VOLUME VIII SLICE X Echinoderma to Edward (continued 6)

To this genus belongs one of the best-known species of the group, the six-banded armadillo or encoubert (D. sexcinctus) of Brazil and Paraguay; a very similar species, D. villosus, the hairy armadillo, replacing it south of the Rio Plata. There are also two small species, D. vellerosus and D. minutus, from the Argentine Republic and North Patagonia; the latter, which differs from the other three in having no tooth implanted in the premaxillary bone and is often referred to a genus apart, as Zäedius.

In Tatoua (Cabassous or Lysiurus) the teeth are 9⁄9 or 8⁄8, of moderate size and subcylindrical: the most posterior placed a little way behind the anterior root of the zygoma, but far from the hinder margin of the palate. Skull somewhat elongated, much constricted behind the orbits, and immediately in front of the constriction considerably dilated. Lower jaw slender, with the coronoid process small and sharp pointed, sometimes obsolete. Vertebrae: C 7, D 12-13, L 5, S 10, Ca 18. Head broad behind. Ears rather large and rounded, wide apart. Movable bands of armour 12-13. Tail considerably shorter than the body, and slender, covered with nearly naked skin, with a few small, scattered, bony plates, chiefly on the under surface and near the apex. On the fore-feet the first and second toes are long and slender, with small claws and the normal number of phalanges. The other toes have but two phalanges; the third has an immense sickle-like claw; the fourth and fifth similar but smaller claws. The hind-feet are comparatively small, with five toes, and small, triangular, blunt nails; the third longest, the first shortest. The best-known species of this genus, the tatouay or cabassou, T. unicinctus, is, after Priodon gigas, the largest of the group. It is found, though not abundantly, in Surinam, Brazil and Paraguay. Others, such as T. hispidus and T. lugubris, have been described.

In the giant armadillo (Priodon gigas) the teeth are variable in number, and generally differ on the two sides of each jaw, being usually from 20 to 25 on each side above and below, so that as many as a hundred may be present altogether; but as life advances the anterior teeth fall out, and all traces of their sockets disappear. The series extends as far back as the hinder edge of the anterior root of the zygoma. They are all very small, in the anterior half of each series strongly compressed, with flat sides and a straight free edge, but posteriorly more cylindrical, with flat, truncated, free surfaces. Vertebrae: C 7, D 12, L 3, S 10, Ca 23. Head small, elongated, conical. Ears moderate, ovate. Armour with 12-13 movable bands. Tail nearly equal to the body in length, gradually tapering, closely covered with quadrangular scales, arranged in a quincunx pattern. Fore-feet with five toes, formed on the same plan as those of Tatoua, but with the claw of the third of still greater size, and that of the others, especially the fifth, proportionally reduced. Hind-foot short and rounded, with five very short toes, and short, broad, flat obtuse nails. The giant armadillo is by far the largest existing member of the family, measuring rather more than 3 ft. from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail, the tail being about 20 in. long. It inhabits the forest of Surinam and Brazil. The powerful claws of its fore-feet enable it to dig with great facility; and its food consists chiefly of termites and other insects, although it is said to attack and uproot newly-made graves for the purpose of devouring the flesh of the bodies contained in them.

The apar (Tolypeutes tricinctus) typifies a genus in which the teeth are 9⁄9 or 8⁄9, and are rather large in proportion to the size of the skull, with the hinder end of the series reaching nearly to the posterior margin of the palate. Vertebrae: C 7, D 11, L 3, S 12, Ca 13. Ears placed low on the sides of the head, rather large, broadly ovate. Armour with its scapular and pelvic shields very free at the sides of the body, forming large chambers into which the limbs can be readily withdrawn, and only three movable bands. Tail short, conical, covered with large bony tubercles. The fore-feet formed on the same type as in the last genus, but the peculiarities carried to a still greater extent. The claw of the third toe is very long, while those of the first and fifth are greatly reduced and sometimes wanting. On the hind-foot the three middle toes have broad, flat, subequal nails, forming together a kind of tripartite hoof; the first and fifth much shorter, with more compressed nails.

The armadillos of this genus have the power of rolling themselves up into a ball, the shield on the top of the head and the tuberculated dorsal surface of the tail exactly fitting into and filling up the apertures left by the notches at either end of the body-armour. This appears to be their usual means of defence when frightened or surprised, as they do not burrow like the other species. They run very quickly, with a very peculiar gait, only the tips of the claws of the fore-feet touching the ground. In addition to the apar, there are the Argentine and Bolivian T. conurus, and T. muriei from Argentina or Patagonia.

The last group of existing armadillos forms the genus Tatusia and the subfamily Tatusiinae; the subfamily rank being based on the fact that of the seven or eight pairs of small subcylindrical teeth, all but the last, which is considerably smaller than the rest, are preceded by milk-teeth not changed until the animal has nearly attained full size. Vertebrae: C 7, D 9-11, L 5, S 8, Ca 20-27. Head narrow, with a long, narrow, subcylindrical obliquely truncated snout. Ears rather large, ovate and erect, placed close together on the occiput. Armour with seven to nine distinct movable bands. Body generally elongated and narrow. Tail moderate, or long, gradually tapering; its plates forming distinct rings for the greater part of its length. Fore-feet with four visible toes, and a concealed clawless rudiment of the fifth; the claws long, slightly curved, and slender, the third and fourth subequal and alike, the first and fourth much shorter. Hind-feet with five toes, armed with strong, slightly curved, conical, obtusely pointed nails, and the third longest, then the second and fourth, and the first and fifth much shorter than the others. This genus differs from all the other armadillos in having a pair of inguinal teats in addition to the usual pectoral pair, and in producing a large number (4 to 10) of young at a birth, all the others having usually but one or two. The peba armadillo, T. septemcincta, is a well-known species, having an extensive range from Texas to Paraguay. It is replaced in the more southern regions of South America by a smaller species, with shorter tail, the mulita (T. hybrida) so called from the resemblance of its head and ears to those of a mule. T. kappleri is a large species from Guiana.

Finally we have the pichiciago, or fairy armadillo, Chlamydophorus truncatus, typifying the subfamily Chlamydophorinae. In most anatomical characters, especially the structure of the fore-foot, this group resembles the Dasypodinae, but it differs remarkably from all other known armadillos, living or extinct, in the peculiar modification of the armour.

The teeth, which number 8⁄8-9, are subcylindrical, somewhat compressed, moderate in size, and smaller at each end (especially in front) than at the middle of the series. Skull broad and rounded behind, pointed in front. Muzzle subcylindrical and depressed. A conspicuous rounded rough prominence on the frontal bone, just before each orbit. Tympanic prolonged into a tubular auditory meatus, curving upwards round the base of the zygoma. Vertebrae: C 7, D 11, L 3, S 10, Ca 15. Upper part of head and trunk covered with four-sided horny plates (with small thin ossifications beneath), forming a shield, free and overhanging the sides of the trunk, and attached only along the middle line of the back. The plates are arranged in a series of distinct transverse bands, about twenty in number between the occiput and the posterior truncated end, and not divided into solid scapular and pelvic shields with movable bands between. The hinder end of the body is abruptly truncated and covered by a vertically placed, strong, solid, bony shield, of an oval (transversely extended) form, covered by thin horny plates. This shield is firmly welded by five bony processes to the hinder part of the pelvis. Through a notch in the middle of its lower border the tail passes out. The latter is rather short, cylindrical in its proximal half, and expanded and depressed or spatulate in its terminal portion, and covered with horny plates. The dorsal surfaces of the fore and hind-feet are also covered with horny plates. The remainder of the limbs and under surface and sides of the body beneath the overlapping lateral parts of the back shield are clothed with rather long, soft silky hair. Eyes and ears very small, and concealed by the hair. Extremities short. Feet large, each with five well-developed claws, those on the fore-feet very long, stout and subcompressed, the structure of the digits being essentially the same as those of Tatoua and Priodon. Teats two, pectoral. Visceral anatomy closely resembling that of Dasypus, the caecum being broad, short and bifid. The pichiciago, a burrowing animal, about 5 in. long, inhabits the sandy plains of western Argentina, especially the vicinity of Mendoza. Its horny covering is pinkish, and its silky hair white. A second species, C. retusus, from Bolivia is rather larger and has the dorsal shield attached to the skin of the back as far as its edge, instead of only along the median line. (See Armadillo.)

Tubulidentata.—The second suborder of edentates, namely the Tubulidentata, is represented at the present day only by the aard-varks, or ant-bears, of Africa, constituting the family Orycteropodidae and the genus Orycteropus. Together with the following group, they differ from the Xenarthra in the absence of additional articular facets to the lumbar vertebrae; for which reason the term Nomarthra has been proposed for the Tubulidentata and Pholidota as collectively distinct from the Xenarthra. In the present group the external surface is scantily covered with bristle-like hairs. The teeth are numerous, and traversed by a number of parallel vertical pulp-canals. Femur with a third trochanter. Fore-feet without the first toe, but all the other digits well developed, with strong moderate-sized nails, suited to digging, the plantar surfaces of which rest on the ground in walking. Hind-feet with five subequal toes. Placenta broadly zonular. The brain is very like that of the Ungulata; and there are two pairs of teats, one abdominal, and the other inguinal. Aard-varks feed on animal substances; and are terrestrial and fossorial in habits. The total number of teeth is from eight to ten in each side of the upper, and eight in the lower jaw; but they are never all in place at one time, as the small anterior ones are shed before the series is completed behind. In the adult they number usually five on each side above and below, of which the first two are simple and compressed, the next two larger and longitudinally grooved at the sides, the most posterior simple and cylindrical. Their summits are rounded before they are worn; their bases do not taper to a root, but are evenly truncated and continually growing. Each tooth is made up of an aggregation of parallel dental systems, having a slender pulp cavity in the centre, from which the dentinal tubes radiate outwards, and being closely packed together each system assumes a polygonal outline as seen in transverse section. A series of milk-teeth is developed. Skull moderately elongated with the facial portion subcylindrical and slightly tapering, and the zygoma complete and slender. The palate ends posteriorly in the thickened transverse border of the palatines, and is not continued back by the pterygoids. The tympanic is annular, and not welded to the surrounding bones. The lower jaw is slender anteriorly, but rises high posteriorly, with a slender recurved coronoid, and an ascending pointed process on the hinder edge below the condyle, which is small, oval, and looks forward as much as upwards. Vertebrae: C 7, D 13, L 8, S 6, Ca 25. The large number of lumbar vertebrae is peculiar among Edentates. The tongue is less worm-like than in Myrmecophaga, being thick and fleshy at the base and gradually tapering to the apex. The salivary apparatus is developed much in the same manner as in that genus, but the duct of the submaxillary gland has no reservoir. The stomach consists of a large subglobular cardaic portion, with a thick, soft, and corrugated lining membrane, and a smaller muscular, pyloric part, with a comparatively thin and smooth lining. There is a distinct ileocaecal valve and a considerable sized caecum; also a gall-bladder. Head elongated, with a tubular snout, terminal nostrils and small mouth-opening. Ears large, pointed, erect. Tall nearly as long as the body, cylindrical, thick at the base, tapering to the extremity.

