine came into existence on the plain. This was little more than a small platform of green schist with a sacred tree and an altar, and perhaps later a wooden icon (image), the whole enclosed in a temenos: but, as is proved by a great treasure of objects in precious and other metals, ivory, bone, crystal, paste, glass, terra-cotta and other materials, found in 1904-1905, partly within the platform on which the cult-statue stood and partly outside, in the lowest stratum of deposit, this early shrine was presently enriched by Greeks with many and splendid offerings of Hellenic workmanship. A large number of electron coins, found among these offerings, and in style the earliest of their class known, combine with other evidence to date the whole treasure to a period considerably anterior to the reign of Croesus. This treasure is now divided between the museums of Constantinople and London. (2) Within a short time, perhaps after the Cimmerian sack (? 650 B.C.), this shrine was restored, slightly enlarged, and raised in level, but not altered in character. (3) About the close of the century, for some reason not known, but possibly owing to collapse brought about by the marshy nature of the site, this was replaced by a temple of regular Hellenic form. The latter was built in relation to the earlier central statue-base but at a higher level than either of its predecessors, doubtless for dryness’ sake. Very little but its foundations was spared by later builders, and there is now no certain evidence of its architectural character; but it is very probable that it was the early temple in which the Ionic order is said to have been first used, after the colonists had made use of Doric in their earlier constructions (e.g. in the Panionion); and that it was the work of the Cnossian Chersiphron and his son, Metagenes, always regarded afterwards as the first builders of a regular Artemision. Their temple is said by Strabo to have been made bigger by another architect. (4) The latter’s work must have been the much larger temple, exposed by Wood, and usually known as the Archaic or Croesus temple. This overlies the remains of No. 3, at a level higher by about a metre, and the area of its cella alone contains the whole of the earlier shrines. Its central point, however, was still the primitive statue-base, now enlarged and heightened. About half its pavement, parts of the cella walls and of three columns of the peristyle, and the foundations of nearly all the platform, are still in position. The visible work was all of very fine white marble, quarried about 7 m. N.E., near the modern Kos Bunar. Fragments of relief-sculptures belonging to the parapet and columns, and of fluted drums and capitals, cornices and other architectural members have been recovered, showing that the workmanship and Ionic style were of the highest excellence, and that the building presented a variety of ornament, rare among Hellenic temples. The whole ground-plan covered about 80,000 sq. ft. The height of the temple is doubtful, the measurements of columns given us by later authority having reference probably to its successor, the height of which was considered abnormal and marvellous. Judged by the diameter of the drums, the columns of the Croesus temple were not two-thirds of the height of those of the Hellenistic temple. This fourth temple is, beyond question, that to which Croesus contributed, and it was, therefore, in process of building about 540 B.C. Our authorities seem to be referring to it when they tell us that the Artemision was raised by common contribution of the great cities of Asia, and took 120 years to complete. It was dedicated with great ceremony, probably between 430 and 420 B.C., and the famous Timotheus, son of Thersander, carried off the magnificent prize for a lyric ode against all comers. Its original architects were, probably, Paeonius of Ephesus, and Demetrius, a ἱερός of the shrine itself: but it has been suggested that the latter may have been rather the actual contracting builder than the architect. Of this temple Herodotus speaks as existing in his day; and unless weight be given to an isolated statement of Eusebius, that it was burned about 395 B.C., we must assume that it survived until the night when one Herostratus, desirous of acquiring eternal fame if only by a great crime, set it alight. This is said to have happened in 356 B.C. on the October night on which Alexander the Great came into the world, and, as Hegesias said, the goddess herself was absent, assisting at the birth; but the exactness of this portentous synchronism makes the date suspect. (5) It was succeeded by what is called the Hellenistic temple, begun almost immediately after the catastrophe, according to plans drawn by the famous Dinocrates the architect of Alexandria. The platform was once more raised to a higher level, some 7 ft. above that of the Archaic, by means of huge foundation blocks bedded upon the earlier structures; and this increase of elevation necessitated a slight expansion of the area all round, and ten steps in place of three. The new columns were of greater diameter than the old and over 60 ft. high; and from its great height the whole structure was regarded as a marvel, and accounted one of the wonders of the world. Since, however, other Greek temples had colonnades hardly less high, and were of equal or greater area, it has been suggested that the Ephesian temple had some distinct element of grandiosity, no longer known to us—perhaps a lofty sculptured parapet or some imposing form of podium. Bede, in his treatise De sept. mir. mundi, describes a stupendous erection of several storeys; but his other descriptions are so fantastic that no credence can be attached to this. The fifth temple was once more of Ionic order, but the finish and style of its details as attested by existing remains were inferior to those of its predecessor. The great sculptured drums and pedestals, now in the British Museum, belong to the lower part of certain of its columns: but nothing of its frieze or pediments (if it had any) has been recovered. Begun probably before 350 B.C., it was in building when Alexander came to Ephesus in 334 and offered to bear the cost of its completion. It was probably finished by the end of the century; for Pliny the Elder states that its cypress-wood doors had been in existence for 400 years up to his time. It stood intact, except for very partial restorations, till A.D. 262 when it was sacked and burned by the Goths: but it appears to have been to some extent restored afterwards, and its cult no doubt survived till the Edict of Theodosius closed the pagan temples. Its material was then quarried extensively for the construction of the great cathedral of St John Theológos on the neighbouring hill (Ayassoluk), and a large Byzantine building (a church?) came into existence on the central part of its denuded site, but did not last long. Before the Ottoman conquest its remains were already buried under several feet of silt.

The organization of the temple hierarchy, and its customs and privileges, retained throughout an Asiatic character. The priestesses of the goddess were παρθένοι (i.e. unwedded), and her priests were compelled to celibacy. The chief among the latter, who bore the Persian name of Megabyzus and the Greek title Neocorus, was doubtless a power in the state as well as a dignitary of religion. His official dress and spadonic appearance are probably revealed to us by a small ivory statuette found by D.G. Hogarth in 1905. Besides these there was a vast throng of dependents who lived by the temple and its services—theologi, who may have expounded sacred legends, hymnodi, who composed hymns in honour of the deity, and others, together with a great crowd of hieroi who performed more menial offices. The making of shrines and images of the goddess occupied many hands. To support this greedy mob, offerings flowed in in a constant stream from votaries and from visitors, who contributed sometimes money, sometimes statues and works of art. These latter so accumulated that the temple became a rich museum, among the chief treasures of which were the figures of Amazons sculptured in competition by Pheidias, Polyclitus, Cresilas and Phradmon, and the painting by Apelles of Alexander holding a thunderbolt. The temple was also richly endowed with lands, and possessed the fishery of the Selinusian lakes, with other large revenues. But perhaps the most important of all the privileges possessed by the goddess and her priests was that of asylum. Fugitives from justice or vengeance who reached her precincts were perfectly safe from all pursuit and arrest. The boundaries of the space possessing such virtue were from time to time enlarged. Mithradates extended them to a bowshot from the temple in all directions, and Mark Antony imprudently allowed them to take in part of the city, which part thus became free of all law, and a haunt of thieves and villains. Augustus, while leaving the right of asylum untouched, diminished the space to which the privilege belonged, and built round it a wall, which still surrounds the ruins of the temple at the distance of about a quarter of a mile, bearing an inscription in Greek and Latin, which states that it was erected in the proconsulship of Asinius Gallus, out of the revenues of the temple. The right of asylum, however, had once more to be defended by a deputation sent to the emperor Tiberius. Besides being a place of worship, a museum and a sanctuary, the Ephesian temple was a great bank. Nowhere in Asia could money be more safely bestowed, and both kings and private persons placed their treasures under the guardianship of the goddess.

The City.—After Wood’s superficial explorations, the city remained desolate till 1894, when the Austrian Archaeological Institute obtained a concession for excavation and began systematic work. This has continued regularly ever since, but has been carried down no farther than the imperial stratum. The main areas of operation have been: (1) The Great Theatre. The stage buildings, orchestra and lower parts of the cavea have been cleared. In the process considerable additions were made to Wood’s find of sculptures in marble and bronze, and of inscriptions, including missing parts of the Vibius Salutaris texts. This theatre has a peculiar interest as the scene of the tumult aroused by the mission of St Paul; but the existing remains represent a reconstruction carried out after his time. (2) The Hellenistic Agora, a huge square, surrounded by porticoes, lying S.W. of the theatre and having fine public halls on the S. It has yielded to the Austrians fine sculpture in marble and bronze and many inscriptions. (3) The Roman Agora, with its large halls, lying N.W. of the theatre. Here were found many inscriptions of Roman date and some statuary. (4) A street running from the S.E. angle of the Hellenic Agora towards the Magnesian gate. This was found to be lined with pedestals of honorific statues and to have on the west side a remarkable building, stated in an inscription to have been a library. The tomb of the founder, T. Julius Celsus, is hard by, and some fine Roman reliefs, which once decorated it, have been sent to Vienna. (5) A street running direct to the port from the theatre. This is of great breadth, and had a Horologion half-way down and fine porticoes and shops. It was known as the Arcadiane after having been restored at a higher level than formerly by the emperor Arcadius (A.D. 395). It leaves on the right the great Thermae of Constantine, of which the Austrians have cleared out the south-east part. This huge pile used to be taken for the Artemision by early visitors to Ephesus. Part of the quays and buildings round the port were exposed, after measures had been taken to drain the upper part of the marsh. (6) The Double Church of the Virgin “Deipara” in the N.W. of the city, wherein the council of 431 was held. Here interesting inscriptions and Byzantine architectural remains were found. Besides these excavated monuments, the Stadion; the enceinte of fortifications erected by Lysimachus, which runs from the tower called the “Prison of St Paul” and right along the crests of the Bulbul (Prion) and Panajir hills; the round monument miscalled the “Tomb of St Luke”; and the Opistholeprian gymnasium near the Magnesian gate, are worthy of attention.

The work done by the Austrians enables a good idea to be obtained of the appearance presented by a great Graeco-Roman city of Asia in the last days of its prosperity. It may be realized better there than anywhere how much architectural splendour was concentrated in the public quarters. But the restriction of the clearance to the upper stratum of deposit has prevented the acquisition of much further knowledge. Both the Hellenistic and, still more, the original Ionian cities remain for the most part unexplored. It should, however, be added that very valuable topographical exploration has been carried out in the environs of Ephesus by members of the Austrian expedition, and that the Ephesian district is now mapped more satisfactorily than any other district of ancient interest in Asia Minor.

