Part 2 — CHAPTER IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (continued 30)

E. E. and S. Hale, The Story of Spain, chapter 18.

SEVILLE: A. D. 712. Surrender to the Arab-Moors.

See SPAIN: A. D. 711-713.

SEVILLE: A. D. 1031-1091. The seat of a Moorish kingdom.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1031-1086.

SEVILLE: A. D. 1248. Conquest from the Moors by St. Ferdinand of Castile.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1248-1350.

—————SEVILLE: End————

SEVILLE, Treaty of (1730).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731.

SEVIN, Battle of (1877).

See TURKS: A. D. 1877-1878.

SEWAN.

See WAMPUM.

SEWARD, William H. Defeat in the Chicago Convention of 1860.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (APRIL-NOVEMBER).

In President Lincoln's Cabinet.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (MARCH), and after.

The Trent Affair.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A.D.1861 (NOVEMBER).

The Proclamation of Emancipation.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER).

Attempted assassination.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL 14TH).

In President Johnson's Cabinet.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY).

SFORZA, Francesco, The rise to ducal sovereignty of.

See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.

SHABATZ, Battle of (1806).

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14-19TH CENTURIES (SERVIA).

SHACAYA, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.

SHAH, OR SCHAH.

See BEY; also CHESS.

SHAH JAHAN, Moghul Emperor or Padischah of India, A. D. 1628-1658.

SHAH ROKH, Shah of Persia, A. D. 1747-1751.

SHAHAPTIAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: NEZ PERCÉS.

SHAHPUR.

One of the capitals of the later Persian empire, the ruins of which exist near Kazerun, in the province of Fars. It was built by Sapor I., the second of the Sassanian kings, and received his name.

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 4.

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SHAKERS, The.

"From the time of the first settlements until the age of the Revolution, if there were any communistic societies founded, [in the United States] I have met with no account of them. The first which has had a long life, was that of the Shakers, or Shaking Quakers, as they were at first called, on account of their bodily movements in worship. The members of this sect or society left England in 1774, and have prospered ever since. It has now multiplied into settlements—twelve of them in New York and New England—in regard to which we borrow the following statistics from Dr. Nordhoff's book on communistic societies in the United States, published in 1875. Their property consists of 49,335 acres of land in home farms, with other real estate. The value of their houses and personal property is not given. The population of all the communities consists of 695 male and 1,189 female adults, with 531 young persons under twenty-one, of whom 192 are males and 339 females, amounting in all to 2,415 in 1874. The maximum of population was 5,069, a decline to less than half, for which we are not able to account save on the supposition that there are permanent causes of decay now at work within the communities. … The Shakers were at their origin a society of enthusiasts in humble life, who separated from the Quakers about the middle of the eighteenth century. Ann Lee, one of the members, on account of spiritual manifestations believed to have been made to her, became an oracle in the body, and in 1773 she declared that a revelation from heaven instructed her to go to America. The next year she crossed the sea, with eight others, and settled in the woods of Watervliet, near Albany. She preached, and was believed to have performed remarkable cures. From her … [was] derived the rule of celibacy. … She died in 1784, as the acknowledged head of the church; and had afterward nearly equal honors paid to her with the Saviour. Under the second successor of Ann Lee almost all the societies in New York and New England were founded; and under the third, a woman named Lucy Wright, whose leadership lasted nearly thirty years, those in Ohio and Kentucky. … After 1830 the Shakers founded no new society. Dr. Nordhoff gives the leading doctrines of the Shakers, which are, some of them, singular enough. They hold that God is a dual person, male and female; that Adam, created in his image, was dual also; that the same is true of all angels and spirits; and that Christ is one of the highest spirits, who appeared first in the person of Jesus and afterward in that of Ann Lee. There are four heavens and four hells. Noah went to the first heaven, and the wicked of his time to the first hell. The second heaven was called Paradise, and contained the pious Jews until the appearance of Christ. The third, that into which the Apostle Paul was caught, included all that lived until the time of Ann Lee. The fourth is now being filled up, and 'is to supersede all the others.' They hold that the day of judgment, or beginning of Christ's kingdom on earth, began with the establishment of their church, and will go on until it is brought to its completion. … In regard to marriage and property they do not take the position that these are crimes; but only marks of a lower order of society. The world will have a chance to become pure in a future state as well as here. They believed in spiritual communication and possession."

T. D. Woolsey, Communism and Socialism, pages 51-56.

ALSO IN: C. Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the United States, pages 117-232.

SHAKESPEARE, and the English Renaissance.

See ENGLAND: 15-16TH CENTURIES.

SHAMANISM.

See LAMAS.—LAMAISM.

SHARON, Plain of.

That part of the low-land of the Palestine seacoast which stretched northward from Philistia to the promontory of Mt. Carmel. It was assigned to the tribe of Dan.

SHARPSBURG, OR ANTIETAM, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER: MARYLAND).

SHASTAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SASTEAN FAMILY.

SHASU, The.

An Egyptian name "in which science has for a long time and with perfect certainty recognized the Bedouins of the highest antiquity. They inhabited the great desert between Egypt and the land of Canaan and extended their wanderings sometimes as far as the river Euphrates."

H. Brugsch, History of Egypt Under the Pharaohs, chapter 11.

See, also, EGYPT: THE HYKSOS.

SHAWMUT.

The Indian name of the peninsula on which Boston, Massachusetts, was built.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1630.

SHAWNEES, OR SHAWANESE.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SHAWANESE.

SHAYS REBELLION.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1786-1787.

SHEADINGS.

See MANX KINGDOM, THE.

SHEBA.

"The name of Sheba is still to be recognised in the tribe of Benu-es-Sab, who inhabit a portion of Oman" (Southern Arabia).

F. Lenormant, Manual of the Ancient History of the East, book 7, chapter 1.

See, also, ARABIA: THE ANCIENT SUCCESSION AND FUSION OF RACES.

SHEEPEATERS (Tukuarika).

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SHOSHONEAN FAMILY.

SHEKEL, The.

"Queipo is of opinion that the talent, the larger unit of Egyptian weight for monetary purposes, and for weighing the precious metals, was equal to the weight of water contained in the cube of 2/3 of the royal or sacred cubit, and thus equivalent to 42.48 kilos, or 113.814 lbs. troy. He considers this to have been the weight of the Mosaic talent taken by the Hebrews out of Egypt. It was divided into fifty minas, each equal to 849.6 grammes, or 13,111 English grains; and the mina into fifty shekels, each equal to 14.16 grammes, or 218.5 English grains. … There appears to be satisfactory evidence from existing specimens of the earliest Jewish coins that the normal weight of the later Jewish shekel of silver was 218.5 troy grains, or 14.16 grammes."

H. W. Chisholm, On the Science of Weighing and Measuring, chapter 2.

SHELBURNE MINISTRY, and the negotiation of peace between England and the United States.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1782-1783; AND UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).

SHENANDOAH, The Confederate Cruiser.

See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1862-1865.

—————SHENANDOAH VALLEY: Start————

SHENANDOAH VALLEY: A. D. 1716. Possession taken by the Virginians.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1710-1710.

{2901}

SHENANDOAH VALLEY: A. D. 1744. Purchase from the Six Nations.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1744.

SHENANDOAH VALLEY: A. D. 1861-1864. Campaigns in the Civil War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861-1862 (DECEMBER-APRIL,: VIRGINIA); 1862 (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA), (SEPTEMBER: MARYLAND), (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER: VIRGINIA); A. D. 1864 (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA), (JULY: VIRGINIA-MARYLAND), and (AUGUST-OCTOBER:VIRGINIA).

—————SHENANDOAH VALLEY: End————

SHENIR, Battle of.

A crushing defeat of the army of king Hazael of Damascus by Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, B. C. 841.

SHEPHELAH, The.

The name given by the Jews to the tract of low-lying coast which the Philistines occupied.

SHEPHERD KINGS.

See EGYPT: THE HYKSOS.

SHERIDAN, General Philip H.: In the Battle of Stone River.

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

At Chickamauga, and in the Chattanooga Campaign.

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

Raid to Richmond.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY: VIRGINIA).

Raid to Trevillian Station.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA).

Campaign in the Shenandoah.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (AUGUST-OCTOBER: VIRGINIA).

Battle of Five Forks.

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

SHERIFF. SCIRGEREFA.

"The Scirgerefa is, as his name denotes, the person who stands at the head of the shire, 'pagus' or county: he is also called Scirman or Scirigman. He is properly speaking the holder of the county court, scirgemot, or folcmot, and probably at first was its elected chief. But as this gerefa was at first the people's officer, he seems to have shared the fate of the people, and to have sunk in the scale as the royal authority gradually rose: during the whole of our historical period we find him exercising only a concurrent jurisdiction, shared in and controlled by the ealdorman on the one hand and the bishop on the other. … The sheriff was naturally the leader of the militia, posse comitatus, or levy of the free men, who served under his banner, as the different lords with their dependents served under the royal officers. … In the earliest periods, the office was doubtless elective, and possibly even to the last the people may have enjoyed theoretically, at least, a sort of concurrent choice. But I cannot hesitate for a moment in asserting that under the consolidated monarchy, the scirgerefa was nominated by the king, with or without the acceptance of the county-court, though this in all probability was never refused."

