Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

the guidance of the ancient mystical poet Orpheus, dedicated themselves to the worship of Bacchus, in which they hoped to find the gratification of an ardent longing after the soothing and elevating influences of religion. The Bacchus, to whose worship these Orphic rites (τὰ Ὀρφικὰ καλεόμενα καὶ Βακχικά, Herod., 2, 81) were annexed, was the Chthonian deity, Bacchus or Dionysus Zagreus, closely connected with Ceres and Proserpina, and who was the personified expression, not only of the most rapturous pleasure, but also of a deep sorrow for the miseries of human life. The Orphic legends and poems related in great part to this same Bacchus, who was combined, as an infernal deity, with Pluto or Hades (a doctrine given by the philosoand upon whom the Orphic theologers founded their hopes of the purification and ultimate immortality of the soul. But their mode of celebrating this worship was very different from the popular rites of Bacchus. The Orphic worshippers of Bacchus did not indulge in unrestrained pleasure and frantic enthusiasm, but rather aimed at an ascetic purity of life and manners. The followers of Orpheus, when they had tasted the mystic sacrificial feast of raw flesh torn from the ox of Bacchus (uopayia), partook of no other animal food. They wore also white linen garments, like Oriental and Egyptian priests. (Müller, Hist. Lit. Gr., p. 231, seqq.)-Of the Orphic writers, the most celebrated are, Onomacritus, who lived under Pisistratus and his sons, and Cercops, a Pythagorean, who

name of Aristaus connected, in a greater or less degree, with the rites and mysteries of Bacchus. Thus, Diodorus Siculus (3, 39) cites a legend, in which Aristaus is mentioned as the instructer or governor of the young Bacchus. From the same source (3, 71) we are informed, that Aristaus was the first who sacrificed to Bacchus as to a god. Nonnus represents him as one of the principal leaders in the expedition of Bacchus against India; and in Greece his history is connected with that of the time of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, the birthplace of Bacchus in Grecian mythology. (Nonni Dionys., 5, p. 153, ed. 1605, 8vo.) From a view of these and other authorities, it would seem that there had been some union effected between the religious worship of Aristæus and Bac-pher Heraclitus as the opinion of a particular sect), chus. Regarding this latter deity as emblematic of the great productive principle, which imparts its animating and fertilizing influence to everything around, it is not difficult to conceive how a union should have taken place between this system and that of Aristæus, the god of agriculture and of the flocks. Now the religious system introduced by Orpheus, though itself connected with the worship of Bacchus, was very different from the popular rites of this same deity. The Orphic worshippers of Bacchus did not indulge in unrestrained pleasure and frantic enthusiasm, but rather aimed at an ascetic purity of life and manners. The consequence, therefore, would seem to have been, that these two systems, the Orphic and the popular one, came at last into direct collision, and the former was made to succumb. In the figurative lan-lived about B.C. 504. Works ascribed to Orpheus guage of poetry, Aristaus (the type of the popular system) pursues Eurydice (Eupv-dikn, the darling institutions of Orpheus), and the venom of the serpent (the gross license connected with the popular orgies) occasions her death. Orpheus, say the poets, lamenting the loss of his beloved Eurydice, descended in quest of her to the shades. The meaning of the legend evidently is, that, afflicted at the overthrow of the favourite system which he had so ardently promulgated, and the corruption which had succeeded to his purer precepts of moral duty, he endeavoured to reclaim men from the sensual indulgences to which they had become attached, by holding up to their view the terrors of future punishment in another world. Indeed, that he was the first who introduced among the Greeks the idea of a future state of rewards and punishments, is expressly asserted by ancient authorities. (Diod. Sic., 1, 96.-Wesseling, ad Diod., l. c.-Banier's Mythology, vol. 4, p. 159.) The awful threatenings that were thus unfolded to their view, and the blissful enjoyments of an Elysium which were at the same time promised to the faithful, succeeded for a time in bringing back men to the purer path of moral rectitude, and to a fairer and brighter state of things; but either the impatience of their instructer to see his efforts realized, or some act of heedlessness and inattention on his part, frustrated all his hopes, and mankind relapsed once more into moral darkness. In the fanciful phraseology of the poet, the doctrine of a future state of punishment, as taught by Orpheus, was converted into his descent to the shades. His endeavour to re-establish by these means the moral system which he had originally promulgated, became, to the eye of the earlier bard, an impassioned search, even amid the darkness of the lower world, for the lost object of conjugal affection; and by the tones of the lyre, which bent even Pluto and Proserpina to his will, appear to be indicated those sweet and moving accents of moral harmony, in which were described the joys of Elysium, and whose power would be acknowledged even by those whom the terrors of punishment could not intimidate. ORPHICA, certain works falsely ascribed to Orpheus, which imbodied the opinions of a class of persons termed 'Oppikoί. These were the followers of Orpheus, that is to say, associations of persons who, under