The Turkish village of Ayassoluk (the modern representative of Ephesus), more than a mile N.E. of the ancient city, has revived somewhat of recent years owing to the development of its fig gardens by the Aidin railway, which passes through the upper part of the plain. It is noteworthy for a splendid ruined mosque built by the Seljuk, Isa Bey II., of Aidin, in 1375, which contains magnificent columns: for a castle, near which lie remains of the pendentives from the cupola of the great cathedral of St John, now deeply buried in its own ruins: and for an aqueduct, Turkish baths and mosque-tombs. There is a fair inn managed by the Aidin Railway Company.

Bibliography.—E. Guhl, Ephesiaca (1843); E. Curtius, Ephesos (1874); C. Zimmermann, Ephesos im ersten christlichen Jahrhundert (1874); J.T. Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus (1877); E.L. Hicks, Anc. Greek Inscr. in the Brit. Museum, iii. 2 (1890); B.V. Head, “Coinage of Ephesus” (Numism. Chron., 1880); J. Menadier, Qua condicione Ephesii usi sint, &c. (1880); Sir W.M. Ramsay, Letters to the Seven Churches (1904); O. Benndorf, R. Heberdey, &c., Forschungen in Ephesos, vol. i. (1906) (Austrian Arch. Institute); D.G. Hogarth, Excavations at Ephesus: the Archaic Artemisia (2 vols., 1908), with chapters by C.H. Smith, A. Hamilton Smith, B.V. Head, and A.E. Henderson.

(D. G. H.)

EPHESUS, COUNCIL OF. This Church council was convened in 431 for the purpose of taking authoritative action concerning the doctrine of the person of Christ. The councils of Nicaea and Constantinople had asserted the full divinity and real humanity of Christ, without, however, defining the manner of their union. The attempt to solve the apparent incongruity of a perfect union of two complete and distinct natures in one person produced first Apollinarianism, which substituted the divine Logos for the human νοῦς or πνεῦμα of Jesus, thereby detracting from the completeness of his humanity; and then Nestorianism, which destroyed the unity of Christ’s person by affirming that the divine Logos dwelt in the man Jesus as in a temple, and that the union of the two was in respect of dignity, and furthermore that, inasmuch as the Logos could not have been born, to call Mary θεοτόκος, “Godbearer,” was absurd and blasphemous. The Alexandrians, led by Cyril, stood for the doctrine of the perfect union of two complete natures in one person, and made θεοτόκος the shibboleth of orthodoxy. The theological controversy was intensified by the rivalry of the two patriarchates, Alexandria and Constantinople, for the primacy of the East. As bishop of Constantinople Nestorius naturally looked to the emperor for support, while Cyril turned to Rome. A Roman synod in 430 found Nestorius heretical and decreed his excommunication unless he should recant. Shortly afterwards an Alexandrian synod condemned his doctrines in twelve anathemas, which only provoked counter-anathemas. The emperor now intervened and summoned a council, which met at Ephesus on the 22nd of June 431. Nestorius was present with an armed escort, but refused to attend the council on the ground that the patriarch of Antioch (his friend) had not arrived. The council, nevertheless, proceeded to declare him excommunicate and deposed. When the Roman legates appeared they “examined and approved” the acts of the council, whether as if thereby giving them validity, or as if concurring with the council, is a question not easy to answer from the records. Cyril, the president, apparently regarded the subscription of the legates as the acknowledgment of “canonical agreement” with the synod.

The disturbances that followed the arrival of John, the patriarch of Antioch, are sufficiently described in the article Nestorius.

The emperor finally interposed to terminate that scandalous strife, banished Nestorius and dissolved the council. Ultimately he gave decision in favour of the orthodox. The council was generally received as ecumenical, even by the Antiochenes, and the differences between Cyril and John were adjusted (433) by a “Union Creed,” which, however, did not prevent a recrudescence of theological controversy.

See Mansi iv. pp. 567-1482, v. pp. 1-1023; Hardouin i. pp. 1271-1722; Hefele (2nd ed.) ii. pp. 141-247 (Eng. trans. iii. pp. 1-114); Peltanus, SS. Magni et Ecumen. Conc. Ephesini primi Acta omnia ... (Ingolstadt, 1576); Wilhelm Kraetz, Koptische Akten zum Ephes. Konzil ... (Leipzig, 1904); also the articles Nestorius; Cyril; Theodore of Mopsuestia.

The so-called “Robber Synod” of Ephesus (Latrocinium Ephesinum) of 449, although wholly irregular and promptly repudiated by the church, may, nevertheless, not improperly be treated here. The archimandrite Eutyches (q.v.) having been deposed by his bishop, Flavianus of Constantinople, on account of his heterodox doctrine of the person of Christ, had appealed to Dioscurus, the successor of Cyril in the see of Alexandria, who restored him and moved the emperor Theodosius II. to summon a council, which should “utterly destroy Nestorianism.” Rome recognizing that she had more to fear from Alexandria, departed from her traditional policy and sided with Constantinople. The council of 130 bishops, which convened on the 8th of August 449, was completely dominated by Dioscurus. Eutyches was acquitted of heresy and reinstated, Flavianus and other bishops deposed, the Roman legates insulted, and all opposition was overborne by intimidation or actual violence. The death of Flavianus, which soon followed, was attributed to injuries received in this synod; but the proof of the charge leaves something to be desired.

The emperor confirmed the synod, but the Eastern Church was divided upon the question of accepting it, and Leo I. of Rome excommunicated Dioscurus, refused to recognize the successor of Flavianus and demanded a new and greater council. The death of Theodosius II. removed the main support of Dioscurus, and cleared the way for the council of Chalcedon (q.v.), which deposed the Alexandrian and condemned Eutychianism.

See Mansi vi. pp. 503 sqq., 606 sqq.; Hardouin ii. 71 sqq.; Hefele (2nd ed.) ii. pp. 349 sqq. (Eng. trans. iii. pp. 221 sqq.); S.G.F. Perry, The Second Synod of Ephesus (Dartford, 1881); l’Abbé Martin, Actes du brigandage d’Éphèse (Amiens, 1874) and Le Pseudo-synode connu dans l’histoire sous le nom de brigandage d’Éphèse (Paris, 1875).

(T. F. C.)

EPHOD, a Hebrew word (ēphōd) of uncertain meaning, retained by the translators of the Old Testament. In the post-exilic priestly writings (5th century B.C. and later) the ephod forms part of the gorgeous ceremonial dress of the high-priest (see Ex. xxix. 5 sq. and especially Ecclus. xlv. 7-13). It was a very richly decorated object of coloured threads interwoven with gold, worn outside the luxurious mantle or robe; it was kept in place by a girdle, and by shoulder-pieces (?), to which were attached brooches of onyx (fastened to the robe) and golden rings from which hung the “breastplate” (or rather pouch) containing the sacred lots, Urim and Thummim. The somewhat involved description in Ex. xxviii. 6 sqq., xxxix. 2 sqq. (see V. Ryssel’s ed. of Dillmann’s commentary on Ex.-Lev.) leaves it uncertain whether it covered the back, encircling the body like a kind of waistcoat, or only the front; at all events it was not a garment in the ordinary sense, and its association with the sacred lots indicates that the ephod was used for divination (cf. Num. xxvii. 21), and had become the distinguishing feature of the leading priestly line (cf. 1 Sam. ii. 28). But from other passages it seems that the ephod had been a familiar object whose use was by no means so restricted. Like the teraphim (q.v.) it was part of the common stock of Hebrew cult; it is borne (rather than worn) by persons acting in a priestly character (Samuel at Shiloh, priests of Nob, David), it is part of the worship of individuals (Gideon at Ophrah), and is found in a private shrine with a lay attendant (Micah; Judg. xvii. 5; see, however, vv. 10-13). Nevertheless, while the prophetical teaching came to regard the ephod as contrary to the true worship of Yahweh, the priestly doctrine of the post-exilic age (when worship was withdrawn from the community at large to the recognized priesthood of Jerusalem) has retained it along with other remains of earlier usage, legalizing it, as it were, by confining it exclusively to the Aaronites.

An intricate historical problem is involved at the outset in the famous ephod, which the priest Abiathar brought in his hand when he fled to David after the massacre of the priests of Nob. It is evidently regarded as the one which had been in Nob (1 Sam. xxi. 9), and the presence of the priests at Nob is no less clearly regarded as the sequel of the fall of Shiloh. The ostensible intention is to narrate the transference of the sacred objects to David (cf. 2 Sam. i. 10), and henceforth he regularly inquires of Yahweh in his movements (1 Sam. xxiii. 9-12, xxx. 7 sq.; cf. xxiii. 2, 4; 2 Sam. ii. 1, v. 19-23). It is possible that the writer (or writers) desired to trace the earlier history of the ephod through the line of Eli and Abiathar to the time when the Zadokite priests gained the supremacy (see Levites); but elsewhere Abiathar is said to have borne the ark (1 Kings ii. 26; cf. 2 Sam. vii. 6), and this fluctuation is noteworthy by reason of the present confusion in the text of 1 Sam. xiv. 3, 18 (see commentaries).

On one view, the ark in Kirjath-jearim was in non-Israelite hands (1 Sam. vii. 1 sq.); on the other, Saul’s position as king necessitates the presumption that his sway extended over Judah and Israel, including those cities which otherwise appear to have been in the hands of aliens (1 Sam. xiv. 47 sq.; cf. xvii. 54, &c.). There are some fundamental divergencies in the representations of the traditions of both David and Saul (qq.v.), and there is indirect and independent evidence which makes 1 Kings ii. 26 not entirely isolated. Here it must suffice to remark that the ark, too, was also an object for ascertaining the divine will (especially Judg. xx. 26-28; cf. 18, 23), and it is far from certain that the later records of the ark (which was too heavy to be borne by one), like those of the ephod, are valid for earlier times.

For the form of the earlier ephod the classic passage is 2 Sam. vi. 14, where David girt in (or with) a linen ephod dances before the ark at its entry into Jerusalem and incurs the unqualified contempt of his wife Michal, the daughter of Saul. Relying upon the known custom of performing certain observances in a practically, or even entirely, nude condition, it seems plausible to infer that the ephod was a scanty wrapping, perhaps a loin-cloth, and this view has found weighty support. On the other hand, the idea of contempt at the exposure of the person, to whatever extent, may not have been so prominent, especially if the custom were not unfamiliar, and it is possible that the sequel refers more particularly to grosser practices attending outbursts of religious enthusiasm.