According to the researches of Dr E. Lönnberg, the teeth of the aard-varks correspond only to the roots of those of other mammals, the crowns being unrepresented, except to a very small degree when the teeth first cut the gum. This explanation renders the peculiar internal structure of these teeth much less difficult to understand than if they represented both crown and root. In Dr Lönnberg’s opinion, the teeth indicate the descent of the aard-vark from an ungulate stock,—a view in harmony with the evidence of the brain. If this idea prove well founded, and if the aard-varks are rightly classed with the Edentata, the whole order must apparently be regarded as an offshoot from primitive Ungulata. The fact of the frequent distinctness of the coracoid bone requires, however, explanation in connexion with such a descent (see Aard-Vark).

Pholidota.—The Pholidota, constituting the third and last group of the Edentata, are represented by the pangolins, or scaly anteaters, of Asia and Africa, all of which are included in the family Manidae and the genus Manis. Pangolins differ from all other mammals by the armour of overlapping horny scales (often with hairs growing between them) which invests the whole animal, with the exception of the under surface of the body, and sometimes a small patch near the tip of the under side of the tail. There are no teeth; and although the tongue is long and worm-like, it is not extensile. The scaphoid and lunar bones of the carpus are united. The uterus is bicornuate, and the placenta diffused and non-deciduate. The skull has somewhat the form of an elongated cone, with the small end turned forwards, and is smooth and free from crests and ridges. No distinction between the orbits and temporal fossae. The zygomatic arch usually incomplete, owing to the absence of the jugal bone; no distinct lacrymal bone; and the palate long and narrow. The pterygoids extend backwards as far as the tympanics, but do not meet in the middle line below. Tympanic welded to the surrounding bones, and more or less bladder-like, but not produced into a tubular auditory meatus. Two halves of lower jaw very slender and straight, without any angle or coronoid process, on the anterior extremity of the upper edge a sharp, conical, tooth-like process projecting upwards and outwards. No clavicles. No third trochanter to the femur. Terminal phalanges cleft at the tip. Caudal vertebrae with very long transverse processes and numerous chevron-bones. Stomach with thick muscular walls and lining membrane, and a special gland near the middle of the great curvature, consisting of a mass of complex secreting follicles, the ducts of which terminate in a common orifice. No caecum, but a gall-bladder. Head small, depressed, narrow, and pointed in front, with a very small mouth-opening. Eyes and ears very small. Body elongated, narrow. Tail more or less elongated, convex above, flat underneath. Limbs short, and in walking the surface and outer sides of the phalanges of the two outer digits of the front feet alone rest on the ground, with the points of the nails turning upwards and inwards. The third toe the longest, with a powerful compressed curved claw, the second and fourth with similar but smaller claws, but that of the first toe often almost rudimentary. Hind-feet plantigrade with the first toe very short, and the four other toes subequal, and carrying moderate, curved, compressed nails. Pangolins are of small or moderate size, terrestrial and burrowing, and feed mainly on termites or white ants; some of the species being more or less arboreal. They can roll themselves up in a ball when in danger. Their peculiar elongated form, short limbs, long tapering tail, and scaly covering give them on a superficial inspection more the appearance of reptiles than of mammals. The species are not numerous and may be divided into two sections, one comprising the Asiatic species, such as M. javanica, M. aurita of China, and the Indian M. pentadactyla, and the other the African, as represented by the large M. gigantea, M. temminchi, the long-tailed M. macrura, and the small arboreal M. tricuspis. In the Asiatic group the middle series of scales continues to the tip of the tail; but in the African forms this row splits into two a few inches from the tail-tip. The latter have also no hairs between the scales and no external ears. The climbing species have a small bare patch on the under side of the tail near the tip (see Pangolin).

Extinct Edentates.

Beyond remains of species closely allied to or identical with the existing forms, the sloths and anteaters appear to be unknown in a fossil state. On the other hand the extinct family of ground sloths, or Megatheriidae, which includes the largest of all edentates, is an exceedingly large one, and extends in South America from the Miocene to the Pleistocene, and was also represented during the latter epoch in North America. It serves to connect the Bradypodidae with Myrmecophagidae. The alleged occurrence of an allied form in Madagascar is somewhat doubtful (see Megatherium and Mylodon).

Of Dasypodidae numerous representatives occur in the South American Tertiaries. From the higher beds many of the species are referable to existing genera, such as Dasypus and Tatusia, although some are much larger than any living forms, the skull in one case being nearly a foot in length. In other instances, when lower formations are reached, the genera are also distinct, Eutatus having the whole armour divided into movable bands, and the allied Stegotherium representing the group in the Santa Cruz formation of Patagonia. Even in the Argentine Pleistocene there is an extinct genus, Chlamydotherium, represented by a species of the size of a rhinoceros, with grooved teeth approximating to those of the glyptodonts. The latter represent a family (Glyptodontidae) by themselves, and typically may be described as giant solid-shelled armadillos, although some of their smaller Santa Cruz representatives (Propalaeohoplophorus) approximate in some degree to true armadillos (see Glyptodon).

A very remarkable Santa Cruz armadillo, Peltephilus, has an altogether peculiar type of head-shield, developed into horns in front of the eyes; and, what is still more noteworthy, teeth in the front of the jaws, thereby rendering the ordinary definition of the order Edentata incorrect. It has been made the type of a distinct family, Peltephilidae.

The past history of the armadillo group does not, however, by any means end here. True armadillos, it should be observed, are known in North America as far north as Texas, from the Pleistocene onwards; but in formations of middle Tertiary age are unrepresented. Recent discoveries apparently indicate, however, the occurrence of armadillos of a primitive type in the lower Tertiary or Eocene formations of Wyoming. The first evidence of these Eocene armadillos was afforded by portions of the jaws, which, together with a leg-bone of a totally different animal, were believed to indicate creatures nearly allied to the aye-aye (Chiromys) of Madagascar, and for which the name Metachiromys was consequently proposed. According to modern usage, this name, in spite of its inappropriate nature, is retained for the armadillos, although in the writer’s opinion it ought to be replaced. According to Professor H.F. Osborn, by whom their remains have been described, the North American fossil armadillos were closely related to the existing members of the group, from which they differ chiefly by the armour, or shield, having probably been formed of tough leathery skin instead of bony plates, by the presence of a single pair of large enamel-capped tusk-like teeth in each jaw, and by the degeneration of the other teeth. If these determinations are trustworthy, the question arises whether we should regard the armadillos of South America as the descendants of North American forms which migrated southwards before that separation of the two continents was established, which lasted for a large portion of the Tertiary period, or whether a migration took place at the same early epoch in the opposite direction.

More interesting still is the occurrence of remains of reputed armadillos (Necrodasypus) from the Oligocene of France and Germany. In the opinion of Dr F. Ameghino these Oligocene armadillos, which had bony shields on both the head and body, were near akin to some of the modern South American forms.

Passing on to the aard-varks (Orycteropodidae), we find these represented by a species closely allied to the existing ones in the Lower Pliocene formations of Spain, France, Hungary, Samos and Asia Minor. A single tibia from the French Oligocene is identified by Dr Ameghino with the present family, and the genus Archaeorycteropus established for its reception; this genus, in its founder’s opinion, being also represented in the Santa Cruz beds of Patagonia. As regards the pangolins, the only fossils referred to this group (apart from a few discovered in a cave in India) appear to be certain limb-bones from the Oligocene of France and Germany, for which the names Necromanis and Teutomanis have been proposed. The occurrence of the characteristic cleft terminal toe-bones among these remains seems to leave little doubt as to the correctness of the determination.

The alleged occurrence of remains of giant pangolins in the upper Tertiary of Europe is due to misidentification (see Ancylopoda). By some authorities the Eocene group of Ganodonta has been affiliated to the Edentata, but this reference is not accepted by Prof. W.B. Scott.

Authorities.—The above article is to some extent based on the articles by Sir W.H. Flower in the 9th edition of this work. See also O. Thomas, “A Milk-dentition in Orycteropus,” Proc. Royal Soc. vol. xlvii. (1890); R. Lydekker, “The Extinct Edentates of Argentina,” Palaeont. Argentina, vol. iii., An. Mus. (La Plata, 1894); C.W. Andrews, “On a Skull of Orycteropus gaudryi from Samos,” Proc. Zool. Soc. London (1896); G.E. Smith, “The Brain in the Edentata,” Trans. Linn. Soc. London, vol. vii. (1899); W.B. Scott, “Mammalia of the Santa Cruz Beds—Dasypoda,” Rep. Princeton Exped. to Patagonia, vol. v. (1903); H.F. Osborn, “An Armadillo from the Middle Eocene of North America,” Bull. Amer. Mus. vol. xx. art. 12 (1904); J.A. Allen, “The Tamandua Anteaters,” T.C., art. 33 (1904); F. Ameghino, “Les Édentes fossiles de France et d’Allemagne,” Ann. Mus. Buenos Aires, vol. xiii. (1905); E. Lönnberg, “On a new Orycteropus,” and “Remarks on the dentition of the Tubulidentata,” Archiv für Zoologie, vol. iii. No. 3 (1906).

(R. L.*)

EDENTON, a town and the county-seat of Chowan county, North Carolina, U.S.A., on Edenton Bay, an estuary of Albemarle sound, near the mouth of Chowan river, in the N.E. part of the state. Pop. (1890) 2205; (1900) 3046 (2090 negroes); (1910) 2789. It is served by the Norfolk & Southern railway, and by the Albemarle Steam Navigation Co. In 1907 the former projected a great bridge across Albemarle sound near the city. Edenton is an old and interesting town, has a number of fine old homesteads, and has broad and well-shaded streets. Lumbering and the shad and herring fisheries are the most important industrial interests, and the town is a shipping point for fish, truck and other farm products, cotton and peanuts. There is a Fish Cultural Station here, established by the Federal government. The court-house was built about 1750.