J. M. Kemble, The Saxons in England, book 2, chapter 5 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: R. Gneist, History of the English Constitution, chapter 4.

See, also, SHIRE; and EALDORMAN.

SHERIFFMUIR, Battle of.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1715.

SHERMAN, General W. T.: At the first Battle of Bull Run.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY: VIRGINIA).

Removal from command in Kentucky.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY: KENTUCKY-TENNESSEE).

Battle of Shiloh.

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

The second attempt against Vicksburg.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (DECEMBER: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

The final Vicksburg campaign.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (APRIL-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

The capture of Jackson.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY: MISSISSIPPI).

The Chattanooga Campaign.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).

Meridian expedition.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863-1864 (DECEMBER-APRIL; TENNESSEE-MISSISSIPPI).

Atlanta campaign.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY: GEORGIA), and (MAY-SEPTEMBER: GEORGIA).

March to the Sea.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER; GEORGIA), and (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER: GEORGIA).

The last campaign.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D.1865 (FEBRUARY-MARCH: THE CAROLINAS), and (APRIL 26TH).

SHERMAN SILVER ACT, and its repeal.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1890-1893.

SHERSTONE, Battle of.

The second battle fought between Cnut, or Canute, and Edmund Ironsides for the English crown. It was in Wiltshire, A. D. 1016.

SHERWOOD FOREST.

"The name of Sherwood or Shirewood is, there can be no reasonable doubt," says Mr. Llewellyn Jewett, "derived from the open-air assemblies, or folk-moots, or witenagemotes of the shire being there held in primitive times." The Forest once covered the whole county of Nottingham and extended into both Yorkshire and Derbyshire, twenty-five miles one way by eight or ten the other. It was a royal forest and favorite hunting resort of both Saxon and Norman kings; but is best known as the scene of the exploits of the bold outlaw Robin Hood. Few vestiges of the great forest now remain.

J. C. Brown, The Forests of England.

SHESHATAPOOSH INDIANS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

SHETLAND, OR ZETLAND, ISLES: 8-13th Centuries. The Northmen in possession.

See NORMANS. NORTHMEN: 8-9TH CENTURIES, and 10-13TH CENTURIES.

SHEYENNES, OR CHEYENNES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

SHI WEI, The.

See MONGOLS: ORIGIN, &c.

SHIAHS, OR SHIAS, The.

See ISLAM; also PERSIA: A. D. 1499-1887.

SHIITES, Sultan Selim's massacre of the.

See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.

SHILOH, OR PITTSBURG LANDING, Battle of.

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

SHINAR.

See BABYLONIA: PRIMITIVE.

SHIP OF THE LINE.

In the time of wooden navies, "a ship carrying not less than 74 guns upon three decks, and of sufficient size to be placed in line of battle," was called a "ship of the line," or a "line-of-battle ship."

SHIP-MONEY.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1634-1637.

SHIPKA PASS, Struggle for the.

See TURKS: A. D. 1877-1878.

SHIPWRECK, Law of.

See LAW: ADMIRALTY.

{2902}

SHIRE. SHIREMOOT.

"The name scir or shire, which marks the division immediately superior to the hundred, merely means a subdivision or share of a larger whole, and was early used in connexion with an official name to designate the territorial sphere appointed to the particular magistracy denoted by that name. So the diocese was the bishop's scire. … The historical shires or counties owe their origin to different causes. … The sheriff or scir-gerefa, the scir-man of the laws of Ini, was the king's steward and judicial president of the shire. … The sheriff held the shiremoot, according to Edgar's law, twice in the year. Although the ealdorman and bishop sat in it to declare the law secular and spiritual, the sheriff was the constituting officer."

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 5, sections 48-50 (volume 1).

See, also, KNIGHTS OF THE SHIRE; EALDORMAN; and GAU.

SHOE-STRING DISTRICT, The.

See GERRYMANDERING.

SHOGUN.

See JAPAN: SKETCH OF HISTORY.

SHOSHONES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SHOSHONEAN FAMILY.

SHREWSBURY, Battle of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1403.

SHREWSBURY SCHOOL.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.—ENGLAND.

SHULUH, The.

See LIBYANS.

SHUMIR, OR SUMIR.

See BABYLONIA: THE EARLY (CHALDEAN) MONARCHY.

SHUPANES. GRAND SHUPANES.

The princes, ultimately kings, of the early Servian people.

L. Ranke, History of Servia, chapter 1.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES, 9TH CENTURY (SERVIA).

SHUSHAN.

See SUSA.

SIAM.

"The people known to Europeans as the 'Siamese,' but who call themselves 'Thai,' that is 'Free Men,' have exercised the greatest civilising influence on the aboriginal populations of the interior. Within the historic period Siam has also generally held the most extensive domain beyond the natural limits of the Menam basin. Even still, although hemmed in on one side by the British possessions, on the other by the French protectorate of Camboja, Siam comprises beyond the Menam Valley a considerable part of the Malay Peninsula, and draws tribute from numerous people in the Mekong and Salwen basins. But this State, with an area about half as large again as that of France, has a population probably less than 6,000,000. … The inhabitants of Siam, whether Shans, Laos, or Siamese proper, belong all alike to the same Thai stock, which is also represented by numerous tribes in Assam, Manipur, and China. The Shans are very numerous in the region of the Upper Irrawaddi and its Chinese affluents, in the Salwen Valley and in the portion of the Sittang basin included in British territory. … The Lovas, better known by the name of Laos or Laotians, are related to the Shans, and occupy the north of Siam. … They form several 'kingdoms,' all vassals of the King of Siam. … The Siamese, properly so called, are centred chiefly in the Lower Menam basin and along the seaboard. Although the most civilised they are not the purest of the Thai race. … Siam or Sayam is said by some natives to mean 'Three,' because the country was formerly peopled by three races now fused in one nation. Others derive it from saya, 'independent,' sama, 'brown,' or samo, 'dark'. … The Siamese are well named 'Indo-Chinese,' their manners, customs, civil and religious institutions, all partaking of this twofold character. Their feasts are of Brahmanical origin, while their laws and administration are obviously borrowed from the Chinese. … About one-fourth of the inhabitants of Siam had from various causes fallen into a state of bondage about the middle of the present century. But since the abolition of slavery in 1872, the population has increased, especially by Chinese immigration. … The 'Master of the World,' or 'Master of Life,' as the King of Siam is generally called, enjoys absolute power over the lives and property of his subjects. … A second king, always nearly related to the first, enjoys the title and a few attributes of royalty. But he exercises no power. … British having succeeded to Chinese influence, most of the naval and military as well as of the custom-house officers are Englishmen."

É. Reclus, The Earth and its Inhabitants: Asia, volume 3, chapter 21.

The former capital of Siam was Ayuthia, a city founded A. D. 1351, and now in ruins. "Anterior to the establishment of Ayuthia … the annals of Siam are made up of traditional legends and fables, such as most nations are fond of substituting in the place of veracious history. … There are accounts of intermarriages with Chinese princesses, of embassies and wars with neighbouring States, all interblended with wonders and miraculous interpositions of Indra and other divinities; but from the time when the city of Ayuthia was founded by Phaja-Uthong, who took the title of Phra-Rama-Thibodi, the succession of sovereigns and the course of events are recorded with tolerable accuracy."

Sir J. Bowring, Kingdom and People of Siam, volume 1, chapter 2.

"For centuries the Siamese government paid tribute to China; but since 1852 this tribute has been refused. In 1855 the first commercial treaty with a European power (Great Britain) was concluded."

G. G. Chisholm, The Two Hemispheres, page 523.

ALSO IN: A. R. Colquhoun, Amongst the Shans, introduction by T. de La Couperie, and sup. by H. S. Hallett.

SIBERIA: The Russian conquest.

Siberia was scarcely known to the Russians before the middle of the 16th century. The first conquest of a great part of the country was achieved in the latter part of that century by a Cossack adventurer named Yermac Timoseef, who began his attack upon the Tartars in 1578. Unable to hold what he had won, Yermac offered the sovereignty of his conquests to the Czar of Muscovy, who took it gladly and sent reinforcements. The conquests of Yermac were lost for a time after his death, but soon recovered by fresh bodies of Muscovite troops sent into the country. "This success was the forerunner of still greater acquisitions. The Russians rapidly extended their conquests; wherever they appeared, the Tartars were either reduced or exterminated; new towns were built and colonies planted. Before a century had elapsed, that vast tract of country now called Siberia, which stretches from the confines of Europe to the Eastern Ocean, and from the Frozen Sea to the frontiers of China, was annexed to the Russian dominions."

W. Coxe, Russian Discoveries between Asia and America, part 2, chapter 1.

{2903}

SIBUZATES, The.

See AQUITAINE: THE ANCIENT TRIBES.

SIBYLS. SIBYLLINE BOOKS.