The favourite view that the ephod was also an image rests partly upon 1 Sam. xxi. 9, where Goliath’s sword is wrapped in a cloth in the sanctuary of Nob behind the ephod. But it is equally natural to suppose that it hung on a nail in the wall, and apart from the omission of the significant words in the original Septuagint, the possibility that the text read “ark” cannot be wholly ignored (see above; also G.F. Moore, Ency. Bib. col. 1307, n. 2). Again, in the story of Micah’s shrine and the removal of the sacred objects and the Levite priest by the Danites, parallel narratives have been used: the graven and molten images of Judg. xvii. 2-4 corresponding to the ephod and teraphim of ver. 5. Throughout there is confusion in the use of these terms, and the finale refers only to the graven image of Dan (xviii. 30 sq., see 1 Kings xii. 28 sq.). But the combination of ephod and teraphim (as in Hos. iii. 4) is noteworthy, since the fact that the latter were images (1 Sam. xix. 13; Gen. xxxi. 34) could be urged against the view that the former were of a similar character. Finally, according to Judg. viii. 27, Gideon made an ephod of gold, about 70 ℔ in weight, and “put” it in Ophrah. It is regarded as a departure from the worship of Yahweh, although the writer of ver. 33 (cf. also ver. 23) hardly shared this feeling; it was probably something once harmlessly associated with the cult of Yahweh (cf. Calf, Golden), and the term “ephod” may be due to a later hand under the influence of the prophetical teaching referred to above. The present passage is the only one which appears to prove that the ephod was an image, and several writers, including Lotz (Realencyk. f. prot. Theol. vol. v., s.v.), T.C. Foote (pp. 13-18) and A. Maecklenburg (Zeit. f. wissens. Theol., 1906, pp. 433 sqq.) find this interpretation unnecessary.

Archaeological evidence for objects of divination (see, e.g., the interesting details in Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros, the Bible and Homer, i. 447 sq.), and parallels from the Oriental area, can be readily cited in support of any of the explanations of the ephod which have been offered, but naturally cannot prove the form which it actually took in Palestine. Since images were clothed, it could be supposed that the diviner put on the god’s apparel (cf. Ency. Bib. col. 1141); but they were also plated, and in either case the transference from a covering to the object covered is intelligible. If the ephod was a loin-cloth, its use as a receptacle and the known evolution of the article find useful analogies (Foote, p. 43 sq., and Ency. Bib. col. 1734 ). Finally, if there is no decisive evidence for the view that it was an image (Judg. viii. 27), or that as a wrapping it formed the sole covering of the officiating agent (2 Sam. vi.), all that can safely be said is that it was certainly used in divination and presumably did not differ radically from the ephod of the post-exilic age.

See further, in addition to the monographs already cited, the articles in Hastings’s Dict. Bible (by S.R. Driver), Ency. Bib. (by G.F. Moore), and Jew. Encyc. (L. Ginsburg), and E. Sellin, in Oriental. Studien: Theodor Nöldeke (ed. Bezold, 1906), pp. 699 sqq.

(S. A. C.)

Cf. the phrase “ephod of prophecy” (Testament of Levi, viii. 2). The priestly apparatus of the post-exilic age retains several traces of old mythological symbolism and earlier cult, the meaning of which had not altogether been forgotten. With the dress one may perhaps compare the apparel of the gods Marduk and Adad, for which see A. Jeremias, Das Alte Test. im Lichte des Alten Orients, 2nd ed., figs. 33, 46, and pp. 162, 449.

The ordinary interpretation “linen ephod” (1 Sam. ii. 18, xxii. 18; 2 Sam. vi. 14) is questioned by T.C. Foote in his useful monograph, Journ. Bibl. Lit. xxi., 1902, pp. 3, 47. This writer also aptly compares the infant Samuel with the child who drew the lots at the temple of Fortuna at Praeneste (Cicero, De divin. ii. 41, 86), and with the modern practice of employing innocent instruments of chance in lotteries (op. cit. pp. 22, 27).

It is not stated that the linen ephod was David’s sole covering, and it is difficult to account for the text in the parallel passage 1 Chron. xv. 27 (where he is clothed with a robe); “girt,” too, is ambiguous, since the verb is even used of a sword. On the question of nudity (cf. 1 Sam. xix. 24) see Robertson Smith, Rel. Sem.² pp. 161, 450 sq.; Ency. Bib. s.vv. “girdle,” “sackcloth”; and M. Jastrow, Journ. Am. Or. Soc. xx. 144, xxi. 23. The significant terms “uncover,” “play” (2 Sam. vi. 20 sq.), have other meanings intelligible to those acquainted with the excesses practised in Oriental cults.

EPHOR (Gr. ἔφορος), the title of the highest magistrates of the ancient Spartan state. It is uncertain when the office was created and what was its original character. That it owed its institution to Lycurgus (Herod. i. 65; cf. Xen. Respub. Lacedaem. viii. 3) is very improbable, and we may either regard it as an immemorial Dorian institution (with C.O. Müller, H. Gabriel, H.K. Stein, Ed. Meyer and others), or accept the tradition that it was founded during the first Messenian War, which necessitated a prolonged absence from Sparta on the part of both kings (Plato, Laws, iii. 692 a; Aristotle, Politics, v. 9. 1 = p. 1313 a 26; Plut. Cleomenes, 10; so G. Dum, G. Gilbert, A.H.J. Greenidge). There is no evidence for the theory that originally the ephors were market inspectors; they seem rather to have had from the outset judicial or police functions. Gradually they extended their powers, aided by the jealousy between the royal houses, which made it almost impossible for the two kings to co-operate heartily, and from the 5th to the 3rd century they exercised a growing despotism which Plato justly calls a tyrannis (Laws, 692). Cleomenes III. restored the royal power by murdering four of the ephors and abolishing the office, and though it was revived by Antigonus Doson after the battle of Sellasia, and existed at least down to Hadrian’s reign (Sparta Museum Catalogue, Introd. p. 10), it never regained its former power.

In historical times the ephors were five in number, the first of them giving his name to the year, like the eponymous archon at Athens. Where opinions were divided the majority prevailed. The ephors were elected annually, originally no doubt by the kings, later by the people; their term of office began with the new moon after the autumnal equinox, and they had an official residence (ἐφορεῖον) in the Agora. Every full citizen was eligible and no property qualification was required.

The ephors summoned and presided over meetings of the Gerousia and Apella, and formed the executive committee responsible for carrying out decrees. In their dealings with the kings they represented the supremacy of the people. There was a monthly exchange of oaths, the kings swearing to rule according to the laws, the ephors undertaking on this condition to maintain the royal authority (Xen. Resp. Laced. 15. 7). They alone might remain seated in a king’s presence, and had power to try and even to imprison a king, who must appear before them at the third summons. Two of them accompanied the army in the field, not interfering with the king’s conduct of the campaign, but prepared, if need be, to bring him to trial on his return. The ephors, again, exercised a general guardianship of law and custom and superintended the training of the young. They shared the criminal jurisdiction of the Gerousia and decided civil suits. The administration of taxation, the distribution of booty, and the regulation of the calendar also devolved upon them. They could actually put perioeci to death without trial, if we may believe Isocrates (xii. 181), and were responsible for protecting the state against the helots, against whom they formally declared war on entering office, so as to be able to kill any whom they regarded as dangerous without violating religious scruples. Finally, the ephors were supreme in questions of foreign policy. They enforced, when necessary, the alien acts (ξενηλασία), negotiated with foreign ambassadors, instructed generals, sent out expeditions and were the guiding spirits of the Spartan confederacy.

See the constitutional histories of G. Gilbert (Eng. trans.), pp. 16, 52-59; G. Busolt, p. 84 ff., V. Thumser, p. 241 ff., G.F. Schömann (Eng. trans.), p. 236 ff., A.H.J. Greenidge, p. 102 ff.; Szanto’s article “Ephoroi” in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, v. 2860 ff.; Ed. Meyer, Forschungen zur alten Geschichte, i. 244 ff.; C.O. Müller, Dorians, bk. iii. ch. vii.; G. Grote, History of Greece, pt. ii. ch. vi.; G. Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, i.² 555 ff.; B. Niese, Historische Zeitschrift, lxii. 58 ff. Of the many monographs dealing with this subject the following are specially useful: G. Dum, Entstehung und Entwicklung des spartan. Ephorats (Innsbruck, 1878); H.K. Stein, Das spartan. Ephorat bis auf Cheilon (Paderborn, 1870); K. Kuchtner, Entstehung und ursprüngliche Bedeutung des spartan. Ephorats (Munich, 1897); C. Frick, De ephoris Spartanis (Göttingen, 1872); A. Schaefer, De ephoris Lacedaemoniis (Greifswald, 1863); E. von Stern, Zur Entstehung und ursprünglichen Bedeutung des Ephorats in Sparta (Berlin, 1894).

(M. N. T.)

EPHORUS (c. 400-330 B.C.), of Cyme in Aeolis, in Asia Minor, Greek historian. Together with the historian Theopompus he was a pupil of Isocrates, in whose school he attended two courses of rhetoric. But he does not seem to have made much progress in the art, and it is said to have been at the suggestion of Isocrates himself that he took up literary composition and the study of history. The fruit of his labours was his Ἱστορίαι in 29 books, the first universal history, beginning with the return of the Heraclidae to Peloponnesus, as the first well-attested historical event. The whole work was edited by his son Demophilus, who added a 30th book, containing a summary description of the Social War and ending with the taking of Perinthus (340) by Philip of Macedon (cf. Diod. Sic. xvi. 14 with xvi. 76). Each book was complete in itself, and had a separate title and preface. It is clear that Ephorus made critical use of the best authorities, and his work, highly praised and much read, was freely drawn upon by Diodorus Siculus and other compilers. Strabo (viii. p. 332) attaches much importance to his geographical investigations, and praises him for being the first to separate the historical from the merely geographical element. Polybius (xii. 25 g) while crediting him with a knowledge of the conditions of naval warfare, ridicules his description of the battles of Leuctra and Mantineia as showing ignorance of the nature of land operations. He was further to be commended for drawing (though not always) a sharp line of demarcation between the mythical and historical (Strabo ix. p. 423); he even recognized that a profusion of detail, though lending corroborative force to accounts of recent events, is ground for suspicion in reports of far-distant history. His style was high-flown and artificial, as was natural considering his early training, and he frequently sacrificed truth to rhetoric effect; but, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he and Theopompus were the only historical writers whose language was accurate and finished. Other works attributed to him were:—A Treatise on Discoveries; Respecting Good and Evil Things; On Remarkable Things in Various Countries (it is doubtful whether these were separate works, or merely extracts from the Histories); A Treatise on my Country, on the history and antiquities of Cyme, and an essay On Style, his only rhetorical work, which is occasionally mentioned by the rhetorician Theon. Nothing is known of his life, except the statement in Plutarch that he declined to visit the court of Alexander the Great.