Edenton was settled about 1658, and was for some time known as the “Towne on Queen Anne’s Creek” or the “Port of Roanoke”; in 1722 the present name was adopted in honour of Governor Charles Eden (1673-1722), whose grave is in St Paul’s churchyard here. Throughout the 18th century Edenton was a place of considerable social and political importance; the legislative assembly of North Carolina met here occasionally, and here lived the royal governors and various well-known citizens of the province, among them: Joseph Hewes (1730-1779), a signer of the Declaration of Independence; James Iredell, Sr. (1750-1799), a Federalist leader and after 1790 a justice of the United States Supreme Court, and his son James Iredell, Jr. (1788-1853), a prominent lawyer, for many years a member of the state legislature, governor of North Carolina in 1827-1828, and a member of the United States Senate in 1828-1831. Near Edenton lived Samuel Johnston (1733-1816), a prominent leader of the American Whigs preceding and during the War of American Independence, a member of the Continental Congress in 1780-1782, governor of North Carolina in 1787-1789, and a Federalist member of the United States Senate in 1790-1793. In 1907 the Hewes, Iredell and Johnston homesteads were still standing. In a house facing the court-house green the famous “Edenton Tea Party” of fifty-one ladies met on the 24th of October 1774 and signed resolutions that they would not conform “to that Pernicious Custom of Drinking Tea” and would not “promote the wear of any manufacture from England” until the tax on tea should be repealed. Near Edenton the Confederate ram “Albemarle,” on emerging from the Roanoke river, was met by the Union “double-enders,” “Sassacus,” “Mattabesett,” and “Miami,” on the 5th of May 1864; the battle, which resulted in favour of the Confederates, was a duel between the Confederate ironclad and the Union wooden side-wheeler, the “Sassacus,” which rammed the “Albemarle” and had her bows, fitted with a three-ton bronze beak, twisted off and carried away.

EDESSA (mod. Vodena), the ancient capital of Macedonia, previously known as Aegae, situated 46 m. W. of Thessalonica on the banks of a beautiful stream in the very centre of the kingdom, and at the head of a defile commanding the approaches from the coast to the interior. It was the original residence of the Macedonian kings; and even after the seat of government was removed by Philip II. to the more accessible Pella, it continued to be the burial-place of the royal family. At the celebration of his daughter’s marriage here, Philip II. was murdered by Pausanias in 336 B.C. His son Alexander was buried at Memphis through the contrivance of Ptolemy; but the bodies of his granddaughter Eurydice and her husband Arrhidaeus were removed by Cassander to the ancestral sepulchre. On the occupation of the town by Pyrrhus the royal tombs were plundered by the Gallic mercenaries. Owing to its position commanding the Via Egnatia, the town retained its importance during the Roman and Byzantine periods. For its present condition, see Vodena.

EDESSA, the Greek name of an ancient city of N.W. Mesopotamia (in 37° 21′ N. lat. and 39° 6′ E. long.), suggested perhaps by a comparison of its site, or its water supply,1 with that of its Macedonian namesake. It still bears its earlier name, modified since the 15th century (by the Turks?) to Urfa.

The oldest certain form is the Aramaic Urhāi (“Western” pronunciation Urhōi), which appears in Greek as an adjective as Ὀρροηνή2, -νοί3 (perhaps also as a fortress with spring, as Ὀρρά),4 and in Latin as Orr(h)ei,5 and (in the inscription on Abgar’s grave) Orrhenoru(m).6 The Syriac Chronicle ascribed to Dionysius of Tell-maḥrē derives the name from a first king Urhāi, son of Hewyā, whom Procopius (De bello persico, i. 17) calls Osroes (cf. below), connected by Bayer7 with Chosroes,8 from which G. Hoffmann would also derive the Syriac Urhāi (Z.D.M.G. xxxii. 742). The Syriac town name has, however, the form of an ethnic, and we may therefore with Duval leave it unexplained (Hist. 22). The fact that the Arabic name is Ruhä supports the hint of the Graeco-Latin forms that there was a vowel between the R and the H. There is little plausibility in the suggestion of Assemani and others that Ruhā comes from ροη of Callirrhoe. A gentilic of the form Ru-u-ai occurs in a letter (of an Assyrian king?) to chiefs in a (Babylonian?) town as the designation of three captives (Harper, Ass. and Bab. Letters, No. 287 [= K 94], line 6; cf. Bezold, Die Achämenideninschriften, p. xii.), who have Semitic names; and Ru-‘-u-a is the name of an Aramaic people mentioned with other Aramaeans by Tiglath-pileser IV., Sargon and Sennacherib. It is not impossible that some such people may have settled at Urhāi and given it their name, although the Ru-‘-u-a are always mentioned in connexions that imply seats near the Persian Gulf.9 The district name Osroēnē for Ὀρροηνή, is Greek, perhaps due to analogy of Chosroes. It occurs but rarely in Syriac (Uzroina); e.g. Chronicle of Edessa. § 35;10 elsewhere Bēth-Urhāyē (e.g. Cureton, Spicileg. Syr. 20). In the time of Tiglath-pileser I. (c. 1100 B.C.) the name seems to have been “District of (not Edessa, but) Ḥarrān” (Annals, vi. 71). The Arabs pronounced the name er-Ruhā (see above), and that form prevailed till it gave place to Urfa in the 15th century.

The Greek name Edessa appears in the Jerusalem Targum to Gen. x. 10 as Hădas (הדס, myrtle); it has been proposed (cf. Duval, Hist. d’Édesse, 23) to derive Edessa from Aram. הדת, as though = Carthage, New Town; but Syriac writers, when they occasionally 11 use the name (Edessa, אדסא; so Yāqūt, Adāsā), show no suspicion of its being Semitic. According to Pliny, v. 86, Edessa was also called Antioch, and coins of Antiochus IV. Epiphanes with the legend “Antioch on the Callirrhoe” may imply that he rebuilt and renamed the place (so Ed. Meyer in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, col. 1933, 66; otherwise Duval, Hist. 23; cf. art. Osroene). Pliny indeed seems to call the city itself Callirrhoe, and S. Funk finds it so named in the Talmud (Bab. Mez., 18a רעל רכם נהרא שויר מתא: Die Juden in Babylonien 200-500, ii. 148; 1908); but K. Regling (Klio, i. 459 n. 1) may be right in his emendation which applies the title in Pliny to the sacred spring.

History: Pre-Hellenistic.—Until excavation gives us more definite data we can only infer from its position on one of the main thoroughfares between the Mediterranean and the East (see Mesopotamia) that Urhāi-Edessa, possibly bearing some other name, was already a town of some importance in the early Babylonian-Assyrian age. Whatever may have been the ethnographical type of the early inhabitants, it must by the beginning of the second last millennium B.C. have included Hittites in the large sense of the term, probably Aryans, and certainly Semites of some of the types characteristic of early Assyrian history. Most probably its people belonged to the domain of the then more famous Ḥarrān-Carrhae, between which and Samosata (on the Euphrates) Urhāi lies midway (some 25-30 m. distant from each) in the district watered by the Balīh. Although at Edessa itself no cuneiform documents have yet been found, a little more than four hours journey eastwards, at Anaz (= Gullāb?) = Dūr of Tiglath-pileser IV. was found in 1901 a slab with a bas-relief and an inscription; and 15-20 min. W. of Eski-Ḥarrān, in 1906 a very interesting 6th-century Assyrian inscription (see Mesopotamia).

In the later Assyrian empire the population was largely Aramaic-speaking; but S. Schiffer’s theory (Beiheft I. zur Orientalistischen Litteratur-Zeitung) finds contemporary evidence of Israelites settled in the neighbourhood of Edessa in the second half of the 7th century B.C. At the fall of Nineveh many towns in Mesopotamia suffered severely at the hands of the Medes. The period remains dark, notwithstanding the obscure light that has been thrown on it lately (Pognon, Inscriptions). When Aramaic began to take the place of Assyrian in written documents is not known; but just across the Euphrates the change had occurred as early as the 8th century B.C. (Zengīrli, Hamath; see also Pognon). Certain it is that the earliest documents that have survived in Syriac, or Edessene Aramaic, do not represent an experimental stage. Moreover, although the Syriac of the Story of Aḥīqār is of a late type, the sources of the story, traces of which are to be found in the Hebrew Tobit (q.v.), go back to the pre-Hellenistic period.

Graeco-Roman Times.—According to a credible tradition found in Eusebius (Excerpta, 179), the Syriac Chronicle ascribed to Dionysius of Tell-maḥrē (Tullberg, 61), and elsewhere, Urhāi was renovated, like other Mesopotamian sites, in 304 B.C. by Seleucus I. Nicator, who gave it its Greek name.12 It would share in the Hellenistic culture of Syria, although the language of the common people would continue to be Aramaic (E.R. Bevan, House of Seleucus, i. 227 f. with reff.). With the decay of the Seleucid power, weakened by Rome and Parthia, the old influx from the desert would recommence, and an Arabic element begin to show. Von Gutschmid (Untersuch., cf. Duval, ch. iii. end) argues plausibly that it was in 132 B.C., in the reign of Antiochus VII. Sidetes, that Edessa became the seat of a dynasty of some thirty local kings, whose succession has been preserved in native sources. The name of the first king, however, appears in different forms (cf. above), and one (Osroës-Orhai) is so like that of the town that Ed. Meyer suspects the historicity of the first reign, of five years. The names of the other kings—Abgar, Ma’nu, Bekr, &c.—are for the most part Arabic, as the people (in whose inscriptions the same mixture of names occurs) are called by classical authors; but the rulers, among whom an occasional Iranian name betrays the influence of the dominant Parthians,13 would hardly maintain their distinctness from the Aramaic populace. This state which lasted for three centuries and a half, naturally varied in extent.14 Bounded on the W. and the N. by the Euphrates, it reached at its widest as far as the Tigris. At such times, therefore, it included such towns as Ḥarrān (Carrhae), Nisibis, Sarūg, Zeugma-Birejik, Resaena, Singara, Tigranocerta, Samosāta, Melitene. Its position “on the dangerous verge of two contending empires,” Parthia and Rome, determined its changeful fortunes. Parthian predominance yielded for a time to Armenian (Tigranes, 88-86 B.C.). Then, at the time of the expeditions of Lucullus, Pompey and Crassus, Edessa was an ally of Rome, though Abgar II. Ariamnes (68-53) played an ambiguous part. In A.D. 114 Abgar VII. entertained Trajan on his way back to Syria (Dio Cass. xviii. 21); but in 116, in consequence of a general rising, his consul L. Quietus sacked the city, Abgar perhaps dying in the flames, and made the state tributary. Hadrian, however, abandoning Trajan’s forward policy in favour of a Euphrates boundary, restored it as a dependency of Rome. When L. Verus (163-165) recovered Mesopotamia from Parthia, it was not Edessa but Ḥarrān that was chosen as the site of a Roman colony, and made the metropolis by Marcus Aurelius (172).