"Tarquinius [Tarquinius Superbus, the last of the kings of "Rome] built a mighty temple, and consecrated it to Jupiter, and to Juno, and to Minerva, the greatest of the gods of the Etruscans. At this time there came a strange woman to the king and offered him nine books of the prophecies of the Sibyl for a certain price. "When the king refused them, the woman went and burnt three of the books, and came back and offered the six at the same price which she had asked for the nine; but they mocked at her and would not take the books. Then she went away and burnt three more, and came back and asked still the same price for the remaining three. At this the king was astonished, and asked of the augurs what he should do. They said that he had done wrong in refusing the gift of the gods, and bade him by all means to buy the books that were left. So he bought them; and the woman who sold them was seen no more from that day forwards. Then the books were put into a chest of stone, and were kept under ground in the Capitol, and two men were appointed to keep them, and were called the two men of the sacred books."

T. Arnold, History of Rome, chapter 4.

"Collections of prophecies similar to the Sibylline books are met with not only among the Greeks, but also among the Italians —Etruscans as well as those of Sabellian race. The Romans had the prophecies of the Marcii ('Carmina Marciana,' Hartung, 'Religion der Römer,' i. 139); prophetic lines ('sortes') of the nymph Albunea had come down to Rome from Tibur in a miraculous manner (Marquardt, 'Röm. Alterth., iv. 299). There existed likewise Etruscan 'libri fatales' (Livy, v. 45; Cicero, 'De Divin., i. 44, 100), and prophecies of the Etruscan nymph Begoe (quæ artem scripserat fulguritorum apud Tuscos. Lactant, 'Instit.,' i. 6, 12). Such books as these were kept in the Capitol, together with the Sibylline books, in the care of the Quindecemveri sacris faciundis. They are all called without distinction 'libri fatales' and 'Sibylline' books, and there seems to have been little difference between them."

W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 1, chapter 8, foot-note (volume 1).

"Every schoolboy is familiar with the picturesque Roman legend of the Sibyl. It is variously told in connection with the elder and the later Tarquin, the two Etruscan kings of Rome; and the scene of it is laid by some in Cumæ, where Tarquinius Superbus spent the last years of his life in exile—and by others in Rome. … The original books of the Cumæan Sibyl were written in Greek, which was the language of the whole of the south of Italy at that time. The oracles were inscribed upon palm leaves; to which circumstance Virgil alludes in his description of the sayings of the Cumæan Sibyl being written upon the leaves of the forest. They were in the form of acrostic verses. … It is supposed that they contained not so much predictions of future events, as directions regarding the means by which the wrath of the gods, as revealed by prodigies and calamities, might be appeased. They seem to have been consulted in the same way as Eastern nations consult the Koran and Hafiz. … The Cumæan Sibyl was not the only prophetess of the kind. There were no less than ten females, endowed with the gift of prevision, and held in high repute, to whom the name of Sibyl was given. We read of the Persian Sibyl, the Libyan, the Delphic, the Erythræan, the Hellespontine, the Phrygian, and the Tiburtine. With the name of the last-mentioned Sibyl tourists make acquaintance at Tivoli. … Clement of Alexandria does not scruple to call the Cumæan Sibyl a true prophetess, and her oracles saving canticles. And St. Augustine includes her among the number of those who belong to the 'City of God.' And this idea of the Sibyls' sacredness continued to a late age in the Christian Church. She had a place in the prophetic order beside the patriarchs and prophets of old."

H. Macmillan, Roman Mosaics, chapter 3.

"Either under the seventh or the eighth Ptolemy there appeared at Alexandria the oldest of the Sibylline oracles, bearing the name of the Erythræan Sibyl, which, containing the history of the past and the dim forebodings of the future, imposed alike on the Greek, Jewish, and Christian world, and added almost another book to the Canon. When Thomas of Celano composed the most famous hymn of the Latin Church he did not scruple to place the Sibyl on a level with David; and when Michel Angelo adorned the roof of the Sixtine Chapel, the figures of the weird sisters of Pagan antiquity are as prominent as the seers of Israel and Judah. Their union was the result of the bold stroke of an Alexandrian Jew."

A. P. Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lecture 47 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: Dionysius, History, book 4, section 62.

See, also, CUMÆ.

SICAMBRI, SIGAMBRI, SUGAMBRI.

See USIPETES; also, FRANKS: ORIGIN, and A. D. 253.

SICARII, The.

See JEWS: A. D. 66-70.

SICELIOTES AND ITALIOTES.

The inhabitants of the ancient Greek colonies in southern Italy (Magna Graecia) and Sicily were known as Siceliotes and Italiotes, to distinguish them from the native Siceli and Itali.

H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, book 3, chapter 25 (volume 1).

SICELS. SICANIANS.

See SICILY: THE EARLY INHABITANTS.

SICILIAN VESPERS, The.

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1282-1300.

SICILIES, The Two.

See Two SICILIES.

—————SICILY: Start————

SICILY: The early inhabitants.

The date of the first known Greek settlement in Sicily is fixed at B. C. 735. It was a colony led from the Eubœan city of Chalcis and from the island of Naxos, which latter gave its name to the town which the emigrants founded on the eastern coast of their new island home. "Sicily was at this time inhabited by at least four distinct races: by Sicanians, whom Thucydides considers as a tribe of the Iberians, who, sprung perhaps from Africa, had overspread Spain and the adjacent coasts, and even remote islands of the Mediterranean; by Sicels, an Italian people, probably not more foreign to the Greeks than the Pelasgians, who had been driven out of Italy by the progress of the Oscan or Ausonian race, and in their turn had pressed the Sicanians back toward the southern and western parts of the island, and themselves occupied so large a portion of it as to give their name to the whole. Of the other races, the Phœnicians were in possession of several points on the coast, and of some neighbouring islets, from which they carried on their commerce with the natives. {2904} The fourth people, which inhabited the towns of Eryx and Egesta, or Segesta, at the western end of the island, and bore the name of Elymians, was probably composed of different tribes, varying in their degrees of affinity to the Greeks. … The Sicels and the Phœnicians gradually retreated before the Greeks. … But the Sicels maintained themselves in the inland and on the north coast, and the Phœnicians, or Carthaginians, who succeeded them, established themselves in the west, where they possessed the towns of Motya, Solus, and Panormus, destined, under the name of Palermo, to become the capital of Sicily."

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 22.

E. A. Freeman, History of Sicily, chapter 2.

See, also, ŒNOTRIANS.

SICILY: Phœnician and Greek colonies.

"Sicilian history begins when the great colonizing nations of antiquity, the Phœnicians and the Greeks, began to settle in Sicily. … It was a chief seat for the planting of colonies, first from Phœnicia and then from Greece. It is the presence of these Phœnician and Greek colonies which made the history of Sicily what it was. These settlements were of course made more or less at the expense of the oldest inhabitants of the island, those who were there before the Phœnicians and Greeks came to settle. … Phœnician and Greek settlers could occupy the coasts, but only the coasts; it was only at the corners that they could at all spread from sea to sea. A great inland region was necessarily left to the older inhabitants. But there was no room in Sicily, as there was in Asia, for the growth of great barbarian powers dangerous to the settlers. Neither Phœnician nor Greek was ever able to occupy or conquer the whole island; but neither people stood in any fear of being conquered or driven out, unless by one another. But instead of conquest came influence. Both Phœnicians and Greeks largely influenced the native inhabitants. In the end, without any general conquest, the whole island became practically Greek. … Carthage at a later time plays so great a part in Sicilian history that we are tempted to bring it in before its time, and to fancy that the Phœnician colonies in Sicily were, as they are sometimes carelessly called, Carthaginian colonies. This is not so; the Phœnician cities in Sicily did in after times become Carthaginian dependencies: but they were not founded by Carthage. We cannot fix an exact date for their foundation, nor can we tell for certain how far they were settled straight from the old Phœnicia and how far from the older Phœnician cities in Africa. But we may be sure that their foundation happened between the migration of the Sikels in the 11th century B. C. and the beginning of Greek settlement in the 8th. And we may suspect that the Phœnician settlements in the east of Sicily were planted straight from Tyre and Sidon, and those in the west from the cities in Africa. We know that all round Sicily the Phœnicians occupied small islands and points of coast which were fitted for their trade, but we may doubt whether they anywhere in Eastern Sicily planted real colonies, cities with a territory attached to them. In the west they seem to have done so. For, when the Greeks began to advance in Sicily, the Phœnicians withdrew to their strong posts in the western part of the island, Motya, Solous, and Panormos. There they kept a firm hold till the time of Roman dominion. The Greeks could never permanently dislodge them from their possessions in this part. Held, partly by Phœnicians, partly by Sikans and Elymians who had been brought under Phœnician influence, the northwestern corner of Sicily remained a barbarian corner. … The greatest of all Phœnician settlements in Sicily lay within the bay of which the hill of Solous is one horn, but much nearer to the other horn, the hill of Herkte, now Pellegrino. Here the mountains fence in a wonderfully fruitful plain, known in after times as the Golden Shell (conca d'oro). In the middle of it there was a small inlet of the sea, parted into two branches, with a tongue of land between them, guarded by a small peninsula at the mouth. There could be no better site for Phœnician traders. Here then rose a Phœnician city, which, though on the north coast of Sicily, looks straight towards the rising sun. It is strange that we do not know its Phœnician name; in Greek it was called Panormos, the All-haven, a name borne also by other places. This is the modern Palermo, which, under both Phœnicians and Saracens, was the Semitic head of Sicily, and which remained the capital of the island under the Norman kings. … Thus in Sicily the East became West and the West East. The men of Asia withdrew before the men of Europe to the west of the island, and thence warred against the men of Europe to the east of them. In the great central island of Europe they held their own barbarian corner. It was the land of Phœnicians, Sikans, and Elymians, as opposed to the eastern land of the Greeks and their Sikel subjects and pupils. … For a long time Greek settlement was directed to the East rather than to the West. And it was said that, when settlement in Italy and Sicily did begin, the earliest Greek colony, like the earliest Phœnician colony, was the most distant. It was believed that Kyme, the Latin Cumæ in Campania, was founded in the 11th century B. C. The other plantations in Italy and Sicily did not begin till the 8th. Kyme always stood by itself, as the head of a group of Greek towns in its own neighbourhood and apart from those more to the south, and it may very well be that some accident caused it to be settled sooner than the points nearer to Greece. But it is not likely to have been settled 300 years earlier. Most likely it was planted just long enough before the nearer sites to suggest their planting. Anyhow, in the latter half of the 8th century B. C. Greek settlement to the West, in Illyria, Sicily, and Italy, began in good earnest. It was said that the first settlement in Sicily came of an accident. Chalkis in Euboia was then one of the chief sea-faring towns of Greece. Theokles, a man of Chalkis, was driven by storm to the coast of Sicily. He came back, saying that it was a good land and that the people would be easy to conquer. So in 735 B. C. he was sent forth to plant the first Greek colony in Sicily. The settlers were partly from Chalkis, partly from the island of Naxos. So it was agreed that the new town should be called Naxos, but that Chalkis should count as its metropolis. So the new Naxos arose on the eastern coast of Sicily, on a peninsula made by the lava. It looked up at the great hill of Tauros, on which Taormina now stands. The Greek settlers drove out the Sikels and took so much land as they wanted. They built and fortified a town, and part of their walls may still be seen. … Naxos, as the beginning of Greek settlement in Sicily, answers to Ebbsfleet, the beginning of English settlement in Britain."