were extant at a very early period. Plato mentions
several kinds of Orphic poems; but he intimates that
they are not genuine. Aristotle speaks of them as
the so-called (rù kahovμɛva) Orphic poerns. In later
times, all manner of works on mysteries and religion
were ascribed to him. There are also Orphic poems
later than the Christian era, which are difficult to be
distinguished from those of earlier times.-The wri-
tings ascribed to Orpheus, and which have reached our
times, are as follows: 1. Hymns ('Yuvoi), eighty-eight
in number. They are in hexameter verse, and were
most of them, as is thought, composed by Onomacri-
tus.-2
5.-2. An historical or epic poem on the Expedition
of the Argonauts ('Apуovavriká), in 1384 verses, prob-
ably by Onomacritus; at least, by some one not earlier
than Homer.-3. A work on the Magical Virtues of
Stones (Epì Aílwv, or Aíðiká), in 768 hexameters,
showing how they may be used as preservatives against
poisons, and as a means of conciliating the favour of
the gods.-4. Fragments of various other works;
among which is placed a poem of 66 verses, entitled
Tepi Letoμav, concerning Earthquakes, that is, of the
prognostics to be derived from this species of phenom-
ena; a production sometimes ascribed to the fabulous
Hermes Trismegistus. Many other fragments of the
Orphic poems, some in a metrical form, others con-
verted into prose, and scattered throughout the com-
mentary of Proclus on the Cratylus of Plato, were col-
lected from the Munich MSS. by Werfer, and inserted
in the Philological Transactions of Munich. (Acta
Philologorum Monacensium, vol. 2, p. 113, seqq.) —
Other writings, also ascribed to Orpheus, but which
have not come down to us, except it be a few scat-
tered fragments of some of them, are the following:
1. Sacred Legends ('Iɛpoì hóyoi), a complete system
of Orphic theology, in twenty-four books. It was as-
cribed by some to Cercops and Diognetus, but was
probably the production of several authors.-2. Proph
ecies (Xpnouoí).—3. Вакxiká, probably stories relative
to Bacchus and his mysteries. They were attributed
by some to Arignotes, a pupil or daughter of Pythag
oras.-4. The descent to Hades ('H èç Aldov Karába
ois), a poem of great antiquity, ascribed, among oth-
ers, to Cercops.-5. Religious Rites or Mysteries
(Teheraí), directions for worshipping and appeasing

the gods; probably by Onomacritus.-As late as the-Huschke, de Orphei Argonaut., Rost., 1806, 4to.17th century, no one doubted but that the different Königsmann, Prolus. Crit., 1810, 4to.)-The authorworks which bear the name of Orpheus, or, at least, the ity of the grammarian Draco, who cites the Argonautgreater part of them, were either the productions of ics of Orpheus, having been strongly urged by KöOrpheus himself, or of Onomacritus, who was regard-nigsmann against Hermann, the latter obtained the ed as the restorer of these ancient poems. The learn- work of Draco, which until then had remained uneded Huet was the first who, believing that he had dis-ited, from the celebrated Bast, and published it at covered in them traces of Christianity, expressed the Leipsic in 1812. Draco does, in fact, cite the Argosuspicion that they might be the work of some pious nautics, and his authority is the more entitled to attenimpostor. In 1751, when Ruhnken published his sec- tion, since Hermann himself has shown that he lived ond critical letter, he attacked the opinion of Huet, before the time of Apollonius Dyscolus, and, conseand placed the composition of the works in question quently, at the beginning of the second century; in the tenth century before the Christian era. Gesner whereas, before this, he had been generally assigned went still farther, and in his Prolegomena Orphica, to the sixth century. (Compare Tiedemann, Griewhich were read in 1759 at the University of Göttin-chenlands erste Philosophen, Leipz., 1780, 8vo. — gen, and subsequently placed in Hamberger's edition of Orpheus, published after Gesner's death, he declared that he had found nothing in these poems which prevented the belief that they were composed before the period of the Trojan war. He allowed, however, at the same time, that they might have been retouched by Onomacritus. Gesner found an opponent in the celebrated Valckenaer, who believed the author of the poems in question to have belonged to the Alexandrean school. (Valck., ad Herod., ed Wesseling.) In 1777, Schneider revived and developed the theory of Huet. (Schneider, de dubia Carm. Orphic. auctoritate et vetustate. — Analect. Crit., fasc. 1.) The same poems, in which Ruhnken had found a diction almost Homeric, and Gesner the simple style of remote antiquity, appeared, to the German professor, the work of a later Platonist, initiated into the tenets of Judaism and the mysteries of Christianity. His arguments, deduced entirely from the style of these productions, were strengthened by Thunmann (Neue philolog. Bib-time of the Homeric poems, which he assigns to the liothek, vol. 4, p. 298), who discovered in these poems 10th century.-The best edition of the Orphica is that historical and geographical errors such as could only of Hermann, Lips., 1805, 8vo. The edition of Geshave been committed by a writer subsequent to the ner is also a valuable one, Lips., 1764, 8vo. Schäfage of Ptolemy Euergetes. And yet it is singular fer published likewise a new edition of the Greek text enough, that Mannert, arguing from the acquaintance in 1818, 12maj., for the use of prælections and schools with geographical terms displayed by the author of (Hoffmann, Lex. Bibliog., vol. 3, p. 186.) The Orthese poems, places him between Herodotus and Pyth-phic fragments are given by Lobeck in his Aglaophaias. (Geogr., vol. 4, p. 67.) In 1782 Ruhnken pub- mus, Regiom., 1829, 8vo.)