To one of the native kings doubtless is to be ascribed the Syriac inscription15 on one of the pair of pillars, 50 ft. high, which stood, no doubt, in front of a temple connected with some local cult. Trustworthy data for determining its nature are lacking. One or both of the pools below the citadel containing sacred fish may have been sacred to Atargatis (q.v.), an Ishtar-Venus deity; and according to the Doctrine of Addai, alongside of Venus were worshipped the sun and the moon.16 Nergal and Sin were known as “twins,” and connected with the sign Gemini, under the name ellamme, “the youths” (cf. Zimmern, K.A.T. 363). This makes more plausible than it otherwise would be the suggestion of J. Rendel Harris that the great twin pillars were connected with the cult of the Dioscuri, and that in the Acts of Thomas is to be seen a later attempt to substitute other “twins,” viz. Jesus and Judas-Thomas (Addai), whom legend buried “in Britio Edessenorum” (explained by Harnack as the Edessan citadel: Aram. birtha).17

Whether it was at Edessa that a Jewish translation of the Old Testament into Syriac was made,18 under the encouragement perhaps of the favour of the royal house of Adiabene (Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. 19. 4), or whether that work was done in Adiabene,19 cannot be discussed here. That the translation did not share the fate of the other non-Christian Syriac writings, which did not survive the 13th century (see Syriac Literature), is due to the fact that it was adopted (after being revised) by the Christians, and thus rescued. Although the beginnings of Christianity at Edessa are enshrouded in the mists of legend, and the first mention of Christian communities in Osrhoëne and the towns there is connected with the part they played in the paschal controversy (c. A.D. 192), it has been reasonably urged that the legends imply a fact, namely that Christianity began in the Jewish colony, perhaps by the middle of the 2nd century, although the earliest seat of the Syrian church may have been farther east, in Adiabene.20 Parts of the New Testament were certainly translated into Syriac in the 2nd century, although whether the “Old Syriac” (so e.g. Hjelt) or the Diatessaron (so Burkitt) came first is uncertain. About the end of the 2nd century Edessene Christianity seems to have made a fresh beginning: the ordination of Palūṭ by Serapion of Antioch may mean that things ecclesiastical took a westward trend, and it is possible (so Burkitt) that the “Old Syriac” New Testament version was now introduced. A strong man offered himself in Bardaiṣān (q.v.; Bardesanes), to whom perhaps we owe the finest Syriac poem extant, the “Hymn of the Soul,” though orthodoxy rejected him. He was a contemporary of Abgar IX., at whose court Julius Africanus stayed for a while. A Syrian official record from this reign, preserved in the Edessene Chronicle, gives a somewhat detailed account of a violent flood (autumn, 201) of the Daiṣān river which did much damage, destroying amongst other things “the palace of Abgar the Great,” rebuilt as a summer palace by Abgar IX., and “the temple of the church of the Christians.” The form of this last statement shows that at the time of writing (206) the rulers had not adopted Christianity themselves. Abgar IX. is now commonly supposed to be the ruler to whom the famous legend was first attached (see Abgar); but though he visited Rome there is no proof that he ever became a Christian (Gomperz, in Archäologisch-epigraphische Mitteilungen aus Österreich-Ungarn, xix. 154-157). It was at Edessa that Caracalla, who made it a military colony under the style of Colonia Marcia Edessenorum, spent the winter of 216-217, and near there that he was murdered. The religious philosophical treatise preserved under the title of Book of the Laws of the Lands was probably produced at this time by a pupil of Bardesanes, and the Acts of Thomas in its original form may have followed not long after.

Sassanian Period.—In 226 the Parthian empire gave place to the new kingdom of the Sassanidae, whose claim to the ancient Achaemenian empire led to constant struggle with Rome in which Edessa naturally suffered. The native state was restored by Gordian in 242; but in 244 it became again directly subject to Rome. The Edessan martyrs Sharbēl and Barsamyā, whose “Acts” in legendary form have come down to us, may have perished in the Decian persecution. In 260 the city was besieged by the Persians under Shapur I., and Valerian was defeated and made prisoner by its gates. Odaenathus of Palmyra (d. 267), however, wrested Mesopotamia from the Persians; but Aurelian defeated his successor Zenobia at Emesa (273), and Carus, who died in 283 in an expedition against the Persians, and Galerius (297) carried the frontier again to the Tigris. Diocletian’s persecution secured the martyr’s crown for the Edessenes Shamōna, Guria (297), and Ḥabbīb (309), and shortly thereafter Lucian “the martyr,” who though born at Samosata received his training at Edessa; but the bishop Qōna, who laid the foundations of “the great church” by the sacred pool, somehow escaped. Edessa can claim no share in “the Persian Sage” Aphrahaṭ or Afrahaṭ (Aphraates); but Ephraem, after bewailing in Nisibis the sufferings of the great Persian war under Constantius and Julian, when Jovian in 363 ceded most of Mesopotamia to Shapur II., the persecutor of the Christians, settled in Edessa, which as the seat of his famous school (called “the Persian”) grew greatly in importance, and attracted scholars from all directions. He taught and wrote vigorously against the Arians and other heretics, and although just after his death (373) the emperor Valens banished the orthodox from Edessa, they returned on the emperor’s death in 378. Under Zenobius, disciple of Ephraem, studied the voluminous writer, Isaac of Antioch (d. circ. 460). Rabbūla perhaps owed his elevation to the see of Edessa (411-435), in the year which produced the oldest dated Syriac MS., to his asceticism, and it was to his time that the sojourn there of the “Man of God” (Alexis) was assigned; but he won from the Nestorians the title of the Tyrant of Edessa. In particular he exerted himself to stamp out the use of the Diatessaron in favour of the four Gospels, the Syriac version of which probably now took the form known as the Peshitta. When the popular Nestorianism of the Syrians was condemned at Ephesus (431) it began to gravitate eastwards, Nisibis becoming its eventual headquarters; but Edessa and the western Syrians refused to bow to the Council of Chalcedon (451) when it condemned Monophysitism. In and around Edessa the theological strife raged hotly.21 When, however, Zeno’s edict (489) ordered the closing of the school of the Persians at Edessa, East and West drifted apart more and more; the ecclesiastical writer Narsai, “the Harp of the Holy Spirit,” fled to Nisibis about 489. Till about this time Syriac influence was strong in Armenia, and some Syriac works have survived only in Armenian translations. In the opening years of the 6th century the Persian-Roman War (502-506) found a chronicler in the anonymous Edessene history known till recently as the Chronicle of Joshua Stylites. Whether Edessa received from the emperor Justin I. the additional name of Justinopolis may be uncertain (see Hallier, op. cit. p. 128); but it seems to have been renewed and fortified after the “fourth” flood in 525 (Procop. Pers. ii. 27; De aedific. ii. 7). About this time, according to Nöldeke, an anonymous Edessene wrote the Romance of Julian the Apostate, which so many Arab writers use as a history. Chosroes I. Anushirwān succeeded in 540, according to the last entry in the Edessene Chronicle, in exacting a large tribute from Edessa; but in 544 he besieged it in vain. A few years later Jacob Baradaeus, with Edessa as centre of his bishopric, was carrying on the propaganda of Monophysitism which won for the adherents of that creed the name of Jacobites (q.v.). The valuable Syriac Chronicle just referred to probably was compiled in the latter half of this century.

Islam.—In the first decade of the next century Edessa was taken by Chosroes II., and a large part of the population transported to eastern Persia. Within a score of years it was recovered by the emperor Heraclius, who reviewed a large army under its walls. The prophet of Islam was now, however, building up his power in Arabia, and although Heraclius paid no heed to the letter demanding his adhesion which he received from Medina (628), and the deputation of fifteen Rahāwiyīn who paid homage in 630 were not Edessenes but South Arabians, a few years later (636?) Heraclius’s attempts, from Edessa as a centre, to effect an organized opposition to the victorious Arabs were defeated by Sa’d, and he fell back on Samosāta. The terms on which Edessa definitely passed into the hands of the Moslems (638) under Riyād are not certain (Balādhurī). As it now ceased to be a frontier city it lost in importance. In 668 occurred another destructive flood (Theophanes, p. 537), and in 678 an earthquake which destroyed part of the “old church,” which the caliph Mo‘āwiya I. is said to have repaired. To the latter part of the century belongs the activity of Edessa’s bishop Jacob, whose chronicle is unfortunately lost. It may have been the impulse given by the final supremacy of the caliphate to the long process which eventually substituted a new branch of Semitic speech for the Aramaic (which had now prevailed for a millennium and a half), that led Jacob to adopt the Greek vowel signs for use in Syriac. A century later Theophilus of Edessa (d. 785), author of a lost history, translated into Syriac “the two books of the poet Homer on the Conquest of the city of Ilion.” When the Bagdād caliphs lost control of their dominions, Edessa shared the fortunes of western Mesopotamia, changing with the rise and fall of Egyptian dynasties and Arab chieftains. In the 10th century al-Mas’ūdī, writing in the very year in which it happened, tells how the Mahommedan ruler of Edessa, with the permission of the caliph, purchased peace of the emperor Romanus Lecapenus by surrendering to him the napkin of Jesus of Nazareth, wherewith he had dried himself after his baptism. The translation of the Holy Icon of Christ from Edessa is commemorated on the 16th of August (Cal. Byzant). A few years later Ibn Ḥauḳal (978) estimates the number of churches in the city at more than 300, and al-Moḳaddasī (985) describes its cathedral, with vaulted ceiling covered with mosaics, as one of the four wonders of the world. In 1031 the emperor recovered Edessa; but in 1040 it fell into the hands of the Seljuks, whose progress had added a large element of Armenian refugees to the population of Osrhoëne. There is no reason, therefore, to discredit Maqrīzī’s statement that it was three brother architects from Edessa that the Armenian minister Badr al-Gamāli employed to build three of the fine city gates of Cairo (1087-1091). The empire soon recovered Edessa, but the resident made himself independent. Thoros applied for help to Baldwin, brother and successor of Godfrey of Bouillon in the First Crusade, who in 1098 took possession of the town and made it the capital of a Burgundian countship, which included Samosata and Sarūg’, and was for half a century the eastern bulwark of the kingdom of Jerusalem.22 The local Armenian historian, however, Matthew of Edessa, tells of oppression, decrease of population, ruin of churches, neglect of agriculture. With the campaign of Maudud in 1110 fortune began to favour the Moslems. Edessa had to endure siege after siege. Finally, in 1144 it was stormed, Matthew being among the slain, by ‘Imād ud-Dīn Zengī, ruler of Mosul, under Joscelin II., an achievement celebrated as “the conquest of conquests,” for laying the responsibility of which not on God but on the absence of the Frankish troops, an Edessan monk, John, bishop of Ḥarrān (d. 1165), brought down upon himself the whole bench of bishops. Edessa suffered still more in 1146 after an attempt to recover it. Churches were now turned into mosques. The consternation produced in Europe by the news of its fate led to “the Second Crusade.” In 1182 it fell to Saladin, whose nephew recovered it when it had temporarily passed (1234) to the sultan of Rūm; but the “Eye of Mesopotamia” never recovered the brilliance of earlier days. The names it contributed to Arabic literature are unimportant. By timely surrender (1268) it escaped the sufferings inflicted by Hūlākū and his Monguls on Sarū’g (Barhebraeus, Chron. Arab., Beirūt ed., 486). Mostaufī describes a great cupola of finely worked stone still standing by a court over a hundred yards square (1340). Ali b. Yazd in his account of the campaigns of Tīmūr, who reduced Mesopotamia in 1393, still calls the city (1425) Ruhā. In 1637, when Amurath IV. conquered Bagdād and annexed Mesopotamia, it passed finally into the hands of the Turks, by whom it is called Urfa.