E. A. Freeman, The Story of Sicily, chapters 1-4.

ALSO IN: E. A. Freeman, History of Sicily, chapters 3-4 (volume 1).

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SICILY: B. C. 480. Carthaginian invasion. Battle of Himera.

During the same year in which Xerxes invaded Greece (B. C. 480), the Greeks in Sicily were equally menaced by an appalling invasion from Carthage. The Carthaginians, invited by the tyrant of Himera, who had been expelled from that city by a neighbor tyrant, sent 300,000 men it is said, to reinstate him, and to strengthen for themselves the slender footing they already had in one corner of the island. Gelo, the powerful tyrant of Syracuse, came promptly to the aid of the Himerians, and defeated the Carthaginians with terrible slaughter. Hamilcar the commander was among the slain. Those who escaped the sword were nearly all taken prisoners and made slaves. The fleet which brought them over was destroyed, and scarcely a ship returned to Carthage to bear the deplorable tidings.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 15.

ALSO IN: G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 43.

SICILY: B. C. 415-413. Siege of Syracuse by the Athenians. Its disastrous failure.

See SYRACUSE: B. C. 415-413.

SICILY: B. C. 409-405. Carthaginian invasion.

The quarrels of the city of Egesta, in Sicily, with its neighbors, brought about the fatal expedition from Athens against Syracuse, B. C. 415. Six years later, in the same protracted quarrel, Egesta appealed to Carthage for help, against the city of Selinus, and thus invited the first of the Hannibals to revenge terribly the defeat and death of his grandfather Hamilcar, at Himera, seventy years before. Hannibal landed an army of more than one hundred thousand savage mercenaries in Sicily, in the spring of 409 B. C. and laid siege to Selinus with such vigor that the city was carried by storm at the end of ten days and most of its inhabitants slain. The temples and walls of the town were destroyed and it was left a deserted ruin. "The ruins, yet remaining, of the ancient temples of Selinus, are vast and imposing; characteristic as specimens of Doric art during the fifth and sixth centuries B. C. From the great magnitude of the fallen columns, it has been supposed that they were overthrown by an earthquake. But the ruins afford distinct evidence that these columns have been first undermined, and then overthrown by crowbars. This impressive fact, demonstrating the agency of the Carthaginian destroyers, is stated by Niebuhr." From Selinus, Hannibal passed on to Himera and, having taken that city in like manner, destroyed it utterly. The women and children were distributed as slaves; the male captives were slain in a body on the spot where Hamilcar fell—a sacrifice to his shade. A new town called Therma was subsequently founded by the Carthaginians on the site of Himera. Having satisfied himself with revenge, Hannibal disbanded his army, glutted with spoil, and returned home. But three years later he invaded Sicily again, with an armament even greater than before, and the great city of Agrigentum was the first to fall before his arms. "Its population was very great; comprising, according to one account, 20,000 citizens, among an aggregate total of 200,000 males—citizens, metics, and slaves; according to another account, an aggregate total of no less than 800,000 persons; numbers unauthenticated, and not to be trusted further than as indicating a very populous city. … Its temples and porticos, especially the spacious temple of Zeus Olympus—its statues and pictures—its abundance of chariots and horses—its fortifications—its sewers—its artificial lake of near a mile in circumference, abundantly stocked with fish—all these placed it on a par with the most splendid cities of the Hellenic world." After a siege of some duration Agrigentum was evacuated and most of its inhabitants escaped. The Carthaginians stripped it of every monument of art, sending much away to Carthage and destroying more. Hannibal had died of a pestilence during the siege and his colleague Imilkon succeeded him in command. Having quartered his army at Agrigentum during the winter, he attacked the cities of Gela and Kamarina in the spring, and both were believed to have been betrayed to him by the tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius, who had then just established himself in power. A treaty of peace was presently concluded between Dionysius and Imilkon, which gave up all the south of Sicily, as well as Selinus, Himera, and Agrigentum, to the Carthaginians, and made Gela and Kamarina tributary to them. The Carthaginian army had been half destroyed by pestilence and the disease, carried home by its survivors, desolated Carthage and the surrounding country.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapters 81-82, with foot-note.

ALSO IN: E. A. Freeman, History of Sicily, chapter 9 (volume 3).

SICILY: B. C. 397-396. Dionysius, the Tyrant of Syracuse, and his war with the Carthaginians.

See SYRACUSE: B. C. 397-396.

SICILY: B. C. 394-384. Conquests and dominion of Dionysius.

See SYRACUSE: B. C. 394-384.

SICILY: B. C. 383. War with Carthage.

Dionysius, the Syracusan despot, was the aggressor in a fresh war with Carthage which broke out in 383 B. C. The theatre of war extended from Sicily to southern Italy, where Dionysius had made considerable conquests, but only two battles of serious magnitude were fought—both in Sicily. Dionysius was the victor in the first of these, which was a desperate and sanguinary struggle, at a place called Kabala. The Carthaginian commander, Magon, was slain, with 10,000 of his troops, while 5,000 were made captive. The survivors begged for peace and Dionysius dictated, as a first condition, the entire withdrawal of their forces from Sicily. While negotiations were in progress, Magon's young son, succeeding to his father's command, so reorganized and reinspirited his army as to be able to attack the Syracusans and defeat them with more terrific slaughter than his own side had experienced a few days before. This battle, fought at Kronium, reversed the situation, and forced Dionysius to purchase a humiliating peace at heavy cost.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 83.

SICILY: B. C. 344. Fall of the Tyranny of Dionysius at Syracuse.

See SYRACUSE: B. C. 344.

SICILY: B. C. 317-289. Syracuse under Agathokles.

See SYRACUSE: B. C. 317-289.

SICILY: B. C. 278-276. Expedition of Pyrrhus.

See ROME: B. C. 282-275.

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SICILY: B. C. 264-241. The Mamertines in Messene. First war of Rome and Carthage.- Evacuation of the island by the Carthaginians. The Romans in possession.

See PUNIC WAR: THE FIRST.

SICILY: B. C. 216-212. Alliance with Hannibal and revolt against Rome. The Roman siege of Syracuse.

See PUNIC WAR: THE SECOND.

SICILY: B. C. 133-103. Slave wars.

See SLAVE WARS IN SICILY.

SICILY: A. D. 429-525. Under the Vandals, and the Goths.

"Sicily, which had been for a generation subjected, first to the devastations and then to the rule of the Vandal king [in Africa], was now by a formal treaty, which must have been nearly the last public act of Gaiseric [or Genseric, who died A. D. 477] ceded to Odovacar [or Odoacer, who extinguished the Western Roman Empire and was the first barbarian king of Italy], all but a small part, probably at the western end of the island, which the Vandal reserved to himself. A yearly tribute was to be the price of this concession; but, in the decay of the kingdom under Gaiseric's successors, it is possible that this tribute was not rigorously enforced, as it is also almost certain that the reserved portion of the island, following the example of the remainder, owned the sway of Odovacar."

T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 4, chapter 4.

Under Theodoric the Ostrogoth, who overthrew Odoacer and reigned in Italy from 493 until 525, Sicily was free both from invasion and from tribute and shared with Italy the benefits and the trials of the Gothic supremacy.