Gerlach, de Hymnis Orphicis Commentatio, Gött.,
1797, 8vo.) Hermann, however, has greatly shaken
the authority of Draco, and leads us to entertain the
opinion that we possess only an extract of the work,
augmented by interpolations and marginal glosses that
have crept into the text. (Schöll, Hist. Lit. Gr., vol.
1, p. 38, seqq.) It is even probable that the very part
relating to Orpheus was added by Constantine Lasca-
ris.-In 1824, a prize dissertation appeared by another
German scholar, Bode. (Orpheus Poetarum Græco-
rum Antiquissimus, Gött., 4to) Assuming the spu-
riousness of the Orphic poems, the author aims only
to establish the country, age, and character of the
poet; and of him, not as one historical personage, but
only as the representative of a primeval school of
bards. By a learned and ingenious train of argument,
he fixes the period of the commencement of the Orphic
school about the 13th century before the commence-
ment of the Christian era, making it earlier than the

amastigosis (Aiquaoríywotc). The young sufferers were called Bomonicæ. (Vid. Bomonicæ, and Diana.)

ORTHOS, the dog that guarded the oxen of Geryon. He had two heads, and was sprung from the union of Echidna and Typhon. (Apollod., 2, 5.)

ORTOSPEDA OF OROSPEDA MONS (Ptolemy giving it the former name, and Strabo the latter), a chain of mountains in Spain; properly speaking, a continuation of the range of Idubeda. One part terminates, in the form of a segment of a circle, on the coast of Murcia and Grenada, while two arms are sent off in the direction of Bætica, one of which pursues nearly a western direction, and is called Mons Marianus, now Sierra Morena; the other runs more to the south

lished a new edition of his critical letter, in which he ORTHĨA, a surname of Diana at Sparta. At her alendeavoured to refute the opinion of Schneider, altar boys were scourged during the festival called Dilowing, at the same time, that the position assumed by Valckenaer was not an improbable one. The discussion rested here for twenty years, when Schneider, in his edition of the Argonautics published in 1803, defended the theory which he had supported in his younger days, adding, at the same time, however, some modifications; for he allowed that the author of the Argonautics, although comparatively modern, had appropriated to himself the style and manner of the Alexandrean school. Two years after, Hermann, in a memoir annexed to his edition of the Orphica, and subsequently in a separate dissertation, supported with rare erudition the opinion of Huet, and that which Schneider had advanced in 1777. After giving a brief account of the state of the controversy, Hermann pro-west, nearer the coast, and is called Mons Ilipula, now ceeds to examine the structure of the Orphic verse. He first indicates the progressive modification of the hexameter verse, through the series of the epic and ORTYGIA, I. a spot near the port of Ephesus, thickly didactic hexameter writers, pointing out the gradual planted with cypresses and other trees, and watered changes which it underwent from the time of Homer by the little river Cenchrius. Latona was said by till it was wholly remodelled by Nonnus. He detects, some to have been delivered here of her twins. The in the hexameters of the Orphic poems, those peculiar- grove was filled with shrines, and adorned with statues ities which show, as he thinks, that their author must by the hand of Scopas and other eminent sculptors. have lived in the fourth century of the Christian era, (Strab., 639.) According to Chandler (Travels in just before the hexameter verse received its last con- Asia Minor, p. 176), this part of the coast has undersiderable modification under the hands of Nonnus. gone considerable alterations. Ortygia has disappear(Vid. Nonnus.) Five German critics, Heyne, Voss, ed, the land having encroached on the sea. (CraWolf, Huschke, and Königsmann, opposed the hypoth-mer's Asia Minor, vol. 1, p. 376.)-II. An island in esis of Schneider and Hermann, and declared in favour the bay of Syracuse, forming one of the five quarters of Valckenaer's theory. (Voss, Dedic. der übersetz. of that city. The colonists under Archias first setdes Hesiodus. Id., Recens. Jen. L. Z., 1805, n. 138. tled here, and afterward extended to Acradina on the