The Modern Town.—Urfa lies north-east of the Nimrud Dagh. It is surrounded by a wall, strengthened by square towers at distances of 18-20 steps, probably dating in its present condition from medieval Mahommedan times. On a height in a corner towards the west, overtopping the town by 100-200 ft., are the remains of the old citadel, and the two famous Corinthian columns23 known as “the Throne of Nimrūd.” In the hollow between this height and the town rise two springs which form ponds, the farther removed of which from the citadel is known as Birket al-Khalīl, doubtless the Callirrhoe of the classical writers, and contains the sacred fish, estimated by J.S. Buckingham at 20,000, and the nearer as ‘Ain Zalkha (i.e. Zuleikha, the wife of Potiphar). On the north edge of the Birket al-Khalīl (see plan in Sachau, p. 197) is the great mosque of Abraham, the interior of which is described by J.S. Buckingham (Travels, pp. 108-110). Diagonally opposite the mosque is a house with a square tower, which is locally believed to occupy the place of the famous ancient school. The waters of the two pools make their way in a single stream southwards out of the town. The once dangerous stream Daiṣān (Σκιρτός) no longer flows southwards through the town, but encircles it on the north and east in the channel of the old moat. This stream, now called Kara Kuyun, and the other are exhausted in the irrigation of the gardens lying south-east of the town, except when fuller than usual, when they reach the Balīh. Not far east of the sacred pool is the largest building in the town, the recent Armenian Gregorian cathedral, whose American bells were first heard during Sachau’s visit in 1879. About the middle of the town is the largest mosque, Ulu ’Gamī (parts of it probably pre-Islamic), which probably occupies the site of the Christian church reckoned by the early Mahommedan writers as one of the wonders of the world. In the bazaar, which lies between the chief mosque and the sacred pool, and contains several streets, are displayed not only the native woollen stuffs, pottery and silver work, but also a considerable variety of European goods, especially cloth stuffs. The principal manufactures are fine cotton stuffs and yellow leather. The streets are of course narrow and winding; but the houses are well built of stone. The outskirts are occupied by melon gardens, vineyards and mulberry plantations. The fertile plain south of the town is noted for its wheat and fine pasture. The climate is healthy except in summer; the “Aleppo button” (see Bagdad, vilayet), a painful boil, is common. The rocky heights south and west of the town, whence the building material is largely obtained, are full of natural and artificial caverns, once used as dwellings, cloisters and graves, where are most of the inscriptions published by Sachau, who also visited and describes (pp. 204-206) the Dēr Ya‘qūb, nearly two hours distant.

Urfa is the capital of a sanjak of the same name, in the vilāyet of Aleppo. The population was estimated by Olivier in 1796 at 20,000 to 24,000, by Buckingham at 50,000, by Chernik in 1873 at 40,000, by Sachau in 1879 at 50,000, in Baedeker’s Handbook in 1906 at 30,000. Vice-Consul Fitzmaurice said that before December 1895 it was close on 65,000, of whom about 20,000 were Armenian, 3000 or 4000 Jacobites, Syrian-Catholic, Greek-Catholic, Maronites and Jews, and the remaining 40,000 Turkish, Kurdian and Arab Mahommedans. Two barbarous massacres occurred on the 28th and 29th of October and the 28th and 29th of December 1895; 126 Armenian families were absolutely wiped out. He believes that 8000 Armenians perished in the second massacre. The Deutsche Orient-Mission has its chief seat in Urfa, and there have for years been American and French missions. The Germans have an orphanage with 300 Armenian children, a carpet factory and a medical station. The American school had some years ago 250 pupils.

Authorities.—Inscriptional: H. Pognon, Inscriptions sémitiques de la Syrie, de la Mésopotamie et de la région de Mossoul (1907, 1908); Sachau, “Edessenische Inschriften,” in Z.D.M.G. xxxvi. 142-167; F.C. Burkitt, “The Throne of Nimrod,” in P.S.B.A. xxviii. 149-155 (1906); J. Rendel Harris, The Cult of the Heavenly Twins (1906); Nöldeke, “Syrische Inschriften,” in Z.A. xxi. 151-161, 375-388 (1908). Literary: Ludwig Hallier, Untersuchungen über die Edessenische Chronik mit dem Syrischen Text (1892); F. Nau, Analyse des parties inédites de la chronique attribuée à Denys de Tell-maḥré (1898); J.-B. Chabot, Chronique de Denys de Tell-Maḥré, quatrième partie (1895); W. Wright, The Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite (1882); Bayer, Historia Osrhoena et Edessena (St Petersburg, 1784), collects the references in classical authors; for the coinage see references in von Gutschmid (see below). Discussions: A. von Gutschmid, “Untersuchungen über die Geschichte des Königreichs Osroëne” (in Mémoires de l’acad. imper. des sciences de St-Pétersb. vii. sér. tome 35, No. 1, 1887); L.-J. Tixeront, Les Origines de l’église d’Édesse et la légende d’Abgar (1888); R.A. Lipsius, Die Edessenische Abgarsage kritisch untersucht (1880); K.C.A. Matthes, Die Edess. Abgarsage auf ihre Fortbildung untersucht (1882); F. Nau, Une Biographie inédite de Bardesane l’astrologue (1897); Bardesane l’astrologue: le livre des Lois des Pays (1899); A. Hilgenfeld, Bardesanes, der letzte Gnostiker (1864); A.A. Bevan, “The Hymn of the Soul” (in Texts and Studies, 1897); F.C. Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity (1904); J.R. Harris, The Dioscuri in Christian Legend (1903), and The Cult of the Heavenly Twins (1906); the histories of Rome, Persia, Crusades, Mongols, &c.; Rubens Duval, Histoire politique, religieuse et littéraire d’Édesse jusqu’à la première croisade (1892), a useful compilation reprinted from the Journ. As.; the excellent article by E. Meyer in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, 1933-1938. Topography: J.S. Buckingham, Travels in Mesopotamia (1827); E. Sachau, Reise in Syrien u. Mesopotamien (1883), 189-210; cf. Duval, op. cit. chap, i.; C. Ritter, Erdkunde, xi. 315-356. Map of town in Niebuhr, Voyage en Arabie, reproduced with modifications in Wright, Chron. Josh. Styl.; also a map in Reclus, Univ. Geog. ix. 232. Four pictures of the town in Burkitt, Early East. Christ.

(H. W. H.)

1 So Appian, Syr. 57; cp. Steph. Byz., s.v. Εδεσσα: διὰ τὴν τῶν ὑδάτων ῥύμην.

2 Steph. Byz., s.v. Βατναι.

3 Dio, passim.

4 Isidore Charac. 1 (Müller, Geog. Gr. Min., i. 246).

5 Several times in Pliny, Nat. Hist.

6 CIL. vi. 1797.

7 Hist. Osrhoena et Edessena, p. 33.

8 Written Ὀσρόης in Dio Cassius, Excerpta, lxviii. 22.

9 See the reff. collected by M. Streck, M.V.G., 1906. The name occurs in the same company in the fragmentary tablet K. 1904. The mountain Ru-u-[a], mentioned thrice by Tiglath-pileser IV., is placed by Billerbeck near Hamadān (Sandschak Suleimania, 82, 86, and map, 1898).

10 See further Payne Smith, Thesaurus 110 b.

11 In translating from the Greek; also in Ephraim (Duval, Hist. 22, n. 4) and the Acts of Sharbīl (Cureton, Anc. Syr. Doc. 41).

12 On a possible restoration under the name of “Antioch on the Callirrhoė” see above.

13 The Edessans used to call their town “the city,” or “the daughter,” “of the Parthians” (Cureton, Anc. Syr. Doc., 41 ult., 97 l. 7; 106 l. 12).

14 The portion of the Mesopotamian steppe under Osrhoënic influence was, according to Nöldeke (Zeitsch. Ass. xxi. 153, 1908), called ‘Arābh in Syriac.

15 The inscription, which is difficult to read, connects the structure with Shalmat the queen, daughter of Ma’nu, who cannot be identified with certainty, and refers to some image(s), which probably excited the pious vandalism of the Arabs.

16 Nebo and Bel (Doctr. Addai, 31) may come from the Old Testament (Burkitt).

17 S.B.A.W., 1904, 910 ff.

18 So, e.g. F.C. Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity, 72.

19 Marquart, Ostasiat. und osteurop. Streitzüge, 292 ff.

20 Marquart, op. cit.

21 Some one found time, however, to produce the oldest dated MS. of a portion of the Bible in any language.

22 The counts were: Baldwin I. (1098), Baldwin II. (1100), Joscelin I. (1119), Joscelin II. (1131-1147).

23 Pictures in Burkitt, Early East. Christ., frontispiece; P.S.B.A. xxviii. 151 f.; J.R. Harris, The Heavenly Twins.

EDFU, in Coptic Atbō, a town of Upper Egypt, 484 m. S.S.E. of Cairo by rail, on the W. bank of the Nile, the railway station being on the opposite side of the river. Pop. (1907) 19,262. The inhabitants manufacture earthenware, which finds ready sale all through Egypt. The ancient Atbō (Apollinopolis Magna) was capital of the second nome of Upper Egypt. The great sandstone temple is practically complete (see Architecture: Egypt). It was built on the site of an earlier structure entirely in the time of the Ptolemies. The central part of the building, begun by Ptolemy III. Euergetes in 237 B.C., was finished by his successor in 212; the portico, court, pylons and surrounding wall were added by Ptolemy Euergetes II., Soter II. and Alexander I.; but the decoration was not finished till 57 B.C. in the reign of Ptolemy XIII. Neos Dionysus. The god of Atbō was a form of Horus (Apollo) as the sun-god; his most characteristic representation is as the disk of the sun with outspread wings, so often seen over the doors of shrines, at the top of stelae, &c. In the temple, where he is often figured as a falcon-headed man, he is associated with Hathor of Dendera and the child Harsemteus.

See Baedeker’s Egypt; Ed. Naville, Textes relatifs au mythe d’Horus recueillis dans le temple d’Edfou.

(F. Ll. G.)

EDGAR (Eadgar), king of the English (944-975), was the younger son of Edmund the Magnificent and Ælfgifu. As early as 955 he signed a charter of his uncle Eadred, and in 957 the Mercian nobles, discontented with the rule of his elder brother Eadwig, made him king of England north of the Thames. On the death of his brother in October 959 Edgar became king of a united England. Immediately on his accession to the throne of Mercia Edgar recalled St Dunstan from exile and bestowed on him first the bishopric of Worcester, and then that of London. In 961 Dunstan was translated to Canterbury, and throughout Edgar’s reign he was his chief adviser, and to him must be attributed much of the peace and prosperity of this time.