T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 4, chapter 9.

SICILY: A. D. 535. Recovered by Belisarius for the Emperor Justinian.

See ROME: A. D. 535-553.

SICILY: A. D. 550. Gothic invasion.

See ROME: A. D. 535-553.

SICILY: A. D. 827-878. Conquest by the Saracens.

The conquest of Sicily from the Byzantine empire, by the Saracens, was instigated in the first instance and aided by an influential Syracusan named Euphemios, whom the Emperor Michael had undertaken to punish for abduction of a nun. Euphemios invited the African Saracens to the island, and Ziadet Allah, the Aglabite sovereign who had established himself in power at Cairowan or Kairwan, felt strong enough to improve the opportunity. In June 827 the admiral of the Moslems formed a junction with the ships which Euphemios had set afloat, and the Saracens landed at Mazara. The Byzantines were defeated in a battle near Platana and the Saracens occupied Girgenti. Having gained this foothold they waited some time for reinforcements, which came, at last, in a naval armament from Spain and troops from Africa. "The war was then carried on with activity: Messina was taken in 831; Palermo capitulated in the following year; and Enna was besieged, for the first time, in 836. The war continued with various success, as the invaders received assistance from Africa, and the Christians from Constantinople. The Byzantine forces recovered possession of Messina, which was not permanently occupied by the Saracens until 843. … At length, in the year 859, Enna was taken by the Saracens. Syracuse, in order to preserve its commerce from ruin, had purchased peace by paying a tribute of 50,000 byzants; and it was not until the reign of Basil I, in the year 878, that it was compelled to surrender, and the conquest of Sicily was completed by the Arabs. Some districts, however, continued, either by treaty or by force of arms, to preserve their municipal independence, and the exclusive exercise of the Christian religion, within their territory, to a later period."

G. Finlay, History of the Byzantine Empire, from 716 to 1057, book 1, chapter 3, section 1.

"Syracuse preserved about fifty years [after the landing of the Saracens in Sicily] the faith which she had sworn to Christ and to Cæsar. In the last and fatal siege her citizens displayed some remnant of the spirit which had formerly resisted the powers of Athens and Carthage. They stood above twenty days against the battering-rams and catapultæ, the mines and tortoises of the besiegers; and the place might have been relieved, if the mariners of the imperial fleet had not been detained at Constantinople in building a church to the Virgin Mary. … In Sicily the religion and language of the Greeks were eradicated; and such was the docility of the rising generation that 15,000 boys were circumcised and clothed on the same day with the son of the Fatimite caliph. The Arabian squadrons issued from the harbours of Palermo, Biserta, and Tunis; a hundred and fifty towns of Calabria and Campania were attacked and pillaged; nor could the suburbs of Rome be defended by the name of the Cæsars and apostles. Had the Mahometans been united, Italy must have fallen an easy and glorious accession to the empire of the prophet."

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

A hundred and fifty years after the fall of Syracuse Basil II. undertook its recovery, but death overcame him in the midst of his plans. "Ten years later, the Byzantine general Maniakes commenced the reconquest of Sicily in a manner worthy of Basil himself, but the women and eunuchs who ruled at Constantinople procured his recall; affairs fell into confusion, and the prize was eventually snatched from both parties by the Normans of Apulia."

E. A. Freeman, History and Conquests of the Saracens, lecture 5.

SICILY: A. D. 1060-1090. Norman conquest.

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1000-1090.

SICILY: A. D. 1127-1194. Union with Apulia in the kingdom of Naples or the Two Sicilies. Prosperity and peace.

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1081-1194.

SICILY: A. D. 1146. Introduction of Silk-culture and manufacture.

See BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 1146.

SICILY: A. D. 1194-1266. Under the Hohenstaufen.

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1183-1250.

SICILY: A. D. 1266. Invasion and conquest of the kingdom of the Sicilies by Charles of Anjou.

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1250-1268.

SICILY: A. D. 1282-1300. The Massacre of the Sicilian Vespers. Separation from the kingdom of Naples. Transfer to the House of Aragon.

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1282-1300.

SICILY: A. D. 1313. Alliance with the Emperor against Naples.

See ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.

SICILY: A. D. 1442. Reunion of the crowns of Sicily and Naples, or the Two Sicilies, by Alphonso of Aragon.

See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.

SICILY: A. D. 1458. Separation of the crown of Naples from those of Aragon and Sicily.

See ITALY: A. D. 1447-1480.

SICILY: A. D. 1530. Cession of Malta to the Knights of St. John.

See HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN: A. D. 1530-1565.

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SICILY: A. D. 1532-1553. Frightful ravages of the Turks along the coast.

See ITALY: A. D. 1528-1570.

SICILY: A. D. 1713. Ceded by Spain to the Duke of Savoy.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

SICILY: A. D. 1718-1719. Retaken by Spain, again surrendered, and acquired by Austria in exchange for Sardinia.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725; and ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

SICILY: A. D. 1734-1735. Occupation by the Spaniards. Cession to Spain, with Naples, forming a kingdom for Don Carlos.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.

SICILY: A. D. 1749-1792. Under the Spanish-Bourbon regime.

See ITALY: A. D. 1749-1792.

SICILY: A. D. 1805-1806. Held by the King, expelled from Naples by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (DECEMBER-SEPTEMBER).

SICILY: A. D. 1821. Revolutionary insurrection.

See ITALY: A. D. 1820-1821.

SICILY: A. D. 1848-1849. Patriotic rising. A year of independence. Subjugation of the insurgents by King "Bomba."

See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.

SICILY: A. D. 1860-1861. Liberation by Garibaldi. Absorption in the new kingdom of Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1859-1861.

—————SICILY: End————

SICULI, The.

See SICILY: THE EARLY INHABITANTS.

SICYON, SIKYON.

"Sicyon was the starting point of the Ionic civilization which pervaded the whole valley of the Asopus [a river which flows from the mountains of Argolis to the Gulf of Corinth, in northeastern Peloponnesus]; the long series of kings of Sicyon testifies to the high age with which the city was credited. At one time it was the capital of all Asopia as well as of the shore in front of it, and the myth of Adrastus has preserved the memory of this the historic glory of Sicyon. The Dorian immigration dissolved the political connection between the cities of the Asopus. Sicyon itself had to admit Dorian families." The ascendancy which the Dorian invaders then assumed was lost at a later time. The old Ionian population of the country dwelling on the shores of the Corinthian gulf, engaged in commerce and fishing, acquired superior wealth and were trained to superior enterprise by their occupation. In time they overthrew the Doric state, under the lead of a family, the Orthagoridæ, which established a famous tyranny in Sicyon (about 670 B. C.). Myron and Clisthenes, the first two tyrants of the house, acquired a great name in Greece by their wealth, by their liberal encouragement of art and by their devotion to the sanctuaries at Olympus and at Delphi.

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).

See, also, TYRANTS, GREEK.

SICYON: B. C. 280-146. The Achaian League.

See GREECE: B. C. 280-146.

SIDNEY, Algernon, The execution of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1681-1683.

SIDNEY, Sir Philip, The death of.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1585-1586.

SIDON, The suicidal burning of.

About 346 B. C., Ochus, king of Persia, having subdued a revolt in Cyprus, proceeded against the Phœnician cities, which had joined in it. Sidon was betrayed to him by its prince, and he intimated his intention to take signal revenge on the city; whereupon the Sidonians "took the desperate resolution, first of burning their fleet that no one might escape—next, of shutting themselves up with their families, and setting fire each man to his own house. In this deplorable conflagration 40,000 persons are said to have perished; and such was the wealth destroyed, that the privilege of searching the ruins was purchased for a large sum of money."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 90.

SIDONIANS, The.

See PHŒNICIANS.

SIEBENBÜRGEN.

The early name given to the principality of Transylvania, and having reference to seven forts erected within it.

J. Samuelson, Roumania, page 182.

—————SIENA: Start————

SIENA: The mediæval factions.

"The way in which this city conducted its government for a long course of years [in the Middle Ages] justified Varchi in calling it 'a jumble, so to speak, and chaos of republics, rather than a well-ordered and disciplined commonwealth.' The discords of Siena were wholly internal. They proceeded from the wrangling of five factions, or Monti, as the people of Siena called them. The first of these was termed the Monte de' Nobili; for Siena had originally been controlled by certain noble families. … The nobles split into parties among themselves. … At last they found it impossible to conduct the government, and agreed to relinquish it for a season to nine plebeian families chosen from among the richest and most influential. This gave rise to the Monte de' Nove. … In time, however, their insolence became insufferable. The populace rebelled, deposed the Nove, and invested with supreme authority 12 other families of plebeian origin. The Monte de' Dodici, created after this fashion, ran nearly the same course as their predecessors, except that they appear to have administered the city equitably. Getting tired of this form of government, the people next superseded them by 16 men chosen from the dregs of the plebeians, who assumed the title of Riformatori. This new Monte de' Sedici or de' Riformatori showed much integrity in their management of affairs, but, as is the wont of red republicans, they were not averse to bloodshed. Their cruelty caused the people, with the help of the surviving patrician houses, together with the Nove and the Dodici, to rise and shake them off. The last governing body formed in this diabolical five-part fugue of crazy statecraft received the name of Monte del Popolo, because it included all who were eligible to the Great Council of the State. Yet the factions of the elder Monti still survived; and to what extent they had absorbed the population may be gathered from the fact that, on the defeat of the Riformatori, 4,500 of the Sienese were exiled. It must be borne in mind that with the creation of each new Monte a new party formed itself in the city, and the traditions of these parties were handed down from generation to generation. At last, in the beginning of the 16th century, Pandolfo Petrucci, who belonged to the Monte de' Nove, made himself in reality, if not in name, the master of Siena, and the Duke of Florence later on in the same century [1557]) extended his dominion over the republic."