Sierra Nevada, ending on the coast at Calpe or Gibraltar. (Mannert, Geogr., vol. 1, p. 406.)

mainland of Sicily. Ortygia was famed for containing | originally a branch of the same stock as the Opici or the celebrated fount of Arethusa. The earliest men- Osci. Micali considers the Sabini, Apuli, Messapii, tion of this island is found in Hesiod (Theog., 1013). On it is now situate the greater part of modern Syracuse. (Göller, de Situ et Orig. Syracus., p. 39, seq.) -III. One of the early names of the island of Delos. (Vid. Delos.)

ORUS, an Egyptian deity, son of Osiris and Isis. (Vid. Horus.)

OSCA, a town of Hispania Bætica, in the territory of the Turdetani. According to Mannert, it corre-adopted the expression in the same sense: “ Oscè losponds to the modern Huesca, in Aragon. (Geogr., vol. 1, p. 410.) Ukert, however, places its site to the west of the city. It was in Osca that Sertorius collected together, from the various nations of Spain, the children of the nobility, and placed masters over them to instruct them in Greek and Roman literature. Plutarch states, that this had the appearance only of an education, to prepare them for being admitted citizens of Rome; but that the children were, in fact, so many hostages. (Vit. Sertor.)

Campani, Aurunci, and Volsci, as all branches of the great Oscan family.-The Greeks, being superior to the native tribes in refinement and mental cultivation, affected to despise them, and they applied to the native Italian tribes, including the Romans, the epithet "Opican," as a word of contempt, to denote barbarism both in language and manners (Cato, ap. Plin., 29, 1); and the later Roman writers themselves qui" was tantamount to a barbarous way of speaking. Juvenal says (3, 207), " Et divina Opici rodebant carmina mures," where Opici is equivalent to "barbari ;" and Ausonius (Prof., 22, 3) uses " Opicas chartas" in the sense of rude, unpolished compositions. The Oscan language was the parent of the dialects of the native tribes from the Tiber to the extremity of the peninsula, Sabini, Hernici, Marsi, Samnites, Sidicini, Lucani, and Bruttii, while in the regions north of the Tiber the Etrurian predominated. Livy (10, 20) Osci or Opici, a people of ancient Italy, who seem mentions the Oscan as being the language of the Samto have been identical with the Ausones or Aurunci, nites. The older Latin writers, and especially Enand who inhabited the southern part of the peninsula. nius, have many Oscan words and Oscan terminations. Some ancient writers consider the Ausones to be a The Oscan language continued to be understood at branch of the Osci; others, as Polybius, have spoken Rome down to a later period of the empire, and the of them as distinct tribes, but this appears to be an Fabula Atellana, which were in the Oscan tongue, error. The names Opicus and Oscus are undoubtedly were highly relished by the great body of the people, the same. Aristotle (Polit., 7, 10) calls the country In the Social war, the Confederates, who were chiefly from the Tiber to the Silarus, Ausonia and Opicia; communities of Oscan descent, stamped Oscan legends and other ancient writers extended the name much on their coins. In Campania and Samnium, the Osfarther, to the Straits of Sicily; but the southern ex- can continued to be the vulgar tongue long after the tremity of the peninsula appears to have been occu- Roman conquest, as appears from several monuments, pied previously by the Enotrians, a Pelasgic race, and especially from the Oscan inscriptions found at who were conquered by the Lucanians and Bruttii. Pompeii. (Micali, Storia degli Antichi Popoli ItaliCuma, one of the earliest Greek colonies on the coast ani, ch. 29.-Id., Atlas, pl. 120. De Iorio, Plan of of Italy, was in the country of the Opici. The early Pompeii, pl. 4.)-The Oscan race, like the Etruscan, immigrations of the Illyrians or Liburnians along the appears to have been, from the remotest times, strongeastern coast of Italy, drove the aboriginal inhabitants ly under the influence of religious rites and laws (Fesfrom the lowlands into the fastnesses of the central tus, s. v. Oscum); and the primitive manners and simApennines, whence they issued under the various ple morals of the Oscan and Sabine tribes, as well as names of Sabini, Casci, or Latini veteres. There their bravery in arms, have been extolled by the Rowas an ancient tradition in Italy, in the time of the man writers, among others by Virgil (En., 7, 728, historian Dionysius, of a sudden irruption of strangers seqq.) and Silius Italicus (8. 526, seqq.).-Concernfrom the opposite coast of the Adriatic, which caused ing the scanty remains of the Oscan language which a general commotion and dispersion among the abo- have come down to us, the following may be consultriginal tribes. Afterward came the Hellenic colonies, ed: " Lingua Osca Specimen Singulare, quod suwhich occupied the whole seacoast from Mount Gar-perest Nola, in marmore Musai Seminarii," which is ganus to the extremity of the peninsula, in the first and second centuries of Rome; in consequence of which, the population of the southern part of the Italian peninsula became divided into two races, the tribes of Aboriginal or Oscan descent, such as the Sabini, Samnites, Lucani, and Bruttii, who remained in possession of the highlands, and the Greek colonists and their descendants, who occupied the maritime districts, but never gained possession of the upper or Apennine regions. Such is the view taken by Micali and other Italian writers. But Niebuhr describes the Sabini, and their colonies the Samnites, Lucani, and other tribes, which the Roman writers called by the general name of Sabellians, as a people distinct from the Osci or Opici. He says, after Cato and other ancient historians, that the Sabini issued out of the highlands of the central Apennines, near Amiternum, long before the epoch of the Trojan war, and, driving before them the Cascans or Prisci Latini, who were an Oscan tribe, settled themselves in the country which has to this day retained the name of Sabina. Thence they sent out numerous colonies, one of which penetrated into the land of the Opicans, and became the Samnite people; and afterward the Samnites occupied Campania, and, mixing themselves with the earlier Oscan population, settled there and adopted their language. But, farther on, in speaking of the Sabini and Sabellians, Niebuhr admits the probability of their being