Fragments in C.W. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, i., with critical introduction on the life and writings of Ephorus; see J.A. Klügmann, De Ephoro historico (1860); C.A. Volquardsen, Untersuchungen über die Quellen der griechischen und sicilischen Geschichten bei Diodor. xi.-xvi. (1868); and specially J.B. Bury, Ancient Greek Historians (1909); E. Schwartz, in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyc. s.v.; and article Greece: History: Ancient Authorities.

It is now generally recognized, thanks to Volquardsen and others, that Ephorus is the principal authority followed by Diodorus, except in the chapters relating to Sicilian history.

EPHRAEM SYRUS (Ephraim the Syrian), a saint who lived in Mesopotamia during the first three quarters of the 4th century A.D. He is perhaps the most influential of all Syriac authors; and his fame as a poet, commentator, preacher and defender of orthodoxy has spread throughout all branches of the Christian Church. This reputation he owes partly to the vast fertility of his pen—according to the historian Sozomen he was credited with having written altogether 3,000,000 lines—partly to the elegance of his style and a certain measure of poetic inspiration, more perhaps to the strength and consistency of his personal character, and his ardour in defence of the creed formulated at Nicaea.

An anonymous life of Ephraim was written not long after his death in 373. The biography has come down to us in two recensions. But in neither form is it free from later interpolation; and its untrustworthiness is shown by its conflicting with data supplied by his own works, as well as by the manner in which it is overloaded with miraculous events. The following is a probable outline of the main facts of Ephraim’s life. He was born in the reign of Constantine (perhaps in 306) at or near Nisibis. His father was a pagan, the priest of an idol called Abnil or Abizal. During his boyhood Ephraim showed a repugnance towards heathen worship, and was eventually driven by his father from the home. He became a ward and disciple of the famous Jacob—the same who attended the Council of Nicaea as bishop of Nisibis, and died in 338. At his hands Ephraim seems to have received baptism at the age of 18 or of 28 (the two recensions differ on this point), and remained at Nisibis till its surrender to the Persians by Jovian in 363. Probably in the course of these years he was ordained a deacon, but from his humble estimate of his own worth refused advancement to any higher degree in the church. He seems to have played an important part in guiding the fortunes of the city during the war begun by Shapur II. in 337, in the course of which Nisibis was thrice unsuccessfully besieged by the Persians (in 338, 346 and 350). The statements of his biographer to this effect accord with the impression we derive from his own poems (Carmina Nisibena, 1-21). His intimate relations with Bishop Jacob were continued with the three succeeding bishops—Babu (338-?349), Vologaeses (?349-361), and Abraham—on all of whom he wrote encomia. The surrender of the city in 363 to the Persians resulted in a general exodus of the Christians, and Ephraim left with the rest. After visiting Amid (Diarbekr) he proceeded to Edessa, and there settled and spent the last ten years of his life. He seems to have lived mainly as a hermit outside the city: his time was devoted to study, writing, teaching and the refutation of heresies. It is possible that during these years he paid a visit to Basil at Caesarea. Near the end of his life he rendered great public service by distributing provisions in the city during a famine. The best attested date for his death is the 9th of June 373. It is clear that this chronology leaves no room for the visit to Egypt, and the eight years spent there in refuting Arianism, which are alleged by his biographer. Perhaps, as has been surmised, there may be confusion with another Ephraim. Nor can he have written the funeral panegyric on Basil who survived him by three months. But with all necessary deductions the biography is valuable as witnessing to the immense reputation for sanctity and for theological acumen which Ephraim had gained in his lifetime, or at least soon after he died. His biographer’s statement as to his habits and appearance is worth quoting, and is probably true:—“From the time he became a monk to the end of his life his only food was barley bread and sometimes pulse and vegetables: his drink was water. And his flesh was dried upon his bones, like a potter’s sherd. His clothes were of many pieces patched together, the colour of dirt. In stature he was little; his countenance was always sad, and he never condescended to laughter. And he was bald and beardless.”

The statement in his Life that Ephraim miraculously learned Coptic falls to the ground with the narrative of his Egyptian visit: and the story of his suddenly learning to speak Greek through the prayer of St Basil is equally unworthy of credence. He probably wrote only in Syriac, though he may have possessed some knowledge of Greek and possibly of Hebrew. But many of his works must have been early translated into other languages; and we possess in MSS. versions into Greek, Armenian, Coptic, Arabic and Ethiopic. The Greek versions occupy three entire volumes of the Roman folio edition, and the extant Armenian versions (mainly of N.T. commentaries) were published at Venice in four volumes in 1836.

It was primarily as a sacred poet that Ephraim impressed himself on his fellow-countrymen. With the exception of his commentaries on scripture, nearly all his extant Syriac works are composed in metre. In many cases the metrical structure is of the simplest, consisting only in the arrangement of the discourse in lines of uniform length—usually heptasyllabic (Ephraim’s favourite metre) or pentasyllabic. A more complicated arrangement is found in other poems, such as the Carmina Nisibena: these are made up of strophes, each consisting of lines of different lengths according to a settled scheme, with a recurring refrain. T.J. Lamy has estimated that, in this class of poems, there are as many as 66 different varieties of metres to be found in the works of Ephraim. These strophic poems were set to music, and sung by alternating choirs of girls. According to Ephraim’s biographer, his main motive for providing these hymns set to music was his desire to counteract the baneful effects produced by the heretical hymns of Bardaiṣan and his son Harmonius, which had enjoyed popularity and been sung among the Edessenes for a century and a half.

The subject-matter of Ephraim’s poems covers all departments of theology. Thus the Roman edition contains (of metrical works) exegetical discourses, hymns on the Nativity of Christ, 65 hymns against heretics, 85 on the Faith against sceptics, a discourse against the Jews, 85 funeral hymns, 4 on freewill, 76 exhortations to repentance, 12 hymns on paradise, and 12 on miscellaneous subjects. The edition of Lamy has added many other poems, largely connected with church festivals. It must be confessed that, judged by Western standards, the poems of Ephraim are prolix and wearisome in the extreme, and are distinguished by few striking poetic beauties. And so far as they are made the vehicle of reasoning, their efficiency is seriously hampered by their poetic form. On the other hand, it is fair to remember that the taste of Ephraim’s countrymen in poetry was very different from ours. As Duval remarks: “quant à la prolixité de saint Éphrem que nous trouvons parfois fastidieuse, on ne peut la condamner sans tenir compte du goût des Syriens qui aimaient les répétitions et les développements de la même pensée, et voyaient des qualités là où nous trouvons des défauts” (Littér. syriaque, p. 19). He is no worse in these respects than the best of the Syriac writers who succeeded him. And he surpasses almost all of them in the richness of his diction, and his skill in the use of metaphors and illustrations.

Of Ephraim as a commentator on Scripture we have only imperfect means of judging. His commentaries on the O.T. are at present accessible to us only in the form they had assumed in the Catena Patrum of Severus (compiled in 861), and to some extent in quotations by later Syriac commentators. His commentary on the Gospels is of great importance in connexion with the textual history of the N.T., for the text on which he composed it was that of the Diatessaron. The Syriac original is lost: but the ancient Armenian version survives, and was published at Venice in 1836 along with Ephraim’s commentary on the Pauline epistles (also only extant in Armenian) and some other works. A Latin version of the Armenian Diatessaron commentary has been made by Aucher and Mösinger (Venice, 1876). Using this version as a clue, J.R. Harris has been able to identify a number of Syriac quotations from or references to this commentary in the works of Isho’dadh, Bar-Kepha (Severus), Bar-ṣalibi and Barhebraeus. Although, as Harris points out, it is unlikely that the original text of the Diatessaron had come down unchanged through the two centuries to Ephraim’s day, the text on which he comments was in the main unaffected by the revision which produced the Peshitta. Side by side with this conclusion may be placed the result of F.C. Burkitt’s careful examination of the quotations from the Gospels in the other works of Ephraim; he shows conclusively that in all the undoubtedly genuine works the quotations are from a pre-Peshitta text.

As a theologian, Ephraim shows himself a stout defender of Nicaean orthodoxy, with no leanings in the direction of either the Nestorian or the Monophysite heresies which arose after his time. He regarded it as his special task to combat the views of Marcion, of Bardaiṣan and of Mani.

To the modern historian Ephraim’s main contribution is in the material supplied by the 72 hymns known as Carmina Nisibena and published by G. Bickell in 1866. The first 20 poems were written at Nisibis between 350 and 363 during the Persian invasions; the remaining 52 at Edessa between 363 and 373. The former tell us much of the incidents of the frontier war, and particularly enable us to reconstruct in detail the history of the third siege of Nisibis in 350.

Of the many editions of Ephraim’s works a full list is given by Nestle in Realenk. f. protest. Theol. und Kirche (3rd ed.). For modern students the most important are: (1) the great folio edition in 6 volumes (3 of works in Greek and 3 in Syriac), in which the text is throughout accompanied by a Latin version (Rome, 1732-1746); on the unsatisfactory character of this edition (which includes many works that are not Ephraim’s) and especially of the Latin version, see Burkitt, Ephraim’s Quotations, pp. 4 sqq.; (2) Carmina Nisibena, edited with a Latin translation by G. Bickell (Leipzig, 1866); (3) Hymni et sermones, edited with a Latin translation by T.J. Lamy (4 vols., Malines, 1882-1902). Many selected homilies have been edited or translated by Overbeck, Zingerle and others (cf. Wright, Short History, pp. 35 sqq.); a selection of the Hymns was translated by H. Burgess, Select Metrical Hymns of Ephrem Syrus (1853). Of the two recensions of Ephraim’s biography, one was edited in part by J.S. Assemani (B.O. i. 26 sqq.) and in full by S.E. Assemani in the Roman edition (iii. pp. xxiii.-lxiii.); the other by Lamy (ii. 5-90) and Bedjan (Acta mart. et sanct. iii. 621-665). The long poem on the history of Joseph, twice edited by Bedjan (Paris, 1887 and 1891) and by him attributed to Ephraim, is more probably the work of Balai.

(N. M.)

It is true that in the Confession attributed to him and printed among his Greek works in the first volume of the Roman edition he speaks (p. 129) of his parents as having become martyrs for the Christian faith. But this document is of very doubtful authenticity.

Fragments of the Commentary of Ephrem Syrus upon the Diatessaron (London, 1895).

“Ephraim’s Quotations from the Gospel,” in Texts and Studies, vol. vii. (Cambridge, 1901).

There were originally 77, but 5 have perished.