J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: The Age of the Despots, chapter 3.

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SIENA: A. D. 1460. War with Florence and victory at Montaperti.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1248-1278.

—————SIENA: End————

SIENPI, The.

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 376.

SIERRA LEONE.

"During the war of the [American] Revolution a large number of blacks, chiefly runaway slaves, ranged themselves under the British banner. At the close of the war a large number of these betook themselves to Nova Scotia with the view of making that their future home; while others followed the army, to which they had been attached, to London. It was soon ascertained that the climate of Nova Scotia was too severe for those who had gone there; and those who followed the army to London, when that was disbanded, found themselves in a strange land, without friends and without the means of subsistence. In a short time they were reduced to the most abject want and poverty; and it was in view of their pitiable condition that Dr. Smeathman and Granville Sharp brought forward the plan of colonizing them on the coast of Africa. They were aided in this measure by the Government. The first expedition left England in 1787, and consisted of 400 blacks and about 60 whites, most of whom were women of the most debased character. … On their arrival at Sierra Leone a tract of land of 20 miles square was purchased from the natives of the country, and they immediately commenced a settlement along the banks of the river. In less than a year their number was reduced more than one half, owing, in some measure, to the unhealthiness of the climate, but more perhaps to their own irregularities. Two years afterward they were attacked by a combination of natives, and had nigh been exterminated. About this time the 'Sierra Leone Company' was formed to take charge of the enterprise. Among its directors were enrolled the venerable names of Wilberforce, Clarkson, Thornton, and Granville Sharp. The first agent sent out by the Company to look after this infant colony found the number of settlers reduced to about 60. In 1791 upward of 1,100 colored emigrants were taken from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone. About the same time as many as a hundred whites embarked in England for the same place. … In 1798 it is said that Free-town had attained to the dimensions of a full-grown town. … About the same time the colony was farther reinforced by the arrival of more than 500 Maroons from the Island of Jamaica. These Maroons were no better in character than the original founders of the colony, and no little disorder arose from mixing up such discordant elements. These were the only emigrations of any consequence that ever joined the colony of Sierra Leone from the Western hemisphere. Its future accessions … came from a different quarter. In 1807 the slave-trade was declared piracy by the British Government, and a squadron was stationed on the coast for the purpose of suppressing it. About the same time the colony of Sierra Leone was transferred to the Government, and has ever since been regarded as a Crown colony. The slaves taken by the British cruisers on the high seas have always been taken to this colony and discharged there; and this has been the main source of its increase of population from that time."

J. L. Wilson, Western Africa, part 4, chapter 2.

SIEVERSHAUSEN, Battle of (1553).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1552-1561.

SIEYES, Abbé, and the French Revolution.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (JUNE); 1790; 1791 (OCTOBER); 1795 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER); 1799 (NOVEMBER), and (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).

SIFFIN, Battle of.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 661.

SIGAMBRI, SICAMBRI.

See USIPETES; also, FRANKS: ORIGIN, and A. D. 253.

SIGEBERT I., King of the Franks (Austrasia), A. D. 561-575.

SIGEBERT II., King of the Franks (Austrasia), 633-650.

SIGEL, General Franz. Campaign in Missouri and Arkansas.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI); 1862 (JANUARY-MARCH: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).

Command in the Shenandoah.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA).

SIGISMUND, SIGMUND, King of Hungary, A. D. 1386-1437; King of Germany, 1410-1437; Emperor, 1433-1437; King of Bohemia, 1434-1437.

Sigismund, King of Sweden, 1522-1604.

Sigismund I., King of Poland, 1507-1548.

Sigismund II., King of Poland, 1548-1574.

Sigismund III., King of Poland, 1587-1632.

SIGNORY, The Florentine.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1378-1427.

SIGURD I., King of Norway, A. D. 1122-1130.

SIGURD II., King of Norway, 1136-1155.

SIKANS. SIKELS.

See SICILY: THE EARLY INHABITANTS.

SIKHS, The.

"The founder of the Sikh religion was Nanak [or Nanuk], son of a petty Hindu trader named Kalu. Nanak was born in the vicinity of Lahor in the year 1469. A youth much given to reflection, he devoted himself at an early period of his life to a study of the rival creeds then prevailing in India, the Hindu and the Muhammadan. Neither satisfied him. … After wandering through many lands in search of a satisfying truth, Nanak returned to his native country with the conviction that he had failed. He had found, he said, many scriptures and many creeds; but he had not found God. Casting off his habit of an ascetic, he resumed his father's trade, married, became the father of a family, and passed the remainder of his life in preaching the doctrine of the unity of one invisible God, of the necessity of living virtuously, and of practising toleration towards others. He died in 1539, leaving behind him a reputation without spot, and many zealous and admiring disciples eager to perpetuate his creed. The founder of a new religion, Nanak, before his death, had nominated his successor—a man of his own tribe named Angad. Angad held the supremacy for twelve years, years which he employed mainly in committing to writing the doctrines of his great master and in enforcing them upon his disciples. Angad was succeeded by Ummar Das, a great preacher. He, and his son-in-law and successor, Ram Das, were held in high esteem by the emperor Akbar. But it was the son of Ram Das, Arjun, who established on a permanent basis the new religion. … He fixed the seat of the chief Guru, or high priest of the religion, and of his principal followers, at Amritsar, then an obscure hamlet, but which, in consequence of the selection, speedily rose into importance. {2909} Arjun then regulated and reduced to a systematic tax the offerings of his adherents, to be found even then in every city and village in the Panjab and the cis-satlaj territories. … The real successor of Arjun was his son, Hur Govind. Hur Govind founded the Sikh nation. Before his time the followers of the Guru had been united by no tie but that of obedience to the book. Govind formed them into a community of warriors. He did away with many of the restrictions regarding food, authorised his followers to eat flesh, summoned them to his standard, and marched with them to consolidate his power. A military organisation based upon a religious principle, and directed by a strong central authority, will always become powerful in a country the government of which is tainted with decay. The ties which bound the Mughul empire together were already loosening under the paralysing influence of the bigotry of Aurangzile, when, in 1675, Govind, fourth in succession to the Hur Govind to whom I have adverted, assumed the mantle of Guru of the Sikhs. … Govind still further simplified the dogmas of the faith. Assembling his followers, he announced to them that thenceforward the doctrines of the 'Khalsa,' the saved or liberated, alone should prevail. There must be no human image or resemblance of the One Almighty Father; caste must cease to exist; before Him all men were equal; Muhammadanism was to be rooted out; social distinctions, all the solaces of superstition, were to exist no more; they should call themselves 'Singh' and become a nation of soldiers. The multitude received Govind's propositions with rapture. By a wave of the hand he found himself the trusted leader of a confederacy of warriors in a nation whose institutions were decaying. About 1695, twelve years before the death of Aurangzile, Govind put his schemes into practice. He secured many forts in the hill-country of the Panjab, defeated the Mughul troops in several encounters, and established himself as a thorn in the side of the empire." But more than half a century of struggle with Moghul, Afghan and Mahratta disputants was endured before the Sikhs became masters of the Panjab. When they had made their possession secure, they were no longer united. They were "divided into 12 confederacies or misls, each of which had its chief equal in authority to his brother chiefs, … and it was not until 1784 that a young chieftain named Maha Singh gained, mainly by force of arms, a position which placed him above his fellows." The son of Maha Singh was Ranjit Singh, or Runjet Singh, who established his sovereignty upon a solid footing, made terms with his English neighbors (see INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816), and extended his dominions by the capture of Multan in 1818, by the conquest of Kashmere in 1819-20, and by the acquisition of Peshawar in 1823.

G. B. Malleson, The Decisive Battles of India, chapter 11.

The wars of the Sikhs with the English, in 1845-6, and 1848-9, the conquest and annexation of their country to British India, and the after-career in exile of Dhuleep Singh, the heir, are related under INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849, and 1849-1893.

ALSO IN: J. D. Cunningham, History of the Sikhs.

Sir L. Griffin, Ranjit Singh.

SIKSIKAS, SISIKAS.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: BLACKFEET.

SIKYON.

See SICYON.

SILBURY HILL.

See ABURY.

SILCHESTER, Origin of.

See CALLEVA.

—————SILESIA: Start————

SILESIA: Origin of the name:

See LYGIANS.

SILESIA: 9th Century. Included in the kingdom of Moravia.

See MORAVIA: 9TH CENTURY.

SILESIA: A. D. 1355. Declared an integral part of Bohemia.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1355.