[ocr errors]

given by Passeri in his "Picture Etruscorum in Vasculis," &c., Rome, 3 vols. fol., 1767-75; and also Guarini, in his In Osca Epigrammata nonnulla Commentarius," Naples, 1830, 8vo, where several Oscan inscriptions are found collected; but particu larly the learned work of Grotefend, "Rudimenta Lingua Oscæ," Hannov., 1840. Another work of the last-mentioned writer, entitled Rudimenta Lingua Umbrica," Hannov., 1835, &c., is also worthy of being consulted. Grotefend makes both the Oscan and the Latin come from the Umbrian language. (Encycl. Us. Knowl., vol. 17. p. 47.-Niebuhr, Rom. Hist., vol. 1, p. 55, Cambr. transl.)

[ocr errors]

OSIRIS, one of the principal Egyptian deities, was brother of Isis, and the father of Horus. His history is given in the first book of Diodorus, and in Plutarch's treatise "On Isis and Osiris;" but it is not improbable that the genuine Egyptian traditions respecting the deity had been considerably corrupted at the time of these writers. According to their accounts, however, Osiris was the first who reclaimed the Egyptians from a state of barbarism, and taught them agriculture and the various arts and sciences. After he had introduced civilization among his own subjects, he resolved to visit the other nations of the world and confer on them the same blessing. He accordingly committed the administration of his kingdom to Isis, his sister and queen, and gave her Hermes to assist her