EPHRAIM, a tribe of Israel, called after the younger son of Joseph, who in his benediction exalted Ephraim over the elder brother Manasseh (Gen. xlviii.). These two divisions were often known as the “house of Joseph” (Josh. xvii. 14 sqq.; Judg. i. 22; 2 Sam. xix. 20; 1 Kings xi. 28). The relations between them are obscure; conflicts are referred to in Is. ix. 21, and Ephraim’s proud and ambitious character is indicated in its demands as narrated in Josh. xvii. 14; Judg. viii. 1-3, xii. 1-6. throughout, Ephraim played a distinctive and prominent part; it probably excelled Manasseh in numerical strength, and the name became a synonym for the northern kingdom of Israel. Originally the name may have been a geographical term for the central portion of Palestine. Regarded as a tribe, it lay to the north of Benjamin, which traditionally belongs to it; but whether the young “brother” (see Benjamin) sprang from it, or grew up separately, is uncertain. Northwards, Ephraim lost itself in Manasseh, even if it did not actually include it (Judg. i. 27; 1 Chron. vii. 29); the boundaries between them can hardly be recovered. Ephraim’s strength lay in the possession of famous sites: Shechem, with the tomb of the tribal ancestor, also one of the capitals; Shiloh, at one period the home of the ark; Timnath-Serah (or Heres), the burial-place of Joshua; and Samaria, whose name was afterwards extended to the whole district (see Samaria).

Shechem itself was visited by Abraham and Jacob, and the latter bought from the sons of Hamor a burial-place (Gen. xxxiii. 19). The story of Dinah may imply some early settlement of tribes in its vicinity (but see Simeon), and the reference in Gen. xlviii. 22 (see R.V. marg.) alludes to its having been forcibly captured. But how this part of Palestine came into the hands of the Israelites is not definitely related in the story of the invasion (see Joshua).

A careful discussion of the Biblical data referring to Ephraim is given by H.W. Hogg, Ency. Bib., s.v. On the characteristic narratives which appear to have originated in Ephraim (viz. the Ephraimite or Elohist source, E), see Genesis and Bible: Old Testament Criticism. See further Abimelech; Gideon; Manasseh; and Jews: History.

Inter-tribal feuds during the period of the monarchy may underlie the events mentioned in 1 Kings xvi. 9 sq., 21 sq.; 2 Kings xv. 10, 14.

EPHTHALITES, or White Huns. This many-named and enigmatical tribe was of considerable importance in the history of India and Persia in the 5th and 6th centuries, and was known to the Byzantine writers, who call them Ἐφθαλίτοι, Εὐθαγίτοι Νεφθαλίτοι or Ἀβδελοί. The last of these is an independent attempt to render the original name, which was probably something like Aptal or Haptal, but the initial Ν of the third is believed to be a clerical error. They were also called Λευκοὶ Οὔννοι or Χοῦνοι, White (that is fair-skinned) Huns. In Arabic and Persian they are known as Haital and in Armenian as Haithal, Idal or Hepthal. The Chinese name Yetha seems an attempt to represent the same sound. In India they were called Hūnas. Ephthalite is the usual orthography, but Hephthalite is perhaps more correct.

Our earliest information about the Ephthalites comes from the Chinese chronicles, in which it is stated that they were originally a tribe of the great Yue-Chi (q.v.), living to the north of the Great Wall, and in subjection to the Jwen-Jwen, as were also the Turks at one time. Their original name was Hoa or Hoa-tun; subsequently they styled themselves Ye-tha-i-li-to after the name of their royal family, or more briefly Ye-tha. Before the 5th century A.D. they began to move westwards, for about 420 we find them in Transoxiana, and for the next 130 years they were a menace to Persia, which they continually and successfully invaded, though they never held it as a conquest. The Sassanid king, Bahram V., fought several campaigns with them and succeeded in keeping them at bay, but they defeated and killed Peroz (Firūz), A.D. 484. His son Kavadh I. (Kobad), being driven out of Persia, took refuge with the Ephthalites, and recovered his throne with the assistance of their khan, whose daughter he had married, but subsequently he engaged in prolonged hostilities with them. The Persians were not quit of the Ephthalites until 557 when Chosroes Anushirwan destroyed their power with the assistance of the Turks, who now make their first appearance in western Asia.

The Huns who invaded India appear to have belonged to the same stock as those who molested Persia. The headquarters of the horde were at Bamian and at Balkh, and from these points they raided south-east and south-west. Skandagupta repelled an invasion in 455, but the defeat of the Persians in 484 probably stimulated their activity, and at the end of the 5th century their chief Toromana penetrated to Malwa in central India and succeeded in holding it for some time. His son Mihiragula (c. 510-540) made Sakāla in the Punjab his Indian capital, but the cruelty of his rule provoked the Indian princes to form a confederation and revolt against him about 528. He was not, however, killed, but took refuge in Kashmir, where after a few years he seized the throne and then attacked the neighbouring kingdom of Gandhara, perpetrating terrible massacres. About a year after this he died (c. 540), and shortly afterwards the Ephthalites collapsed under the attacks of the Turks. They do not appear to have moved on to another sphere, as these nomadic tribes often did when defeated, and were probably gradually absorbed in the surrounding populations. Their political power perhaps continued in the Gurjara empire, which at one time extended to Bengal in the east and the Nerbudda in the south, and continued in a diminished form until A.D. 1040. These Gurjaras appear to have entered India in connexion with the Hunnish invasions.

Our knowledge of the Indian Hūnas is chiefly derived from coins, from a few inscriptions distributed from the Punjab to central India, and from the account of the Chinese pilgrim Hsùan Tsang, who visited the country just a century after the death of Mihiragula. The Greek monk Cosmas Indicopleustes, who visited India about 530, describes the ruler of the country, whom he calls Gollas, as a White Hun king, who exacted an oppressive tribute with the help of a large army of cavalry and war elephants. Gollas no doubt represents the last part of the name Mihiragula or Mihirakula.

The accounts of the Ephthalites, especially those of the Indian Hūnas, dwell on their ferocity and cruelty. They are represented as delighting in massacres and torture, and it is said that popular tradition in India still retains the story that Mihiragula used to amuse himself by rolling elephants down a precipice and watching their agonies. Their invasions shook Indian society and institutions to the foundations, but, unlike the earlier Kushans, they do not seem to have introduced new ideas into India or have acted as other than a destructive force, although they may perhaps have kept up some communication between India and Persia. The first part of Mihiragula seems to be the name of the Persian deity Mithra, but his patron deity was Śiva, and he left behind him the reputation of a ferocious persecutor of Buddhism. Many of his coins bear the Nandi bull (Śiva’s emblem), and the king’s name is preceded by the title śahi (shah), which had previously been used by the Kushan dynasty. Toramana’s coins are found plentifully in Kashmir, which, therefore, probably formed part of the Hūna dominions before Mihiragula’s time, so that when he fled there after his defeat he was taking refuge, if not with his own subjects, at least with a kindred clan.

Greek writers give a more flattering account of the Ephthalites, which may perhaps be due to the fact that they were useful to the East Roman empire as enemies of Persia and also not dangerously near. Procopius says that they were far more civilized than the Huns of Attila, and the Turkish ambassador who was received by Justin is said to have described them as ἀστικοί, which may merely mean that they lived in the cities which they conquered. The Chinese writers say that their customs were like those of the Turks; that they had no cities, lived in felt tents, were ignorant of writing and practised polyandry. Nothing whatever is known of their language, but some scholars explain the names Toramana and Jauvla as Turkish.

For the possible connexion between the Ephthalites and the European Huns see Huns. The Chinese statement that the Hoa or Ye-tha were a section of the great Yue-Chi, and that their customs resembled those of the Turks (Tu-Kiue), is probably correct, but does not amount to much, for the relationship did not prevent them from fighting with the Yue-Chi and Turks, and means little more than that they belonged to the warlike and energetic section of central Asian nomads, which is in any case certain. They appear to have been more ferocious and less assimilative than the other conquering tribes. This may, however, be due to the fact that their contact with civilization was so short; the Yue-Chi and Turks had had some commerce with more advanced races before they played any part in political history, but the Ephthalites appear as raw barbarians, and were annihilated as a nation in little more than a hundred years. Like the Yue-Chi they have probably contributed to form some of the physical types of the Indian population, and it is noticeable that polyandry is a recognized institution among many Himalayan tribes, and is also said to be practised secretly by the Jats and other races of the plains.

Among original authorities may be consulted Procopius, Menander Protector, Cosmas Indicopleustes (trans. McCrindle, Hakluyt Society, 1897), the Kashmir chronicle Rajataranginî (trans. Stein, 1900, and Yüan Chwang). See also A. Stein, White Huns and Kindred Tribes (1905); O. Franke, Beiträge aus chinesischen Quellen zur Kenntnis der Türkvölker und Skythen (1904); Ujfalvy, Mémoire sur les Huns Blancs (1898); Drouin, Mémoire sur les Huns Ephthalites (1895); and various articles by Vincent Smith, Specht, Drouin, and E.H. Parker in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Journal asiatique, Revue numismatique, Asiatic Quarterly, &c.

(C. El.)

ÉPI, the French architectural term for a light finial, generally of metal, but sometimes of terra-cotta, forming the termination of a spire or the angle of a roof.

EPICENE (from the Gr. ἐπίκοινος, common), a term in Greek and Latin grammar denoting nouns which, possessing but one gender, are used to describe animals of either sex. In English grammar there are no true epicene nouns, but the term is sometimes used instead of common gender. In figurative and literary language, epicene is an adjective applied to persons having the characteristics of both sexes, and hence is occasionally used as a synonym of “effeminate.”