SILESIA: A. D. 1618. Participation in the Bohemian revolt.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1620.

SILESIA: A. D. 1633. Campaign of Wallenstein.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1632-1634.

SILESIA: A. D. 1648. Religious concessions in the Peace of Westphalia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

SILESIA: A. D. 1706. Rights of the Protestants asserted and enforced by Charles XII. of Sweden.

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

SILESIA: A. D. 1740-1741. Invasion and conquest by Frederick the Great.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741.

SILESIA: A. D. 1742. Ceded to Prussia by the Treaty of Breslau.

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

SILESIA: A. D. 1748. Cession to Prussia confirmed.

See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: A. D. 1748.

SILESIA: A. D. 1757. Overrun by the Austrians. Recovered by Frederick the Great.

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

SILESIA: A. D. 1758. Again occupied by the Austrians.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1758.

SILESIA: A. D. 1760-1762. Last campaigns of the Seven Years War.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1760; and 1761-1762.

SILESIA: A. D. 1763. Final surrender to Prussia.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR: A. D. 1763.

—————SILESIA: End————

SILESIAN WARS, The First and Second.

The part which Frederick the Great took in the War of the Austrian Succession, in 1740-1741, when he invaded and took possession of Silesia, and in 1743-1745 when he resumed arms to make his conquest secure, is commonly called the First Silesian War and the Second Silesian War.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741; 1743-1744; and 1744-1745.

SILESIAN WARS, The Third.

The Seven Years War has been sometimes so-called.

See PRUSSIA: A. D. 1755-1756.

SILINGI, The.

See SPAIN: A. D. 409-414.

SILISTRIA: A. D. 1828-1829. Siege and capture by the Russians.

See TURKS: A. D. 1826-1829.

SILK MANUFACTURE; transferred from Greece to Sicily and Italy.

See BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 1146.

SILLERY, The Mission at.

See CANADA: A. D. 1637-1657.

SILO, King of Leon and the Asturias, or Oviedo, A. D. 774-783.

SILOAM INSCRIPTION, The.

A very ancient and most important inscription which was discovered in 1880 on the wall of a rock-cut channel leading into the so-called Pool of Siloam, at Jerusalem. It relates only to the excavating of the tunnel which carries water to the Pool, "yet its importance epigraphically and philologically is immense. … It shows us that several centuries must have elapsed, during which the modifications of form which distinguish the Phoenician, the Moabite and the Hebrew scripts gradually developed, and that the Hebrews, therefore, would probably have been in possession of the art of writing as early at least as the time of Solomon."

C. R. Conder, Syrian Stone-Lore, page 118.

{2910}

SILPHIUM.

See CYRENAICA.

SILURES, The.

An ancient tribe in southern Wales, supposed by some to represent a mixture of the Celtic and pre-Celtic inhabitants of Britain.

See IBERIANS, THE WESTERN; also, BRITAIN, TRIBES OF CELTIC.

The conquest of the Silures was effected by Claudius.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 43-53.

SILVER-GRAYS.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850.

SILVER QUESTION, in America, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1873, 1878, 1890-1893; also MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1848-1893, and 1853-1874.

SILVER QUESTION, in India, The.

See INDIA: A. D. 1893.

SIMNEL, Lambert, Rebellion of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1487-1497.

SIMPACH, Battle of.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743.

SIN. SINÆ.

See CHINA: THE NAMES OF THE COUNTRY.

SINDH.

See SCINDE.

SINDMAN, The.

See COMITATUS.

SINGARA, Battle of (A. D.348).

See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627.

SINGIDUNUM.

See BELGRADE.

SINIM.

See CHINA: THE NAMES OF THE COUNTRY.

SINITES, The.

A Canaanite tribe whose country was the mountain chain of Lebanon.

SINSHEIM, Battle of (1674).

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

SION.

See JERUSALEM: CONQUEST AND OCCUPATION BY DAVID.

SIOUX, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.

SIPPARA, The exhumed Library of.

See LIBRARIES, ANCIENT: BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA.

SIRBONIS LAKE.

See SERBONIAN BOG.

SIRIS. SIRITIS. THURII. METAPONTIUM. TARENTUM.

"Between the point [on the Tarentine gulf, southeastern Italy] where the dominion of Sybaris terminated on the Tarentine side, and Tarentum itself, there were two considerable Grecian settlements—Siris, afterwards called Herakleia, and Metapontium. The fertility and attraction of the territory of Siris, with its two rivers, Akiris and Sins, were well-known even to the poet Archilochus (660 B. C.). but we do not know the date at which it passed from the indigenous Chonians, or Chaonians into the hands of Greek settlers. … At the time of the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, the fertile territory of Siritis was considered as still open to be colonised; for the Athenians, when their affairs appeared desperate, had this scheme of emigration in reserve as a possible resource. … At length, after the town of Thurii had been founded by Athens [B. C. 443, under the administration of Perikles; the historian Herodotus and the orator Lycias being among the settlers], in the vicinity of the dismantled Sybaris, the Thurians tried to possess themselves of the Siritid territory, but were opposed by the Tarentines. According to the compromise concluded between them, Tarentum was recognised as the metropolis of the colony, but joint possession was allowed both to Tarentines and Thurians. The former transferred the site of the city, under the new name Herakleia, to a spot three miles from the sea, leaving Siris as the place of maritime access to it. About twenty-five miles eastward of Siris, on the coast of the Tarentine gulf, was situated Metapontium, a Greek town, … planted on the territory of the Chonians, or Œnotrians; but the first colony is said to have been destroyed by an attack of the Samnites, at what period we do not know. It had been founded by some Achæan settlers. … The fertility of the Metapontine territory was hardly less celebrated than that of the Siritid. Farther eastward of Metapontium, again at the distance of about twenty-five miles, was situated the great city of Taras, or Tarentum, a colony from Sparta founded after the first Messenian war, seemingly about 707 B. C. … The Tarentines … stand first among the Italiots, or Italian Greeks, from the year 400 B. C. down to the supremacy of the Romans."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 22.

SIRKARS, OR CIRCARS, The Northern.

See INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761.

SIRMIUM.

Sirmium (modern Mitrovitz, on the Save) was the Roman capital of Pannonia, and an important center of all military operations in that region.

SIRMIUM: Ruined by the Huns.

See HUNS: A. D. 441-446.

SIRMIUM: Captured by the Avars.

See AVARS.

SISECK, Siege and Battle of (1592).

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1567-1604.

SISINNIUS, Pope, A. D. 708, January to February.

SISSETONS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.

SISTOVA, Treaty of (1791).

See TURKS: A. D. 1776-1792.

SITABALDI HILLS, Battle of the (1817).

See INDIA: A. D. 1816-1819.

SITVATOROK, Treaty of (1606).

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1595-1606.

SIX ACTS, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1816-1820.

SIX ARTICLES, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1539.

SIX HUNDRED, The Charge of the.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1854 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).

SIX NATIONS OF INDIANS.

See FIVE NATIONS.

SIXTEEN OF THE LEAGUE, in Paris, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1584-1589.

SIXTUS IV., Pope, A. D. 1471-1484.

SIXTUS V., Pope, 1585-1590.

SKALDS.

See SCALDS.

SKINNERS.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

SKITTAGETAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SKITTAGETAN FAMILY.

SKOBELEFF, General, Campaigns of.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1869-1881; and TURKS: A. D. 1877-1878.

SKODRA (Scutari).

See ILLYRIANS.

SKRÆLINGS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ESKIMAUAN FAMILY.

SKUPTCHINA.

The Servian parliament or legislature.

{2911}

SKYTALISM.

See SCYTALISM.

SLAVE: Origin of the servile signification of the word.

The term slave, in its signification of a servile state, is derived undoubtedly from the name of the Slavic or Sclavic people. "This conversion of a national into an appellative name appears to have arisen in the eighth century, in the Oriental France [Austrasia], where the princes and bishops were rich in Sclavonian captives, not of the Bohemian (exclaims Jordan), but of Sorabian race. From thence the word was extended to general use, to the modern languages, and even to the style of the last Byzantines."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 55, foot-note.

See, also, AVARS; and SLAVONIC PEOPLES.

SLAVE OR MAMELUKE DYNASTY OF INDIA, The.

See INDIA: A. D. 977-1290.

SLAVE RISING UNDER SPARTACUS.

See SPARTACUS; and ROME: B. C. 78-68.

SLAVE TRADE, First measures for the suppression of the.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1792-1807.

SLAVE WARS IN SICILY AND ITALY.

After the Romans became masters of Sicily the island was filled rapidly with slaves, of which a vast number were being continually acquired in the Roman wars of conquest. Most of these slaves were employed as shepherds and herdsmen on great estates, the owners of which gave little attention to them, simply exacting in the most merciless fashion a satisfactory product. The result was that the latter, half perishing from hunger and cold, were driven to desperation, and a frightful rising among them broke out, B. C. 133. It began at Enna, and its leader was a Syrian called Eunus, who pretended to supernatural powers. The inhabitants of Enna were massacred, and that town became the stronghold of the revolt. Eunus crowned himself and assumed the royal name of Antiochus. Agrigentum, Messana and Tauromenium fell into the hands of the insurgents, and more than a year passed before they were successfully resisted. When, at last, they were overcome, it was only at the end of most obstinate sieges, particularly at Tauromenium and Enna, and the vengeance taken was without mercy. In Italy there were similar risings at the same time, from like causes, but these latter were quickly suppressed. Thirty years later a second revolt of slaves was provoked, both in southern Italy and in Sicily,—suppressed promptly in the former, but growing to seriousness in the latter. The Sicilian slaves had two leaders, Salvius and Athenio; but the former established his ascendancy and called himself king Triphon. The rebellion was suppressed at the cost of two heavy battles.