in council, and Hercules to command her troops. | few vestiges remain of its ancient greatness. All hisHaving collected a large army himself, he visited in torians agree in ascribing the foundation of Ostia to Ansuccession Ethiopia, Arabia, and India, and thence cus Marcius. (Liv., 1, 33.-Dion. Hal., 3, 44.--Flor., marched through Central Asia into Europe, instruct- 1, 4.) That it was a Roman colony we learn from ing the nations in agriculture, and in the arts and sci- Florus (l. c.-Compare Senec., 1, 15.-Tacit., Hist., ences. He left his son Macedon in Thrace and Ma- 1, 80). When the Romans began to have ships of cedonia, and committed the cultivation of the land of war, Ostia became a place of greater importance, and a Attica to Triptolemus. After visiting all parts of the fleet was constantly stationed there to guard the mouth inhabited world, he returned to Egypt, where he was of the Tiber. (Liv., 22, 11 et 27.—Id., 23, 38.—Id., murdered soon after his arrival by his brother Typhon, 27, 22.) It was here that the statue of Cybele was who cut up his body into twenty-six parts, and divided received with due solemnity by Scipio Nasica, when it among the conspirators who had aided him in the the public voice had selected him for that duty, as the murder of his brother. These parts were afterward, best citizen of Rome. (Livy, 29, 14.- Herodian, with one exception, discovered by Isis, who enclosed 1, 11, 10.) In the civil wars, Ostia fell into the hands each of them in a statue of wax, made to resemble of Marius, and was treated with savage cruelty. (Liv., Osiris, and distributed them through different parts of Epit., 79.) Cicero, in one of his orations, alludes Egypt. Other forms of the legend may be found in with indignation to the capture of the fleet stationed Creuzer's elaborate work (Symbolik, vol. 1, p. 259, at Ostia by some pirates. (Pro. L. Manil.) The seqq.-Symbolik, par Guigniaut, vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 389, town and colony of Ostia were distant only thirteen seqq.) For some remarks explanatory of it, consult miles from Rome, but the port itself, according to the the article Isis.—Herodotus informs us (2, 48), that Itineraries, was at the mouth of the Tiber; unless it the festival of Osiris was celebrated in almost the be thought with Vulpius, that the town and harbour, same manner as that of Bacchus. It appears, howev- with all their dependencies, might occupy an extent er, not improbable, that the worship of Osiris was in- of three miles along the river. (Vet. Lat., 2, 1, p. troduced into Egypt, in common with the arts and sci- 136.) There is some difficulty, however, in ascerences, from the Ethiopian Meroë. We learn from taining the exact situation of the harbour, from the Herodotus (2, 29), that Ammon and Osiris were the change which appears to have taken place in the national deities of Meroë, and we are told by Diodorus mouth of the river during the lapse of so many ages. (3, 3) that Osiris led a colony from Ethiopia into Even the number of its channels is a disputed point. Egypt.-Osiris was venerated under the form of the Ovid seems to point out two (Fast., 4, 291.—Ibid., sacred bulls Apis and Mnevis (Diod. Sic., 1, 21); and 4, 329), but Dionysius Periegetes positively states as it is usual in the Egyptian symbolical language to that there was but one. The difference, however, represent their deities with human forms, and with may be reconciled by supposing that, in the geogthe heads of the animals which were their representa- rapher's time, the right branch of the river might tives, we find statues of Osiris with the horns of a alone be used for the purposes of navigation, and that bull. (Egyptian Antiquities, vol. 2, p. 295.) Osiris, the other stream was too insignificant and shallow for in common with Isis, presided over the world below; the reception of ships of any size. The two streams and it is not uncommon to find him represented on still exist; the left is called Fiumaro, the right, on rolls of papyrus, as sitting in judgment on departed which the Portus Augusti was situate, is known by spirits. His usual attributes are the high cap, the the name of Fiumecino.-According to Plutarch, Juflail or whip, and the crosier. (Encycl. Us. Knowl., lius Cæsar was the first who turned his attention to vol. 17, p. 49.-Cory, Horapollo Nilous, p. 164, pl. 2.) the construction of a port at Ostia, by raising there a OSISMII, a people of Gallia Lugdunensis Tertia, on mole and other works; but it was to the Emperor the coast of the Mare Britannicum, and at the south- Claudius that this harbour seems indebted for all the western extremity of the Tractus Armoricus. Their magnificence ascribed to it by antiquity. Suetonius, country, according to some, answers to the modern in his life of that prince, has given us a detailed acLéon and Tréguier; but, according to D'Anville, count of the formation of this harbour with its pharos their chief city was Vorgannum, now Karhez, in Basse (c. 20.-Compare Dio Cass., 60, 11.-Plin., 36, 9. Bretagne. (Cæs., B. G., 2, 34.-Id. ib., 3, 9, &c.Lemaire, Ind. Geogr., ad. Cas., s. v.)