The reign of Edgar was somewhat uneventful, but two things stand out clearly: his ecclesiastical policy and his imperial position in Britain. Edgar and Dunstan were alike determined to reform the great monastic houses, and to secure that they should be restored once more to their true owners and not remain in the hands of the secular priests or canonici, whose life and discipline alike seem to have been extremely lax. In this reform Edgar was helped not only by St Dunstan but also by Oswald of Worcester and Æthelwold of Winchester. The priests of the old and new monasteries at Winchester, at Chertsey and at Milton Abbas were replaced by monks, and in monastic discipline the old rule of St Benedict was restored in all its strictness.

The coronation of Edgar was, for some unexplained reason, delayed till the Whitsunday of 973. It took place with much ceremony at Bath, and was followed shortly after by a general submission to Edgar at Chester. Six, or (according to later chroniclers) eight kings, including the kings of Scotland and Strathclyde, plighted their faith that they would be the king’s fellow-workers on sea and land. The historical truth of this story has been much questioned; there seems to be little doubt that it is true in its main outlines, though we need not accept the details about Edgar’s having been rowed on the Dee by eight kings.

Two isolated and unexplained incidents are also recorded in the chronicle: first, the ravaging of Westmorland by the Scandinavian Thored, son of Gunnere, in 967; and second, the ravaging of Thanet by Edgar’s own command in 970.

Edgar’s death took place in the year 975, and he was buried at Glastonbury. By his vigorous rule and his statesmanlike policy Edgar won the approval of his people, and in the Saxon chronicle we have poems commemorating his coronation and death, and describing his general character. The only fault ascribed to him is a too great love for foreigners and for foreign customs. Edgar strengthened the hands of the provincial administration, and to him has been attributed the reorganization of the English fleet. The characteristic feature of his rule was his love of peace, and by efficient administration he secured it.

Edgar formed an irregular union in 961 with Wulfthryth, an inmate of the convent at Wilton, who bore him a daughter Eadgyth. He next married Æthelflæd, “the white duck,” daughter of Earl Ordmær, who bore him a son, afterwards known as Edward the Martyr. Finally he was united to Ælfthryth, daughter of Earl Ordgar, who became the mother of the Ætheling Edmund (d. 971) and of Æthelred the Unready.

Authorities.—Saxon Chronicle (ed. Plummer and Earle, Oxford), sub. ann.; Vita Sancti Oswaldi (Historians of the Church of York, ed. Raine, Rolls Series); William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum (ed. Stubbs, Rolls Series); Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, vol. iii. Nos. 1047-1319; F. Liebermann, A.-S. Laws, i. 192-216; “Florence of Worcester” (Mon. Hist. Brit.); E.W. Robertson, Historical Essays, pp. 189-215.

(A. Mw.)

EDGAR, or Eadgar (c. 1050-c. 1130), called the Ætheling, was the son of Edward, a son of the English king Edmund Ironside, by his wife Agatha, a kinswoman of the emperor Henry II., and was born probably in Hungary some time before 1057, the year of his father’s death. After the death of Harold in 1066, Archbishop Aldred and the citizens of London desired to make him king, but on the advance of William, Edgar and his supporters made their submission. In 1068, after the failure of the first rising of the north, Edgar retired to Scotland, when his sister Margaret married the Scottish king, Malcolm Canmore. Next year he returned to take part in the second rising, but, this proving no more successful than the first, he again took refuge in Scotland. In 1074 he went to Normandy and made peace with William. In the struggle between Henry I. and Robert of Normandy, Edgar sided with the latter. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Tinchebrai in 1106, but was subsequently released. The date of his death is uncertain, but he was certainly alive about 1125.

EDGECUMBE, or Edgecombe, the name of a celebrated west of England family, taken from the manor of Edgecumbe in Cornwall. One of its earlier members was Sir Richard Edgecumbe (d. 1489), who was descended from a Richard Edgecumbe who flourished during the reign of Edward I. Richard was a member of parliament in 1467; afterwards he joined Henry, earl of Richmond, in Brittany, returned with the earl to England, and fought at Bosworth, where he was knighted. He received rich rewards from Henry, now King Henry VII., who also sent him on errands to Scotland, to Ireland and to Brittany, and he died at Morlaix on the 8th of September 1489. His son and successor, Sir Piers Edgecumbe, went to France with Henry VIII. in 1513, and when he died on the 14th of August 1539 he left with other issue a son, Sir Richard Edgecumbe (1499-1562), a cultured and hospitable man, who is celebrated through Richard Carew’s Friendly Remembrance of Sir Richard Edgecumbe. Sir Richard’s eldest son, Piers or Peter Edgecumbe (1536-1607), was a member of parliament under Elizabeth for about thirty years.

Another famous member of this family was Richard, 1st baron Edgecumbe (1680-1758), a son of Sir Richard Edgecumbe. Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was successively member of parliament for St Germans, Plympton and Lostwithiel from 1701 to 1742; on two occasions he served as a lord of the treasury; and from 1724 to 1742 he was paymaster-general for Ireland, becoming chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in 1743. Edgecumbe was a faithful follower of Sir Robert Walpole, in whose interests he managed the elections for the Cornish boroughs, and his elevation to the peerage, which took place in 1742, was designed to prevent him from giving evidence about Walpole’s expenditure of the secret service money. He died on the 22nd of November 1758. His son and successor, Richard, the 2nd baron (1716-1761), was comptroller of the royal household, a member of parliament, and a major-general in the army. A wit, a writer of verse, a gambler and an intimate friend of Horace Walpole, “Dick Edgecumbe” died unmarried on the 10th of May 1761.

Edgecumbe’s brother, George, 1st earl of Mount Edgecumbe (1721-1795), was a naval officer who saw a great deal of service during the Seven Years’ War. Succeeding to the barony on the 1st baron’s death in 1761 he became an admiral and treasurer of the royal household; he was created Viscount Mount-Edgecumbe in 1781 and earl of Mount-Edgecumbe in 1789. He died on the 4th of February 1795, his only son being his successor, Richard, the 2nd earl (1764-1839), the ancestor of the present earl and the author of Musical Reminiscences of an Old Amateur. He died on the 26th of September 1839. His son, Ernest Augustus, the 3rd earl (1797-1861), wrote Extracts from Journals kept during the Revolutions at Rome and Palermo.

EDGE HILL, an elevated ridge in Warwickshire, England, near the border of Oxfordshire. The north-western face is an abrupt escarpment of the lias, and the summit of the ridge is almost level for nearly 2 m., at a height somewhat exceeding 700 ft. The escarpment overlooks a rich lowland watered by streams tributary to the Avon; the gentle eastern slope sends its waters to the Cherwell, and the ridge thus forms part of the divide between the basins of the Severn and the Thames. Edge Hill gave name to the first battle of the Great Rebellion (q.v.), fought on the 23rd of October 1642. Charles I., marching on London from the north-west, was here met by the parliamentary forces under Robert Devereux, earl of Essex. The royalists were posted on the hill while the enemy was in the plain before Kineton. But the rash advice of Prince Rupert determined the king to give up the advantage of position; he descended to the attack, and though Rupert himself was successful against the opposing cavalry, he was checked by the arrival of a regiment with artillery under Hampden, and, in the meantime, the royalist infantry was driven back. The parliamentarians, however, lost the more heavily, and though both sides claimed the advantage, the king was able to advance and occupy Banbury.

EDGEWORTH, MARIA (1767-1849), Irish novelist, second child and eldest daughter of Richard Lovell Edgeworth (q.v.) and his first wife, Anna Maria Elers, was born in the house of her maternal grandparents at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire, on the 1st of January 1767. Her early efforts in fiction were of a sufficiently melodramatic character; for she recollected one of her schoolgirl compositions, in which the hero wore a mask made of the dried skin taken from a dead man’s face. Her holidays were often spent in the house of the eccentric Thomas Day, for whom she entertained a genuine respect. She had ample opportunities for society among her father’s neighbours in Ireland, among whom were the second Lord Longford, whose daughter, “Kitty” Pakenham, became later duchess of Wellington, Lady Moira at Castle Forbes, and Maria’s aunt, Margaret Ruxton, at Black Castle. She gained a first-hand experience of the Irish peasantry by acting as her father’s assistant in the management of the estate. The Edgeworths were in Ireland from 1793 onwards through that dangerous period, and Maria’s letters, always gay and natural, make very light of their anxieties and their real perils.

Mr Edgeworth encouraged his daughter’s literary instincts. It has been the fashion to regard his influence over Maria’s work as altogether deplorable, but against the disadvantages arising from his interference must be weighed the stimulus she undoubtedly derived from his powerful mind. Her first publication was a plea for female education, Letters to Literary Ladies (1795), and in 1796 appeared the collection of stories known as The Parent’s Assistant (2nd ed., 6 vols., 1800), an unpromising title which was not chosen by the author. The stories had been submitted as they were written to the juvenile critics of the Edgeworth nursery. They were therefore children’s stories for children, even though the morals were Mr Edgeworth’s. In 1798 Mr Edgeworth’s fourth marriage threatened the family harmony, but Maria soon became a close friend of her stepmother. Practical Education (2 vols., 1798) was written in conjunction with her father, who also collaborated with her in the Essay on Irish Bulls (1802). Miss Edgeworth’s first novel, Castle Rackrent, an Hibernian Tale taken from Facts, and from the Manners of the Irish Squires before the year 1782, was written without her father’s supervision, and appeared anonymously in 1800. It is the story of an Irish estate and its owners, the Rackrents, as told by Thady, the steward. Its success was immediate, and a second edition soon appeared with the author’s name. Perhaps because of the absence of Richard Lovell Edgeworth’s co-operation, the book is the most natural and vigorous of her novels. The course of the story is not altered to suit any moral, and the personages appear to be drawn immediately from the natives of Edgeworthstown, though Miss Edgeworth asserts that only Thady himself was an actual portrait. In her realistic pictures of Irish peasant life she opened up a new vein in fiction, and even if the unquestionable excellences of Castle Rackrent were less, it would still be a noteworthy book. In the “General Preface” to the 1829 edition of his novels Sir Walter Scott, writing of the publication of Waverley, says: “I felt that something might be attempted for my own country, of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland,” and in the “Postscript, which should have been a preface,” in the original edition of Waverley, he describes his aim as being “in some distant degree to emulate the admirable Irish portraits of Miss Edgeworth, so different from the ‘Teagues’ and ‘dear joys’ who so long, with the most perfect family resemblance to each other, occupied the drama and the novel.” Belinda (1801) is a society novel, and one of her best books. Mr Saintsbury thinks that Miss Austen’s heroines owe something of their naturalness to Belinda, who was one of the earliest to break with the tradition of fainting and blushing. Moral Tales for Young People (5 vols.) and Early Lessons, which included “Harry and Lucy,” “Rosamond” and “Frank,” appeared in 1801.