EPICHARMUS (c. 540-450 B.C.), Greek comic poet, was born in the island of Cos. Early in life he went to Megara in Sicily, and after its destruction by Gelo (484) removed to Syracuse, where he spent the rest of his life at the court of Hiero, and died at the age of ninety or (according to a statement in Lucian, Macrobii, 25) ninety-seven. A brazen statue was set up in his honour by the inhabitants, for which Theocritus composed an inscription (Epigr. 17). Epicharmus was the chief representative of the Sicilian or Dorian comedy. Of his works 35 titles and a few fragments have survived. In the city of tyrants it would have been dangerous to present comedies like those of the Athenian stage, in which attacks were made upon the authorities. Accordingly, the comedies of Epicharmus are of two kinds, neither of them calculated to give offence to the ruler. They are either mythological travesties (resembling the satyric drama of Athens) or character comedies. To the first class belong the Busiris, in which Heracles is represented as a voracious glutton; the Marriage of Hebe, remarkable for a lengthy list of dainties. The second class dealt with different classes of the population (the sailor, the prophet, the boor, the parasite). Some of the plays seem to have bordered on the political, as The Plunderings, describing the devastation of Sicily in the time of the poet. A short fragment has been discovered (in the Rainer papyri) from the Ὁδυσσεὺς αὐτόμολος, which told how Odysseus got inside Troy in the disguise of a beggar and obtained valuable information. Another feature of his works was the large number of excellent sentiments expressed in a brief proverbial form; the Pythagoreans claimed him as a member of their school, who had forsaken the study of philosophy for the writing of comedy. Plato (Theaetetus, 152 E) puts him at the head of the masters of comedy, coupling his name with Homer and, according to a remark in Diogenes Laërtius, Plato was indebted to Epicharmus for much of his philosophy. Ennius called his didactic poem on natural philosophy Epicharmus after the comic poet. The metres employed by Epicharmus were iambic trimeter, and especially trochaic and anapaestic tetrameter. The plot of the plays was simple, the action lively and rapid; hence they were classed among the fabulae motoriae (stirring, bustling), as indicated in the well-known line of Horace (Epistles, ii. 1. 58):

“Plautus ad exemplar Siculi properare Epicharmi.”

Epicharmus is the subject of articles in Suidas and Diogenes Laërtius (viii. 3). See A.O. Lorenz, Leben und Schriften des Koers E. (with account of the Doric drama and fragments, 1864); J. Girard, Études sur la poésie grecque (1884); Kaibel in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, according to whom Epicharmus was a Siceliot; for the papyrus fragment, Blass in Jahrbücher für Philologie, cxxxix., 1889.

EPIC POETRY, or Epos (from the Gr. ἔπος, a story, and ἐπικός, pertaining to a story), the names given to the most dignified and elaborate forms of narrative poetry. The word epopee is also, but more rarely, employed to designate the same thing, ἐποποιὸς in Greek being a maker of epic poetry, and ἐποποιΐα what he makes.

It is to Greece, where the earliest literary monuments which we possess are of an epical character, that we turn for a definition of these vast heroic compositions, and we gather that their subject-matter was not confined, as Voltaire and the critics of the 18th century supposed, to “narratives in verse of warlike adventures.” When we first discover the epos, hexameter verse has already been selected for its vehicle. In this form epic poems were composed not merely dealing with war and personal romance, but carrying out a didactic purpose, or celebrating the mysteries of religion. These three divisions, to which are severally attached the more or less mythical names of Homer, Hesiod and Orpheus seem to have marked the earliest literary movement of the Greeks. But, even here, we must be warned that what we possess is not primitive; there had been unwritten epics, probably in hexameters, long before the composition of any now-surviving fragment. The saga of the Greek nation, the catalogue of its arts and possessions, the rites and beliefs of its priesthood, must have been circulated, by word of mouth, long before any historical poet was born. We look upon Homer and Hesiod as records of primitive thought, but Professor Gilbert Murray reminds us that “our Iliad, Odyssey, Erga and Theogony are not the first, nor the second, nor the twelfth of such embodiments.” The early epic poets, Lesches, Linus, Orpheus, Arctinus, Eugammon are the veriest shadows, whose names often betray their symbolic and fabulous character. It is now believed that there was a class of minstrels, the Rhapsodists or Homeridae, whose business it was to recite poetry at feasts and other solemn occasions. “The real bards of early Greece were all nameless and impersonal.” When our tradition begins to be preserved, we find everything of a saga-character attributed to Homer, a blind man and an inhabitant of Chios. This gradually crystallized until we find Aristotle definitely treating Homer as a person, and attributing to him the composition of three great poems, the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Margites, now lost (see Homer). The first two of these have been preserved and form for us the type of the ancient epic; when we speak of epic poetry, we unconsciously measure it by the example of the Iliad and the Odyssey. It is quite certain, however, that these poems had not merely been preceded by a vast number of revisions of the mythical history of the country, but were accompanied by innumerable poems of a similar character, now entirely lost. That antiquity did not regard these other epics as equal in beauty to the Iliad seems to be certain; but such poems as Cypria, Iliou Persis (Sack of Ilion) and Aethiopis can hardly but have exhibited other sides of the epic tradition. Did we possess them, it is almost certain that we could speak with more assurance as to the scope of epic poetry in the days of oral tradition, and could understand more clearly what sort of ballads in hexameter it was which rhapsodes took round from court to court. In the 4th century B.C. it seems that people began to write down what was not yet forgotten of all this oral poetry. Unfortunately, the earliest critic who describes this process is Proclus, a Byzantine neo-Platonist, who did not write until some 800 years later, when the whole tradition had become hopelessly corrupted. When we pass from Homer and Hesiod, about whose actual existence critics will be eternally divided, we reach in the 7th century a poet, Peisander of Rhodes, who wrote an epic poem, the Heracleia, of which fragments remain. Other epic writers, who appear to be undoubtedly historic, are Antimachus of Colophon, who wrote a Thebais; Panyasis, who, like Peisander, celebrated the feats of Heracles; Choerilus of Samos; and Anyte, of whom we only know that she was an epic poetess, and was called “The female Homer.” In the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. there was a distinct school of philosophical epic, and we distinguish the names of Xenophanes, Parmenides and Empedocles as the leaders of it.

From the dawn of Latin literature epic poetry seems to have been cultivated in Italy. A Greek exile, named Livius Andronicus, translated the Odyssey into Latin during the first Punic War, but the earliest original epic of Rome was the lost Bellum Punicum of Naevius, a work to which Virgil was indebted. A little later, Ennius composed, about 172 B.C., in 18 books, an historical epic of the Annales, dealing with the whole chronicle of Rome. This was the foremost Latin poem, until the appearance of the Aeneid; it was not imitated, remaining, for a hundred years, as Mr Mackail has said, “not only the unique, but the satisfying achievement in this kind of poetry.” Virgil began the most famous of Roman epics in the year 30 B.C., and when he died, nine years later, he desired that the MS. of the Aeneid should be burned, as it required three years’ work to complete it. Nevertheless, it seems to us, and seemed to the ancient world, almost perfect, and a priceless monument of art; it is written, like the great Greek poems on which it is patently modelled, in hexameters. In the next generation, the Pharsalia of Lucan, of which Cato, as the type of the republican spirit, is the hero, was the principal example of Latin epic. Statius, under the Flavian emperors, wrote several epic poems, of which the Thebaid survives. In the 1st century A.D. Valerius Flaccus wrote the Argonautica in 8 books, and Silius Italicus the Punic War, in 17 books; these authors show a great decline in taste and merit, even in comparison with Statius, and Silius Italicus, in particular, is as purely imitative as the worst of the epic writers of modern Europe. At the close of the 4th century the style revived with Claudian, who produced five or six elaborate historical and mythological epics of which the Rape of Proserpine was probably the most remarkable; in his interesting poetry we have a valuable link between the Silver Age in Rome and the Italian Renaissance. With Claudian the history of epic poetry among the ancients closes.

In medieval times there existed a large body of narrative poetry to which the general title of Epic has usually been given. Three principal schools are recognized, the French, the Teutonic and the Icelandic. Teutonic epic poetry deals, as a rule, with legends founded on the history of Germany in the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, and in particular with such heroes as Ermanaric, Attila and Theodoric. But there is also an important group in it which deals with English themes, and among these Beowulf, Waldere, The Lay of Maldon and Finnesburh are pre-eminent. To this group is allied the purely German poem of Hildebrand, attributed to c. 800. Among these Beowulf is the only one which exists in anything like complete form, and it is of all examples of Teutonic epic the most important. With all its trivialities and incongruities, which belong to a barbarous age, Beowulf is yet a solid and comprehensive example of native epic poetry. It is written, like all old Teutonic work of the kind, in alliterative unrhymed rhythm. In Iceland, a new heroic literature was invented in the middle ages, and to this we owe the Sagas, which are, in fact, a reduction to prose of the epics of the warlike history of the North. These Sagas took the place of a group of archaic Icelandic epics, the series of which seems to have closed with the noble poem of Atlamál, the principal surviving specimen of epic poetry as it was cultivated in the primitive literature of Iceland. The surviving epical fragments of Icelandic composition are found thrown together in the Codex Regius, under the title of The Elder Edda, a most precious MS. discovered in the 17th century. The Icelandic epics seem to have been shorter and more episodical in character than the lost Teutonic specimens; both kinds were written in alliterative verse. It is not probable that either possessed the organic unity and vitality of spirit which make the Sagas so delightful. The French medieval epics (see Chansons de Geste) are late in comparison with those of England, Germany and Iceland. They form a curious transitional link between primitive and modern poetry; the literature of civilized Europe may be said to begin with them. There is a great increase of simplicity, a great broadening of the scene of action. The Teutonic epics were obscure and intense, the French chansons de geste are lucid and easy. The existing masterpiece of this kind, the magnificent Roland, is doubtless the most interesting and pleasing of all the epics of medieval Europe. Professor Ker’s analysis of its merits may be taken as typical of all that is best in the vast body of epic which comes between the antique models, which were unknown to the medieval poets, and the artificial epics of a later time which were founded on vast ideal themes, in imitation of the ancients. “There is something lyrical in Roland, but the poem is not governed by lyrical principles; it requires the deliberation and the freedom of epic; it must have room to move in before it can come up to the height of its argument. The abruptness of its periods is not really an interruption of its even flight; it is an abruptness of detail, like a broken sea with a larger wave moving under it; it does not impair or disguise the grandeur of the movement as a whole.” Of the progress and decline of the chansons de geste (q.v.) from the ideals of Roland a fuller account is given elsewhere. To the Nibelungenlied (q.v.) also, detailed attention is given in a separate article.