-Id., 36, 15 et 40). It is generally supposed that Trajan subsequently improved and beautified the port OSRHOENE, a district of Mesopotamia, in the north- of Ostia; but the only authority for such a supposition western section of the country. (Vid. Mesopotamia.) is derived from the scholiast on Juvenal, in his comOSSA, I. a celebrated mountain, or, more correctly, mentary on the passage where that poet describes the mountain-range of Thessaly, extending from the right entrance of Catullus into this haven (12, 75). It is bank of the Peneus along the Magnesian coast to the not improbable, however, that the scholiast might conchain of Pelion. It was supposed that Ossa and found the harbour of Ostia with that of Centum Cellæ. Olympus were once united, but that an earthquake-In process of time, a considerable town was formed had rent them asunder (Herod., 7, 132.-Ælian, V. around the harbour of Ostia, which was itself called H., 3, 1), forming the vale of Tempe. (Vid. Tempe.) Portus Augusti, or simply Portus; and a road was Ossa was one of the mountains which the giants, in constructed thence to the capital, which took the name their war with the gods, piled upon Olympus in order of Via Portuensis. Ostia, as has been remarked, atto ascend to the heavens. (Hom., Od., 11, 312, seqq. tained the summit of its prosperity and importance -Virg., Georg., 1, 282.) The modern name is Kis-under Claudius, who always testified a peculiar regard sovo, or, according to Dodwell, Kissabos (Kissavos). for this colony. It seems to have flourished likewise "Mount Ossa," observes Dodwell, "which does not under Vespasian, and even as late as the reign of Traappear so high as Pelion, is much lower than Olympus.jan; for Pliny the younger informs us, when descriIt rises gradually to a point, which appears about 5000 feet above the level of the plain; but I speak only from conjecture." (Tour, vol. 2, p. 106.-Cramer's Anc. Greece, vol. 1, p. 422.)-II. A small town of Macedonia, in the territory of Bisaltia, and situate on ́a river (probably the Basaltes) falling into the Stry

mon.

OSTIA, a celebrated town and harbour, at the mouth of the river Tiber, in Italy. It was the port of Rome, and its name even now continues unchanged, though

bing his Laurentine villa, that he derived most of his household supplies from Ostia. In the time of Procopius, however, this city was nearly deserted, all its commerce and population having been transported to the neighbouring Portus Augusti. The same writer gives a full account of the trade and navigation of the Tiber at this period; from him we learn, that the island which was formed by the separation of the two branches of that river was called Sacra. (Rer. Got., 1.—— Compare Rutil., Itin., 1, 169.) The salt marshes form.

[ocr errors]

connected with that of Theodoric, who established his dynasty over Italy, which is generally styled the reign of the Goths in that country. (Encycl. Us. Knowl., vol. 17, p. 55.)

OSYMANDYAS, a king of Egypt, the same with Ameproph or Phamenoph. (Vid. Memnon, and Memno nium.) Jablonski makes Osymanydas equivalent in meaning to "dans vocem," voice-emitting. (Voc. Egypt., p. 29, p. 97.-Compare Creuzer, Symbolik, par Guigniaut, vol. 1, p. 482.)

ed by Ancus Marcius, at the first foundation of Ostia | appears, with the consent of Zeno himself, who wish(Liv., 1, 33), still subsist near the site now called ed to remove the Ostrogoths from his territories. Casone del Sale. (Cramer's Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p. Theodoric defeated Odoacer in various battles, took 11, seqq.)"Nothing," observes a modern traveller, him prisoner, and some time after put him to death. can be more dreary than the ride from Rome to Upon this event, Theodoric sent an ambassador to this once magnificent seaport. You issue out of the Anastasius, the emperor of Constantinople, who transPorta San Paola, and proceed through a continued mitted to him, in return, the purple vest, and acknowlscene of dismal and heart-sinking desolation; no edged him as King of Italy. It appears that both fields, no dwellings, no trees, no landmarks, no marks Theodoric and his predecessor Odoacer acknowledged, of cultivation, except a few scanty patches of corn, nominally at least, the supremacy of the Eastern emthinly scattered over the waste; and huts, like wig-peror. The rest of the history of the Ostrogoths is wams, to shelter the wretched and half-starved people that are doomed to live on this field of death. The Tiber, rolling turbidly along in its solitary course, seems sullenly to behold the altered scenes that have withered around him. A few miles from Ostia we entered upon a wilderness indeed. A dreary swamp extended all around, intermingled with thickets, through which roamed wild buffaloes, the only inhabitants of the waste. A considerable part of the way was upon the ancient pavement of the Via Ostiensis, in some places in good preservation, in others broken up and destroyed. When this failed us, the road was execrable. The modern fortifications of Ostia appeared before us long before we reached them. At length we entered its gate, guarded by no sentinel; on its bastions appeared no soldier; no children ran from its houses to gaze at the rare splendour of a carriage; no passenger was seen in the grass-grown street. It presented the strange spectacle of a town without inhabitants. After some beating and hallooing, on the part of the coachman and lackey, at the shut-up door of one of the houses, a woman, unclosing the shutter of an upper window, presented her ghastly face; and, having first carefully reconnoitred us, slowly and reluctantly admitted us into her wretched hovel. Where are all the people of the town?' we inquired. 'Dead,' was the brief reply. The fever of the malaria annually carries off almost all whom necessity confines to this pestilential region. But this was the month of April, the season of comparative health, and we learned, on more strict inquiry, that the population of Ostia, at present, nominally consisted of twelve men, four women, no children, and two priests.-The ruins of old Ostia are farther in the wilderness. The sea is now two miles, or nearly, from the ancient port. The cause of this, in a great measure, seems to be, that the extreme flatness of the land does not allow the Tiber to carry off the immense quantity of earth and mud its turbid waters bring down; and the more that is deposited, the more sluggishly it flows, and thus the shore rises, the sea recedes, and the marshes extend. The marshy insula sacra, in the middle of the river, is now inhabited by wild buffaloes. We had intended to cross to the sacred island, and from thence to the village of Fiumecino, on the other side, where there are said to be still some noble remains of ancient Porto, particularly of the mole, but a sudden storm prevented us." (Rome in the Nineteenth Century, vol. 2, p. 449.)