In 1802 the Edgeworths went abroad, first to Brussels and then to Paris. They had already connexions in Paris through their kinsman, the abbé Henri Allen Edgeworth de Firmont, who was, however, then in exile. They met all the notabilities in Paris, and Maria refused an offer of marriage from a Swedish count named Edelcrantz. Although Leonora, not published until four years later, is said to have been written to meet his taste, she apparently remained then and always heart-whole; but her stepmother thought otherwise, and maintained that she suffered severely for her decision (Memoir, i. 144). Returning to Edgeworthstown, Miss Edgeworth resumed her writing, which was always done in the rooms commonly used by the whole family. Popular Tales was published in 1804, and The Modern Griselda in the same year; Leonora in 1806; and in 1809 the first series of Tales of Fashionable Life, three volumes containing “Ennui,” “Madame de Fleury,” “Almeria,” “The Dun” and “Manœuvring”; the second series (3 vols., 1812) included “The Absentee,” one of her best tales, which was originally designed as a play, “Vivian” and “Émilie de Coulanges.” In 1813 Maria and her parents spent a considerable time in London, and her society was much sought after. When Waverley was published, Miss Edgeworth received a copy from the publishers, and at once recognized the authorship. She wrote a long letter of appreciation (23rd of October 1814) to “the author of Waverley,” which she began with the phrase aut Scotus, aut diabolus, but the letter was merely acknowledged by the publishers. Patronage (4 vols., 1814), the longest of her novels, and Harrington, a tale, and Ormond, a tale (3 vols., 1817) complete the list of the works which received what her father called his imprimatur.

After his death in 1817 Miss Edgeworth occupied herself with completing his Memoirs, which were published in 1820. The book was the excuse for an attack on Mr Edgeworth’s reputation in the July number of the Quarterly Review, which Miss Edgeworth had the courage to leave unread. Her life at Edgeworthstown was varied by visits to London, to Lord Lansdowne at Bowood, Wiltshire, to the Misses Sneyd in Staffordshire, and to many other friends. In 1820 she was again in Paris, and in 1823 she spent a happy fortnight with the Scotts at Abbotsford. In 1825 Scott went to Edgeworthstown, and their relations were always cordial.

Miss Edgeworth’s production was less after her father’s death. Sequels to “Rosamond,” “Frank,” “Harry and Lucy” in the Early Lessons were published in 1822-1825. Comic Dramas appeared in 1817, and Helen in 1834. She worked to the last, and in 1846 laboured strenuously for the relief of the famine-stricken Irish peasants. She died on the 22nd of May 1849.

Miss Edgeworth’s novels are distinguished by good sense, humour and an easy flowing style. As the construction of a plot is not her strong point, she is generally more successful in tales than in lengthy novels. The vivacity of her dialogues is extraordinary; and in them her characters reveal themselves in the most natural way possible. Her books are character-studies rather than intensely interesting narratives. Sobriety of judgment is seen throughout; and passion, romance and poetry rarely, if ever, shed their lustre on her pages. Three of her aims were to paint national manners, to enforce morality, and to teach fashionable society by satirizing the lives of the idle and worldly. She expressly calls some of her stories “Moral Tales”; but they all fall under this category. In her pages the heroic virtues give place to prudence, industry, kindness and sweetness of temper. There are few instances of overwhelming emotions or tumultuous passions in her works; and it is remarkable how little the love of nature appears. She never uses material which does not yield some direct moral lesson. But the freshness of her stories, her insight into character, lively dialogues, originality of invention, and delightfully clear style render it quite possible to read her works in succession without any sense of weariness. Among the many sweet memories her unsullied pages have bequeathed to the world, not the least precious is her own noble character, which ever responded to all that is best and most enduring in human nature.

See A Memoir of Maria Edgeworth, with a Selection from her Letters (1867), by her stepmother, F.A. Edgeworth, privately printed. A selection from this was made by Augustus J.C. Hare, and printed under the title of The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth (2 vols., 1894). See also Maria Edgeworth (1883), by Helen Zimmern, in the “Eminent Women” series; Grace A. Oliver, A Study of Maria Edgeworth ... (3rd ed., Boston, U.S.A., 1882); and Maria Edgeworth (1904), by the Hon. Emily Lawless in the “English Men of Letters” series. Among the numerous shorter articles dealing with Maria Edgeworth and the family circle at Edgeworthstown may be mentioned a friendly appreciation of Miss Edgeworth’s novels by George Saintsbury in Macmillan’s Magazine (July 1895), and a charming description of her family circle and surroundings in the preface supplied by Lady Thackeray Ritchie to Macmillan’s edition of the novels (1895).

EDGEWORTH, RICHARD LOVELL (1744-1817), British writer, was born at Bath on the 31st of May 1744. The greater part of his life, however, was spent at Edgeworthtown, or Edgeworthstown, in the county of Longford, Ireland, where the Edgeworth family had been settled for upwards of 150 years. He was of gentle blood—his father being the son of Colonel Francis Edgeworth, and his mother, Jane Lovell, being the daughter of Samuel Lovell, a Welsh judge. Richard’s mother taught him to read at a very early age; and from childhood he had a strong love for mechanical science. The Rev. Patrick Hughes initiated him in Lilye’s Latin Grammar—an office he also performed for Goldsmith, who was born on the property of the Edgeworths—and his public education began, in August 1752, in a school at Warwick. He subsequently attended Drogheda school, then reputed the best in Ireland; and, after spending two years at a school in Longford, entered Trinity College, Dublin, in April 1761, but was transferred to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in October of the same year. While still at college, he made a runaway match, marrying at Gretna Green, Anna Maria, one of the daughters of Paul Elers of Black Bourton, Oxfordshire, an old friend of his father. His eldest son was born before Edgeworth reached his twentieth birthday, and his daughter Maria in 1767.

Shortly after the birth of his son, he and his wife went to Edgeworthstown, but in 1765 they took a house at Hare Hatch, near Maidenhead. Edgeworth devoted much time to scientific reading and experiments; and he made an attempt to establish telegraphic communication (Memoirs, 2nd edition, i. 144). He also invented a turnip-cutter, a one-wheeled chaise and other contrivances. In the pursuit of his mechanical inventions he visited Erasmus Darwin at Lichfield, where he met Anna Seward, and her cousin, Honora Sneyd. His home was now at Hare Hatch, in Berkshire, where he endeavoured to educate his son according to the method explained in Rousseau’s Émile. In later life, however, the ill-success of this experiment led him to doubt many of Rousseau’s views (Memoirs, ii. 374). At the same time he kept terms at the Temple, and formed the greatest friendship of his life with Thomas Day, the author of Sandford and Merton, which was written at Edgeworth’s suggestion. In 1769, on the death of his father, he gave up the idea of being a barrister; but, instead of immediately settling on his Irish estate, he spent a considerable time in England and France, mainly in Day’s company. In Lyons, where he resided for about two years, he took an active part in the management of public works intended to turn the course of the Rhone. He was summoned to England by the death of his wife (March 1773), with whom he was far from happy. Edgeworth hurried to Lichfield, to Dr Erasmus Darwin’s, and at once declared his passion for Honora Sneyd, which had been the cause of his flight to France two years before. Miss Sneyd had been the object of attention from Thomas Day, but her views on marriage were not submissive enough to please him. She had other suitors, among them the unfortunate Major André. She married Edgeworth (July 1773), and after residing at Edgeworthstown for three years, they settled at Northchurch, in Hertfordshire. After six years of domestic happiness, Honora Edgeworth died (April 1780), recommending her husband to marry her sister Elizabeth; and they were actually married on Christmas Day, 1780.

In 1782 Edgeworth returned to Ireland, determined to improve his estate, educate his seven children, and ameliorate the condition of the tenants. Up to this point Edgeworth has told his own story in his Memoirs. The rest of his life is written by his daughter, who opens with a lengthy panegyric on her father as a model landlord (Memoirs, ii. 12-36). In 1785 he was associated with others in founding the Royal Irish Academy; and, during the two succeeding years, mechanics and agriculture occupied most of his time. In October 1789 his friend Day was killed by a fall from his horse, and this trial was soon followed by the loss of his daughter Honora, who had just reached her fifteenth year. In 1792 the health of one of Edgeworth’s sons took him to Clifton, where he remained with his family for about two years, returning in 1794 to Edgeworthstown. Ireland was, at that time, harassed by internal disturbances, and threats of a French invasion, and Edgeworth offered to establish telegraphic communication of his own invention throughout the country. This offer was declined. A full account of the matter is given in Edgeworth’s Letter to Lord Charlemont on the Telegraph; and his apparatus is explained in an “Essay on the art of Conveying Swift and Secret Intelligence,” published in the sixth volume of the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. In the autumn of 1797 the third Mrs Edgeworth died.

Practical Education (1798) was written in collaboration with his daughter Maria, and embodied the experience of the authors in dealing with children. “So commenced,” says Miss Edgeworth, “that literary partnership which, for so many years, was the pride and joy of my life” (Memoirs, ii. 170). This book, generally regarded as old-fashioned, has a real value in the history of education. Mr Edgeworth’s interest in the subject had been inspired by the study of Rousseau and by his friendship with Thomas Day. But he went beyond Rousseau, who developed his theories from his own ingenious mind and related an imaginary process. The Edgeworths brought a scientific method to their work. The second Mrs Edgeworth (Honora Sneyd) began the collection of actual examples of conversations between the children and their elders. This was continued patiently by the writers of the book; and their reasonings were thus founded on an accurate record of childish methods of thought. They deprecated especially any measures that interrupted the child’s own chain of reasoning. The chapters on special subjects of study, chronology, geometry, &c., were written by Richard Lovell Edgeworth; those on toys, on rewards and punishments, on temper, &c., by his daughter.1

In 1798 Edgeworth married Miss Beaufort, and was elected M.P. for the borough of St John’s Town, Longford. The same year, too, saw a hostile landing of the French and a formidable rebellion; and for a short time the Edgeworths took refuge in Longford. The winter of 1802 they spent in Paris. In 1804 the government accepted his telegraphic apparatus, but the installation was left incomplete when the fear of invasion was past. In 1802 appeared the Essay on Irish Bulls by Mr and Miss Edgeworth; and in 1806 Edgeworth was elected a member of the board of commissioners to inquire into Irish education. From 1807 till 1809 much of his time was spent on mechanical experiments and in writing the story of his life. In 1808 appeared Professional Education, and in 1813 his Essay on the Construction of Roads and Carriages. He died on the 13th of June 1817, and was buried in the family vault in Edgeworthstown churchyard.

Many of Edgeworth’s works were suggested by his zeal for the education of his own children. Such were Poetry Explained for Young People (1802), Readings in Poetry (1816), A Rational Primer (unpublished), and the parts of Early Lessons contributed by him. His speeches in the Irish parliament have also been published; and numerous essays, mostly on scientific subjects, have appeared in the Philosophical Transactions, the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, the Monthly Magazine and Nicholson’s Journal. The story of his early life, told by himself, is fully as entertaining as the continuation by Maria, as it contains less dissertation and more incident. One of his daughters by his first marriage, Anna Maria, married Dr Beddoes and became the mother of T.L. Beddoes, the poet.

See Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Esq., begun by himself and concluded by his daughter, Maria Edgeworth (2 vols., 1820, 3rd and revised ed. 1844). A selection from this, giving an optimistic view of him, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1896), was edited by Mrs Lionel Tollemache.

1 For an appreciation of the two Edgeworths from the teacher’s point of view, see Prof. L.C. Miall in the Journal of Education (August 1, 1894).

EDGEWORTH DE FIRMONT, HENRY ESSEX (1745-1807), last confessor to Louis XVI., was the son of Robert Edgeworth, rector of Edgeworthstown in Ireland, his mother being a granddaughter of Archbishop Ussher. When he was three years old his father became a Roman Catholic, resigned his living and emigrated to Toulouse, where the boy was brought up by the Jesuits. In 1769, after his father’s death, he went to Paris to be trained for the priesthood. On taking orders he assumed the additional surname of de Firmont, from the family estate of Firmount near Edgeworthstown. Though originally studying with a view to becoming a missionary, he decided to remain in Paris, devoting himself especially to the Irish and English Roman Catholics. In 1791 he became confessor to the princess Elizabeth, sister of Louis XVI., and earned the respect even of the sans-culottes by his courage and devotion. By Madame Elizabeth he was recommended to the king when his trial was impending; and after Louis’ condemnation to death he was able to obtain permission to celebrate mass for him and attend him on the scaffold, where he recommended the king to allow his hands to be tied, with the words: “Sire, in this new outrage I see only the last trait of resemblance between your Majesty and the God who will be your reward.” It is said that at the moment of the execution, the confessor uttered the celebrated words: “Son of St Louis, ascend to heaven.” But it is certain that the phrase was never spoken. The abbé himself does not quote it, either in his memoirs or in a letter written in 1796 to his brother, in which he describes the death of the king. Moreover, Edgeworth declared to several persons who asked him about it, that the words were not his. In spite of the danger he now ran, Edgeworth refused to leave France so long as he could be of any service to Madame Elizabeth, with whom he still managed to correspond. At length, in 1795, his mother having meanwhile died in prison, where his sister was also confined, he succeeded in escaping to England, carrying with him Elizabeth’s last message to her brother, the future King Charles X. whom he found in Edinburgh. He afterwards went with some papers to Monsieur (Louis XVIII.) at Blankenburg in Brunswick, by whom he was induced to accompany him to Mittau, where, on the 22nd of May 1807, he died of a fever contracted while attending some French prisoners.

Edgeworth’s Memories, edited by C.S. Edgeworth, were first published in English (London, 1815), and a French translation (really the letters and some miscellaneous notes, &c.) was published in Paris in 1816. A translation of the Lettres de l’abbé Edgeworth avec des mémoires sur sa vie was published by Madame Elizabeth de Bow in Paris in 1818, and Letters from the Abbé Edgeworth to his Friends, with Memoirs of his Life, edited by T.B. England, in London in 1818. See J.B.A. Hanet-Cléry, Journal de ce qui s’est passé, &c. (Paris, 1825); A.H. du D. de Beauchesne, Vie de Madame Elisabeth (Paris, 1869); J.C.D. de Lacretelle, Précis historique de la Révolution française (Paris, 1801-1806).

EDGREN-LEFFLER, ANNE CHARLOTTE, duchess of Cajanello (1849-1892), Swedish author, daughter of the mathematician Prof. C.O. Leffler, was born on the 1st of October 1849. Her first volume of stories appeared in 1869, but the first to which she attached her name was Ur Lifvet (“From Life,” 1882), a series of realistic sketches of the upper circles of Swedish society, followed by three other collections with the same title. Her earliest plays, Skådespelerskan (“The Actress,” 1873), and its successors, were produced anonymously in Stockholm, but in 1883 her reputation was established by the success of Sanna Kvinnor (“True Women”), and En Räddande engel (“An Angel of Deliverance”). Sanna Kvinnor is directed against false femininity, and was well received in Germany as well as in Sweden. Anne Leffler had married in 1872 G. Edgren, but about 1884 she was separated from her husband, who did not share her advanced views. She spent some time in England, and in 1885 produced her Hur man gör godt (“How men do good”), followed in 1888 by Kampen för lyckan (“The Struggle for Happiness”), in which she had the help of Sophie Kovalevsky. Another volume of the Ur Lisvet series appeared in 1889; and Familjelycka (“Domestic Happiness,” 1891) was produced in the year after her second marriage, with the Italian mathematician, Pasquale del Pezzo, duca di Cajanello. She died at Naples on the 21st of October 1892. Her dramatic method forms a connecting link between Ibsen and Strindberg, and its masculine directness, freedom from prejudice, and frankness gave her work a high estimation in Sweden. Her last book was a biography (1892) of her friend Sophie (Sonya) Kovalevsky, by way of introduction to Sonya’s autobiography. An English translation (1895) by A. de Furnhjelm and A.M. Clive Bayley contains a biographical note on Fru Edgren-Leffler by Lily Wolffsohn, based on private sources.

See also Ellen Key, Anne Charlotte Leffler (Stockholm, 1893).

EDHEM PASHA (c. 1815-1893), Turkish statesman, was of Greek origin, and is said to have been taken into a Turkish household at the time of the Chio massacre in 1822, and to have been brought up as a Mussulman. He entered the Turkish government service and rose to high office, being successively minister of public works, grand vizier for eleven months (1878), ambassador at Vienna (1879) and minister of the interior. He was quick-tempered, but of kindly disposition, intelligent and patriotic, and he left a reputation of unblemished honesty and uprightness.

EDICT (Lat. edictum, from e, out, and dicere, to say, speak), an order or proclamation issued under authority and having the force of law. The word is especially used of the promulgations of the Roman praetor (q.v.), of the Roman emperors, and also of the kings of France (see also Roman Law).

EDINBURGH, a city and royal burgh, and county of itself, the capital of Scotland, and county town of Edinburghshire or Midlothian, situated to the south of the Firth of Forth, 396 m. by rail N. of London. The old Royal Observatory on Calton Hill stands in 55° 57′ 23″ N. and 12° 43′ 05″ W. Edinburgh occupies a group of hills of moderate height and the valleys between. In the centre is a bold rock, crowned by the castle, between which and the new town lies a ravine that once contained the Nor’ Loch, but is now covered with the gardens of Princes Street. To the east rises Calton Hill (355 ft.) with several conspicuous monuments, the city prison and the Calton cemetery. On the south-east, beyond the Canongate limits, stands the hill of Arthur’s Seat (822 ft.). Towards the north the site of the city slopes gently to the Firth of Forth and the port of Leith; while to the south, Liberton Hill, Blackford Hill, Braid Hills and Craiglockhart Hills roughly mark the city bounds, as Corstorphine Hill and the Water of Leith do the western limits. The views of the city and environs from the castle or any of the hills are very beautiful, and it is undoubtedly one of the most picturesque capitals in the world. Its situation, general plan and literary associations suggested a comparison that gave Edinburgh the name of “the modern Athens”; but it has a homelier nickname of “Auld Reekie,” from the cloud of smoke (reek) which often hangs over the low-lying quarters.

Chief Buildings.—Of the castle, the oldest building is St Margaret’s chapel, believed to be the chapel where Queen Margaret, wife of Malcolm Canmore, worshipped, and belonging at latest to the reign of her youngest son, David I. (1124-1153). Near it is the parliament and banqueting hall, restored (1889-1892) by the generosity of William Nelson (1817-1887) the publisher, which contains a fine collection of Scottish armour, weapons and regimental colours, while, emblazoned on the windows, are the heraldic bearings of royal and other figures distinguished in national history. Other buildings in the Palace Yard include the apartments occupied by the regent, Mary of Guise, and her daughter Mary, queen of Scots, and the room in which James VI. was born. Here also are deposited the Scottish regalia (“The Honours of Scotland”), with the sword of state presented to James IV. by Pope Julius II., and the jewels restored to Scotland on the death (1807) of Cardinal York, the last of the Stuarts. The arsenal, a modern building on the west side of the rock, is capable of storing 30,000 stand of arms. In the armoury is a collection of arms of various dates; and on the Argyll battery stands a huge piece of ancient artillery, called Mons Meg, of which repeated mention is made in Scottish history. Argyll Tower, in which Archibald, 9th earl of Argyll, spent his last days (1685), was also restored in 1892 by Mr William Nelson.

Holyrood Palace was originally an abbey of canons regular of the rule of St Augustine, founded by David I. in 1128, and the ruined nave of the abbey church still shows parts of the original structure. Connected with this is a part of the royal palace erected by James IV. and James V., including the apartments occupied by Queen Mary, the scene of the murder of Rizzio in 1566. The abbey suffered repeatedly in invasions. It was sacked and burnt by the English under the earl of Hertford in 1544, and again in 1547. In a map of 1544, preserved among the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum, the present north-west tower of the palace is shown standing apart, and only joined to the abbey by a low cloister. Beyond this is an irregular group of buildings, which were replaced at a later date by additions more in accordance with a royal residence. But the whole of this latter structure was destroyed by fire in 1650 while in occupation by the soldiers of Cromwell; and the more modern parts were begun during the Protectorate, and completed in the reign of Charles II. by Robert Milne, after the designs of Sir William Bruce of Kinross. They include the picture gallery, 150 ft. in length, with 106 mythical portraits of Scottish kings, and a triptych (c. 1484) containing portraits of James III. and his queen, which is believed to have formed the altar-piece of the collegiate church of the Holy Trinity, founded by the widowed queen of James II. in 1462, demolished in 1848, and afterwards rebuilt, stone for stone, in Jeffrey Street. The picture gallery is associated with the festive scenes that occurred during the short residence of Prince Charles in 1745; and in it the election of representative peers for Scotland takes place. Escaping from France at the revolution of 1789, the comte d’Artois, afterwards Charles X. of France, had apartments granted for the use of himself and the emigrant nobles of his suite, who continued to reside in the palace till August 1799. When driven from the French throne by the revolution of 1830, Charles once more found a home in the ancient palace of the Stuarts. George IV. was received there in 1822, and Queen Victoria and the prince consort occupied the palace for brief periods on several occasions, and in 1903 Edward VII., during residence at Dalkeith Palace, held his court within its walls. A fountain, after the original design of that in the quadrangle of Linlithgow Palace, was erected in front of the entrance by the prince consort. The royal vault in the Chapel Royal, which had fallen into a dilapidated condition, has been put in order; Clockmill House and grounds have been added to the area of the parade ground, and the abbey precincts generally and the approaches to the King’s Park have been improved. With the abolition of imprisonment for debt in 1881 the privileges of sanctuary came to an end.