What may be called the artificial or secondary epics of modern Europe, founded upon an imitation of the Iliad and the Aeneid, are more numerous than the ordinary reader supposes, although but few of them have preserved much vitality. In Italy the Chanson de Roland inspired romantic epics by Luigi Pulci (1432-1487), whose Morgante Maggiore appeared in 1481, and is a masterpiece of burlesque; by M.M. Boiardo (1434-1494), whose Orlando Innamorato was finished in 1486; by Francesco Bello (1440?-1495), whose Mambriano was published in 1497; by Lodovico Ariosto (q.v.), whose Orlando Furioso, by far the greatest of its class, was published in 1516, and by Luigi Dolce (1508-1568), as well as by a great number of less illustrious poets. G.G. Trissino (1478-1549) wrote a Deliverance of Italy from the Goths in 1547, and Bernardo Tasso (1493-1569) an Amadigi in 1559; Berni remodelled the epic of Boiardo in 1541, and Teofilo Folengo (1491-1544), ridiculed the whole school in an Orlandino of 1526. An extraordinary feat of mock-heroic epic was The Bucket (1622) of Alessandro Tassoni (1565-1638). The most splendid of all the epics of Italy, however, was, and remains, the Jerusalem Delivered of Torquato Tasso (q.v.), published originally in 1580, and afterwards rewritten as The Conquest of Jerusalem, 1593. The fantastic Adone (1623) of G.B. Marini (1569-1625) and the long poems of Chiabrera, close the list of Italian epics. Early Portuguese literature is rich in epic poetry. Luis Pereira Brandão wrote an Elegiada in 18 books, published in 1588; Jeronymo Corte-Real (d. 1588) a Shipwreck of Sepulveda and two other epics; V.M. Quevedo, in 1601, an Alphonso of Africa, in 12 books; Sá de Menezes (d. 1664) a Conquest of Malacca, 1634; but all these, and many more, are obscured by the glory of Camoens (q.v.), whose magnificent Lusiads had been printed in 1572, and forms the summit of Portuguese literature. In Spanish poetry, the Poem of the Cid takes the first place, as the great national epic of the middle ages; it is supposed to have been written between 1135 and 1175. It was followed by the Rodrigo, and the medieval school closes with the Alphonso XI. of Rodrigo Yañez, probably written at the close of the 12th century. The success of the Italian imitative epics of the 15th century led to some imitation of their form in Spain. Juan de la Cueva (1550?-1606) published a Conquest of Bética in 1603; Cristóbal de Virues (1550-1610) a Monserrate, in 1588; Luis Barahona de Soto continued Ariosto in a Tears of Angélica; Gutiérrez wrote an Austriada in 1584; but perhaps the finest modern epic in Spanish verse is the Araucana (1569-1590) of Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1533-1595), “the first literary work of merit,” as Mr Fitzmaurice-Kelly remarks, “composed in either American continent.” In France, the epic never flourished in modern times, and no real success attended the Franciade of Ronsard, the Alaric of Scudéry, the Pucelle of Chapelain, the Divine Épopée of Soumet, or even the Henriade of Voltaire. In English literature The Faery Queen of Spenser has the same claim as the Italian poems mentioned above to bear the name of epic, and Milton, who stands entirely apart, may be said, by his isolated Paradise Lost, to take rank with Homer and Virgil, as one of the three types of the mastery of epical composition.

See Bossu, Traité du poeme épique (1675); Voltaire, Sur la poésie épique; Fauviel, L’Origine de l’épopée chevaleresque (1832); W.P. Ker, Epic and Romance (1897), and Essays in Medieval Literature (1905); Gilbert Murray, History of Ancient Greek Literature (1897); W. von Christ, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur (1879); Gaston Paris, La Littérature française au moyen âge (1890); Léon Gautier, Les Épopées françaises (1865-1868). For works on the Greek epics see also Greek Literature and Cycle.

(E. G.)

EPICTETUS (born c. A.D. 60), Greek philosopher, was probably a native of Hierapolis in south-west Phrygia. The name Epictetus is merely the Greek for “acquired” (from ἐπικτᾶσθαι); his original name is not known. As a boy he was a slave in the house of Epaphroditus, a freedman and courtier of the emperor Nero. He managed, however, to attend the lectures of the Stoic Musonius Rufus, and subsequently became a freedman. He was lame and of weakly health. In 90 he was expelled with the other philosophers by Domitian, who was irritated by the support and encouragement which the opposition to his tyranny found amongst the adherents of Stoicism. For the rest of his life he settled at Nicopolis, in southern Epirus, not far from the scene of the battle of Actium. There for several years he lived, and taught by close earnest personal address and conversation. According to some authorities he lived into the time of Hadrian; he himself mentions the coinage of the emperor Trajan. His contemporaries and the next generation held his character and teaching in high honour. According to Lucian, the earthenware lamp which had belonged to the sage was bought by an antiquarian for 3000 drachmas. He was never married. He wrote nothing; but much of his teaching was taken down with affectionate care by his pupil Flavius Arrianus, the historian of Alexander the Great, and is preserved in two treatises, of the larger of which, called the Discourses of Epictetus (Διατριβαί), four books are still extant. The other treatise is a shorter and more popular work, the Encheiridion (“Handbook”). It contains in an aphoristic form the main doctrines of the longer work.

The philosophy of Epictetus is intensely practical, and exhibits a high idealistic type of morality. He is an earnest, sometimes stern and sometimes pathetic, preacher of righteousness, who despises the mere graces of style and the subtleties of an abstruse logic. He has no patience with mere antiquarian study of the Stoical writers. The problem of how life is to be carried out well is the one question which throws all other inquiries into the shade. True education lies in learning to wish things to be as they actually are; it lies in learning to distinguish what is our own from what does not belong to us. But there is only one thing which is fully our own,—that is, our will or purpose. God, acting as a good king and a true father, has given us a will which cannot be restrained, compelled or thwarted. Nothing external, neither death nor exile nor pain nor any such thing, can ever force us to act against our will; if we are conquered, it is because we have willed to be conquered. And thus, although we are not responsible for the ideas that present themselves to our consciousness, we are absolutely and without any modification responsible for the way in which we use them. Nothing is ours besides our will. The divine law which bids us keep fast what is our own forbids us to make any claim to what is not ours; and while enjoining us to make use of whatever is given to us, it bids us not long after what has not been given. “Two maxims,” he says, “we must ever bear in mind—that apart from the will there is nothing either good or bad, and that we must not try to anticipate or direct events, but merely accept them with intelligence.” We must, in short, resign ourselves to whatever fate and fortune bring to us, believing, as the first article of our creed, that there is a god, whose thought directs the universe, and that not merely in our acts, but even in our thoughts and plans, we cannot escape his eye. In the world the true position of man is that of member of a great system, which comprehends God and men. Each human being is in the first instance a citizen of his own nation or commonwealth; but he is also a member of the great city of gods and men, whereof the city political is only a copy in miniature. All men are the sons of God, and kindred in nature with the divinity. For man, though a member in the system of the world, has also within him a principle which can guide and understand the movement of all the members; he can enter into the method of divine administration, and thus can learn—and it is the acme of his learning—the will of God, which is the will of nature. Man, said the Stoic, is a rational animal; and in virtue of that rationality he is neither less nor worse than the gods, for the magnitude of reason is estimated not by length nor by height but by its judgments. Each man has within him a guardian spirit, a god within him, who never sleeps; so that even in darkness and solitude we are never alone, because God is within, our guardian spirit. The body which accompanies us is not strictly speaking ours; it is a poor dead thing, which belongs to the things outside us. But by reason we are the masters of those ideas and appearances which present themselves from without; we can combine them, and systematize, and can set up in ourselves an order of ideas corresponding with the order of nature.

The natural instinct of animated life, to which man also is originally subject, is self-preservation and self-interest. But men are so ordered and constituted that the individual cannot secure his own interests unless he contribute to the common welfare. We are bound up by the law of nature with the whole fabric of the world. The aim of the philosopher therefore is to reach the position of a mind which embraces the whole world in its view,—to grow into the mind of God and to make the will of nature our own. Such a sage agrees in his thought with God; he no longer blames either God or man; he fails of nothing which he purposes and falls in with no misfortune unprepared; he indulges in neither anger nor envy nor jealousy; he is leaving manhood for godhead, and in his dead body his thoughts are concerned about his fellowship with God.

The historical models to which Epictetus reverts are Diogenes and Socrates. But he frequently describes an ideal character of a missionary sage, the perfect Stoic—or, as he calls him, the Cynic. This missionary has neither country nor home nor land nor slave; his bed is the ground; he is without wife or child; his only mansion is the earth and sky and a shabby cloak. He must suffer stripes, and must love those who beat him as if he were a father or a brother. He must be perfectly unembarrassed in the service of God, not bound by the common ties of life, nor entangled by relationships, which if he transgresses he will lose the character of a man of honour, while if he upholds them he will cease to be the messenger, watchman and herald of the gods. The perfect man thus described will not be angry with the wrong-doer; he will only pity his erring brother; for anger in such a case would only betray that he too thought the wrong-doer gained a substantial blessing by his wrongful act, instead of being, as he is, utterly ruined.

The best editions of the works of Epictetus are by J. Schweighäuser (6 vols., Leipzig, 1799-1800) and H. Schenkl (Leipzig, 1894, 1898). English translations by Elizabeth Carter (London, 1758); G. Long (London, 1848, ed. 1877, 1892, 1897); T.W. Higginson (Boston, 1865, new ed. 1890); of the Encheiridion alone by H. Talbot (London, 1881); T.W.H. Rolleston (London, 1881). See A. Bonhöffer, Epiktet und die Stoa (Stuttgart, 1890) and Die Ethik des Stoikers Epiktet (1894): E.M. Schranka, Der Stoiker Epiktet und seine Philosophie (Frankfort, 1885); T. Zahn, Der Stoiker Epiktet und sein Verhältnis zum Christentum (2nd ed. Erlangen, 1895). See also Stoics and works quoted.

(W. W.; X.)

EPICURUS (342-270 B.C.), Greek philosopher, was born in Samos in the end of 342 or the beginning of 341 B.C., seven years after the death of Plato. His father Neocles, a native of Gargettos, a small village of Attica, had settled in Samos, not later than 352, as one of the cleruchs sent out after the victory of Timotheus in 366-365. At the age of eighteen he went to Athens, where the Platonic school was flourishing under the lead of Xenocrates. A year later, however, Antipater banished some 12,000 of the poorer citizens, and Epicurus joined his father, who was now living at Colophon. It seems possible that he had listened to the lectures of Nausiphanes, a Democritean philosopher, and Pamphilus the Platonist, but he was probably, like his father, merely an ordinary teacher. Stimulated, however, by the perusal of some writings of Democritus, he began to formulate a doctrine of his own; and at Mitylene, Colophon and Lampsacus, he gradually gathered round him several enthusiastic disciples. In 307 he returned to Athens, which had just been restored to a nominal independence by Demetrius Poliorcetes, and there he lived for the rest of his life. The scene of his teaching was a garden which he bought for about £300 (80 minae). There he passed his days as the loved and venerated head of a remarkable, and up to that time unique, society of men and women. Amongst the number were Metrodorus (d. 277), his brother Timocrates, and his wife Leontion (formerly a hetaera), Polyaenus, Hermarchus, who succeeded Epicurus as chief of the school, Leonteus and his wife Themista, and Idomeneus, whose wife was a sister of Metrodorus. It is possible that the relations between the sexes—in this prototype of Rabelais’s Abbey of Thélème—were not entirely what is termed Platonic. But there is on the other hand scarcely a doubt that the tales of licentiousness circulated by opponents are groundless. The stories of the Stoics, who sought to refute the views of Epicurus by an appeal to his alleged antecedents and habits, were no doubt in the main, as Diogenes Laertius says, the stories of maniacs. The general charges, which they endeavoured to substantiate by forged letters, need not count for much, and in many cases they only exaggerated what, if true, was not so heinous as they suggested. Against them trustworthy authorities testified to his general and remarkable considerateness, pointing to the statues which the city had raised in his honour, and to the numbers of his friends, who were many enough to fill whole cities.