OSTORIUS SCAPULA, a governor of Britain in the reign of Claudius, who defeated and took prisoner the famous Caractacus. He died A.D. 55. (Tacit., Ann., 12, 36.)

OSTROGOTHÆ, Or Eastern Goths, a division of the great Gothic nation, who settled in Pannonia in the fifth century of our era, whence they extended their dominion over Noricum, Rhætia, and Illyricum. About 482 or 483 A.D., their king Theodoric was serving as an auxiliary under the Emperor Zeno, and distinguished himself in Syria. On his return to Constantinople, Theodoric, according to the statement of the historian Evagrius, fearing Zeno's jealousy of his success, retired into Pannonia in 487, where he collected an army, and in the following year marched into Italy, with all his tribe, men, women, and children, and, as

OTHO, I. MARCUS SALVIUS, was born A.D. 31 or 32. He was descended of an honourable family, which originally came from Ferentinum, and which traced its origin to the Lucumones of Etruria. His grandfather, who belonged to the equestrian order, was made a senator through the influence of Livia Augusta, but did not rise higher in office than the prætorship. His father, Lucius Otho, was advanced to offices of great honour and trust by the Emperor Tiberius, whom he is said to have resembled so closely in person as to have been frequently taken for a near relation. Marcus Otho was an intimate friend of Nero during the early years of his reign, and his associate in his excesses and debaucheries; but Nero's love for Poppæa, whom Otho had seduced from her husband, and to whom he was greatly attached, produced a coolness between them, and this rivalry for the affections of an unprincipled woman would soon have terminated in the ruin of Otho, had not Seneca procured for the latter the government of Lusitania, to which he was sent as into a kind of honourable exile. In this province, which he governed, according to Suetonius (Vit. Othonis, 3), with great justice, he remained for ten years; and afterward took an active part in opposition to Nero, and in placing Galba on the throne, A.D. 68. Otho appears to have expected, as the reward of his services, that he would be declared his successor; but when Galba proceeded to adopt Piso Licinianus, Otho formed a conspiracy among the guards, who proclaimed him emperor, and put Galba to death after a reign of only seven months. Otho commenced his reign by ingratiating himself with the soldiery, whom Galba had unwisely neglected to conciliate. He yielded to the wishes of the people in putting to death Tigellius, who had been the chief minister of Nero's pleasures, and he acquired considerable popularity by his wise and judicious administration. He was, however, scarcely seated upon the throne, before he was called upon to oppose Vitellius, who had been proclaimed emperor by the legions in Germany a few days before the death of Galba. Vitellius, who was of an indolent disposition, sent forward Cæcina, one of his generals, to secure the passes of the Alps, while he himself remained in his camp upon the Rhine. Otho quickly collected a large army and marched against Cacina, while he sent his fleet to reduce to obedience Liguria and Gallia Narbonensis. (Compare Tacitus, Agric., c. 7.) At first Otho was completely successful. Liguria and Gallia Narbonensis submitted to his authority, while Cecina was repulsed with considera. ble loss in an attack upon Placentia. Cæcina encountered subsequently a second check. But, shortly after, Otho's army was completely defeated by the troops of Vitellius, in a hard-fought battle near Bebriacum, a village on the Po, southwest of Mantua. Otho, who

« PoprzedniaDalej »