The mode of life in his community was plain. The general drink was water and the food barley bread; half a pint of wine was held an ample allowance. “Send me,” says Epicurus to a correspondent, “send me some Cythnian cheese, so that, should I choose, I may fare sumptuously.” There was no community of property, which, as Epicurus said, would imply distrust of their own and others’ good resolutions. The company was held in unity by the charms of his personality, and by the free intercourse which he inculcated and exemplified. Though he seems to have had a warm affection for his countrymen, it was as human beings brought into contact with him, and not as members of a political body, that he preferred to regard them. He never entered public life. His kindliness extended even to his slaves, one of whom, named Mouse, was a brother in philosophy.

Epicurus died of stone in 270 B.C. He left his property, consisting of the garden (Κῆποι Ἐπικούρου), a house in Melite (the south-west quarter of Athens), and apparently some funds besides, to two trustees on behalf of his society, and for the special interest of some youthful members. The garden was set apart for the use of the school; the house became the house of Hermarchus and his fellow-philosophers during his lifetime. The surplus proceeds of the property were further to be applied to maintain a yearly offering in commemoration of his departed father, mother and brothers, to pay the expenses incurred in celebrating his own birthday every year on the 7th of the month Gamelion, and for a social gathering of the sect on the 20th of every month in honour of himself and Metrodorus. Besides similar tributes in honour of his brothers and Polyaenus, he directed the trustees to be guardians of the son of Polyaenus and the son of Metrodorus; whilst the daughter of the last mentioned was to be married by the guardians to some member of the society who should be approved of by Hermarchus. His four slaves, three men and one woman, were left their freedom. His books passed to Hermarchus.

Philosophy.—The Epicurean philosophy is traditionally divided into the three branches of logic, physics and ethics. It is, however, only as a basis of facts and principles for his theory of life that logical and physical inquiries find a place at all. Epicurus himself had not apparently shared in any large or liberal culture, and his influence was certainly thrown on the side of those who depreciated purely scientific pursuits as one-sided and misleading. “Steer clear of all culture” was his advice to a young disciple. In this aversion to a purely or mainly intellectual training may be traced a recoil from the systematic metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle, whose tendency was to subordinate the practical man to the philosopher. Ethics had been based upon logic and metaphysics. But experience showed that systematic knowledge of truth is not synonymous with right action. Hence, in the second place, Plato and Aristotle had assumed a perfect state with laws to guide the individual aright. It was thus comparatively easy to show how the individual could learn to apprehend and embody the moral law in his own conduct. But experience had in the time of Epicurus shown the temporary and artificial character of the civic form of social life. It was necessary, therefore, for Epicurus to go back to nature to find a more enduring and a wider foundation for ethical doctrine, to go back from words to realities, to give up reasonings and get at feelings, to test conceptions and arguments by a final reference to the only touchstone of truth—to sensation. There, and there only, one seems to find a common and a satisfactory ground, supposing always that all men’s feelings give the same answer. Logic must go, but so also must the state, as a specially-privileged and eternal order of things, as anything more than a contrivance serving certain purposes of general utility.

To the Epicureans the elaborate logic of the Stoics was a superfluity. In place of logic we find canonic, the theory of the three tests of truth and reality. (1) The only ultimate canon of reality is sensation; whatever we feel, whatever we perceive by any sense, that we know on the most certain evidence we can have to be real, and in proportion as our feeling is clear, distinct and vivid, in that proportion are we sure of the reality of its object. But in what that vividness (ἐνάργεια) consists is a question which Epicurus does not raise, and which he would no doubt have deemed superfluous quibbling over a matter sufficiently settled by common sense. (2) Besides our sensations, we learn truth and reality by our preconceptions or ideas (προλήψεις). These are the fainter images produced by repeated sensations, the “ideas” resulting from previous “impressions”—sensations at second-hand as it were, which are stored up in memory, and which a general name serves to recall. These bear witness to reality, not because we feel anything now, but because we felt it once; they are sensations registered in language, and again, if need be, translatable into immediate sensations or groups of sensation. (3) Lastly, reality is vouched for by the imaginative apprehensions of the mind (φανταστικαὶ ἐπιβολαί), immediate feelings of which the mind is conscious as produced by some action of its own. This last canon, however, was of dubious validity. Epicureanism generally was content to affirm that whatever we effectively feel in consciousness is real; in which sense they allow reality to the fancies of the insane, the dreams of a sleeper, and those feelings by which we imagine the existence of beings of perfect blessedness and endless life. Similarly, just because fear, hope and remembrance add to the intensity of consciousness, the Epicurean can hold that bodily pain and pleasure is a less durable and important thing than pain and pleasure of mind. Whatever we feel to affect us does affect us, and is therefore real. Error can arise only because we mix up our opinions and suppositions with what we actually feel. The Epicurean canon is a rejection of logic; it sticks fast to the one point that “sensation is sensation,” and there is no more to be made of it. Sensation, it says, is unreasoning (ἄλογος); it must be accepted, and not criticized. Reasoning can come in only to put sensations together, and to point out how they severally contribute to human welfare; it does not make them, and cannot alter them.

Physics.—In the Epicurean physics there are two parts—a general metaphysic and psychology, and a special explanation of particular phenomena of nature. The method of Epicurus is the argument of analogy. It is an attempt to make the phenomena of nature intelligible to us by regarding them as instances on a grand scale of that with which we are already familiar on a small scale. This is what Epicurus calls explaining what we do not see by what we do see.

In physics Epicurus founded upon Democritus, and his chief object was to abolish the dualism between mind and matter which is so essential a point in the systems of Plato and Aristotle. All that exists, says Epicurus, is corporeal (τὸ πᾶν ἐστι σῶμα); the intangible is non-existent, or empty space. If a thing exists it must be felt, and to be felt it must exert resistance. But not all things are intangible which our senses are not subtle enough to detect. We must indeed accept our feelings; but we must also believe much which is not directly testified by sensation, if only it serves to explain phenomena and does not contravene our sensations. The fundamental postulates of Epicureanism are atoms and the void (ἄτομα καὶ κενόν). Space is infinite, and there is an illimitable multitude of indestructible, indivisible and absolutely compact atoms in perpetual motion in this illimitable space. These atoms, differing only in size, figure and weight, are perpetually moving with equal velocities, but at a rate far surpassing our conceptions; as they move, they are for ever giving rise to new worlds; and these worlds are perpetually tending towards dissolution, and towards a fresh series of creations. This universe of ours is only one section out of the innumerable worlds in infinite space; other worlds may present systems very different from that of our own. The soul of man is only a finer species of body, spread throughout the whole aggregation which we term his bodily frame. Like a warm breath, it pervades the human structure and works with it; nor could it act as it does in perception unless it were corporeal. The various processes of sense, notably vision, are explained on the principles of materialism. From the surfaces of all objects there are continually flowing thin filmy images exactly copying the solid body whence they originate; and these images by direct impact on the organism produce (we need not care to ask how) the phenomena of vision. Epicurus in this way explains vision by substituting for the apparent action of a body at a distance a direct contact of image and organ. But without following the explanation into the details in which it revels, it may be enough to say that the whole hypothesis is but an attempt to exclude the occult conception of action at a distance, and substitute a familiar phenomenon.

The Gods.—This aspect of the Epicurean physics becomes clearer when we look at his mode of rendering particular phenomena intelligible. His purpose is to eliminate the common idea of divine interference. That there are gods Epicurus never dreams of denying. But these gods have not on their shoulders the burden of upholding and governing the world. They are themselves the products of the order of nature—a higher species than humanity, but not the rulers of man, neither the makers nor the upholders of the world. Man should worship them, but his worship is the reverence due to the ideals of perfect blessedness; it ought not to be inspired either by hope or by fear. To prevent all reference of the more potent phenomena of nature to divine action Epicurus rationalizes the processes of the cosmos. He imagines all possible plans or hypotheses, not actually contradicted by our experience of familiar events, which will represent in an intelligible way the processes of astronomy and meteorology. When two or more modes of accounting for a phenomena are equally admissible as not directly contradicted by known phenomena, it seems to Epicurus almost a return to the old mythological habit of mind when a savant asserts that the real cause is one and only one. “Thunder,” he says, “may be explained in many other ways; only let us have no myths of divine action. To assign only a single cause for these phenomena, when the facts familiar to us suggest several, is insane, and is just the absurd conduct to be expected from people who dabble in the vanities of astronomy.” We need not be too curious to inquire how these celestial phenomena actually do come about; we can learn how they might have been produced, and to go further is to trench on ground beyond the limits of human knowledge.

Thus, if Epicurus objects to the doctrine of mythology, he objects no less to the doctrine of an inevitable fate, a necessary order of things unchangeable and supreme over the human will. The Stoic doctrine of Fatalism seemed to Epicurus no less deadly a foe of man’s true welfare than popular superstition. Even in the movement of the atoms he introduces a sudden change of direction, which is supposed to render their aggregation easier, and to break the even law of destiny. So, in the sphere of human action, Epicurus would allow of no absolutely controlling necessity. In fact, it is only when we assume for man this independence of the gods and of fatality that the Epicurean theory of life becomes possible. It assumes that man can, like the gods, withdraw himself out of reach of all external influences, and thus, as a sage, “live like a god among men, seeing that the man is in no wise like a mortal creature who lives in undying blessedness.” And this present life is the only one. With one consent Epicureanism preaches that the death of the body is the end of everything for man, and hence the other world has lost all its terrors as well as all its hopes.

The attitude of Epicurus in this whole matter is antagonistic to science. The idea of a systematic enchainment of phenomena, in which each is conditioned by every other, and none can be taken in isolation and explained apart from the rest, was foreign to his mind. So little was the scientific conception of the solar system familiar to Epicurus that he could reproach the astronomers, because their account of an eclipse represented things otherwise than as they appear to the senses, and could declare that the sun and stars were just as large as they seemed to us.