H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, book 5, chapter 48, and book 6, chapter 55.

ALSO IN: G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, chapter 9.

—————SLAVERY: Start————

SLAVERY: Ancient. Among the Oriental races.

"From the writings of the Old Testament a fairly distinct conception can be formed of slavery among the Hebrews. Many modern critics hold the picture presented in the Book of Genesis, of the patriarchal age, its slavery included, to be not a transcript of reality, but an idealisation of the past. Whether this is so or not, can only be properly decided by the historico-critical investigations of specialists. Although the Hebrews are described as having shown extreme ferocity in the conquest of Canaan, their legislation as to slavery was, on the whole, considerate and humane. Slaves were not numerous among them, at least after the exile. Hebrew slavery has naturally been the subject of much research and controversy. The best treatise regarding it is still that of Mielziner. Slavery in the great military empires, which arose in ancient times in anterior Asia, was doubtless of the most cruel character; but we have no good account of slavery in these countries. The histories of Rawlinson, Duncker, Ranke, Ed. Meyer, and Maspero, tell us almost nothing about Chaldean, Assyrian, and Medo-Persian slavery. Much more is known as to slavery, and the condition of the labouring classes, in ancient Egypt, although of even this section of the history there is much need for an account in which the sources of information, unsealed by modern science, will be fully utilised. While in Egypt there were not castes, in the strict sense of the term, classes were very rigidly defined. There were troops of slaves, and as population was superabundant, labour was so cheap as to be employed to an enormous extent uselessly. It may suffice to refer to Wilkinson, Rawlinson, and Buckle. It does not seem certain that the Vedic Aryans had slaves before the conquest of India. Those whom they conquered became the Sudras, and a caste system grew up, and came to be represented as of divine appointment. The two lower castes of the Code of Manu have now given place to a great many. There was not a slave caste, but individuals of any caste might become slaves in exceptional circumstances. Even before the rise of Buddhism there were ascetics who rejected the distinction of castes. Buddhism proclaimed the religious equality of Brahmans and Sudras, but not the emancipation of the Sudras."

R. Flint, History of the Philosophy of History: France, etc., pages 128-129.

ALSO IN: E. J. Simcox, Primitive Civilizations.

SLAVERY: Among the Greeks.

"The institution of slavery in Greece is very ancient; it is impossible to trace its origin, and we find it even in the very earliest times regarded as a necessity of nature, a point of view which even the following ages and the most enlightened philosophers adopted. In later times voices were heard from time to time protesting against the necessity of the institution, showing some slight conception of the idea of human rights, but these were only isolated opinions. From the very earliest times the right of the strongest had established the custom that captives taken in war, if not killed or ransomed, became the slaves of the conquerors, or were sold into slavery by them. … Besides the wars, piracy, originally regarded as by no means dishonourable, supplied the slave markets; and though in later times endeavours were made to set a limit to it, yet the trade in human beings never ceased, since the need for slaves was considerable, not only in Greece, but still more in Oriental countries. {2912} In the historic period the slaves in Greece were for the most part barbarians, chiefly from the districts north of the Balkan peninsula and Asia Minor. The Greek dealers supplied themselves from the great slave markets held in the towns on the Black Sea and on the Asiatic coast of the Archipelago, not only by the barbarians themselves, but even by Greeks, in particular the Chians, who carried on a considerable slave trade. These slaves were then put up for sale at home; at Athens there were special markets held for this purpose on the first of every month. … A large portion of the slave population consisted of those who were born in slavery; that is, the children of slaves or of a free father and slave mother, who as a rule also became slaves, unless the owner disposed otherwise. We have no means of knowing whether the number of these slave children born in the houses in Greece was large or small. At Rome thy formed a large proportion of the slave population, but the circumstances in Italy differed greatly from those in Greece, and the Roman landowners took as much thought for the increase of their slaves as of their cattle. Besides these two classes of slave population, those who were taken in war or by piracy and those who were born slaves, there was also a third, though not important, class. In early times even free men might become slaves by legal methods; for instance foreign residents, if they neglected their legal obligations, and even Greeks, if they were insolvent, might be sold to slavery by their creditors [see DEBT: ANCIENT GREEK], a severe measure which was forbidden by Solon's legislation at Athens, but still prevailed in other Greek states. Children, when exposed, became the property of those who found and educated them, and in this manner many of the hetaerae and flute girls had become the property of their owners. Finally, we know that in some countries the Hellenic population originally resident there were subdued by foreign tribes, and became the slaves of their conquerors, and their position differed in but few respects from that of the barbarian slaves purchased in the markets. Such native serfs were the Helots at Sparta, the Penestae in Thessaly, the Clarotae in Crete, etc. We have most information about the position and treatment of the Helots; but here we must receive the statements of writers with great caution, since they undoubtedly exaggerated a good deal in their accounts of the cruelty with which the Spartans treated the Helots. Still, it is certain that in many respects their lot was a sad one. … The rights assigned by law to the master over his slaves were very considerable. He might throw them in chains, put them in the stocks, condemn them to the hardest labour —for instance, in the mills—leave them without food, brand them, punish them with stripes, and attain the utmost limit of endurance; but, at any rate at Athens, he was forbidden to kill them. … Legal marriages between slaves were not possible, since they possessed no personal rights; the owner could at any moment separate a slave family again, and sell separate members of it. On the other hand, if the slaves were in a position to earn money, they could acquire fortunes of their own; they then worked on their own account, and only paid a certain proportion to their owners, keeping the rest for themselves, and when they had saved the necessary amount they could purchase their freedom, supposing the owner was willing to agree, for he was not compelled. … The protection given to slaves by the State was very small, but here again there were differences in different states. … It would be impossible to make a guess at the number of slaves in Greece. Statements on the subject are extant, but these are insufficient to give us any general idea. There can be no doubt that the number was a very large one; it was a sign of the greatest poverty to own no slaves at all, and Aeschines mentions, as a mark of a very modest household, that there were only seven slaves to six persons. If we add to these domestic slaves the many thousands working in the country, in the factories, and the mines, and those who were the property of the State and the temples, there seems no doubt that their number must have considerably exceeded that of the free population."

H. Blümner, The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks, chapter 15.

ALSO IN: C. C. Felton, Greece, Ancient and Modern, lectures 2-3, third course (volume 2).

SLAVERY: Among the Romans.

Slavery, under the Roman Empire, "was carried to an excess never known elsewhere, before or since.

See ROME: B. C. 159-133.

Christianity found It permeating and corrupting every domain of human life, and in six centuries of conflict succeeded in reducing it to nothing. … Christianity, in the early ages, never denounced slavery as a crime; never encouraged or permitted the slaves to rise against their masters and throw off the yoke; yet she permeated the minds of both masters and slaves with ideas utterly inconsistent with the spirit of slavery. Within the Church, master and slave stood on an absolute equality."

W. R. Brownlow, Lectures on Slavery and Serfdom in Europe, lectures 1-2.

SLAVERY: Mediæval and Modern.

SLAVERY: Villeinage. Serfdom.

"The persons employed in cultivating the ground during the ages under review [the 7th to the 11th centuries, in Europe] may be divided into three classes:

I. 'Servi,' or slaves. This seems to have been the most numerous class, and consisted either of captives taken in war, or of persons the property in whom was acquired in some one of the various methods enumerated by Du Cange, voc. Servus, volume vi. page 447. The wretched condition of this numerous race of men will appear from several circumstances.

1. Their masters had absolute dominion over their persons. They had the power of punishing their slaves capitally, without the intervention of any judge. This dangerous right they possessed not only in the more early periods, when their manners were fierce, but it continued as late as the 12th century. … Even after this jurisdiction of masters came to be restrained, the life of a slave was deemed to be of so little value that a very slight compensation atoned for taking it away. If masters had power over the lives of their slaves, it is evident that almost no bounds would be set to the rigour of the punishments which they might inflict upon them. … The cruelty of these was, in many instances, excessive. Slaves might be put to the rack on very slight occasions. The laws with respect to these points are to be found in Potgiesserus, lib. iii. cap. 7. 2. and are shocking to humanity.

{2913}

2. If the dominion of masters over the lives and persons of their slaves was thus extensive, it was no less so over their actions and property. They were not originally permitted to marry. Male and female slaves were allowed, and even encouraged, to cohabit together. But this union was not considered as a marriage. … When the manners of the European nations became more gentle, and their ideas more liberal, slaves who married without their master's consent were subjected only to a fine. …

3. All the children of slaves were in the same condition with their parents, and became the property of their master. …

4. Slaves were so entirely the property of their masters that they could sell them at pleasure. While domestic slavery continued, property in a slave was sold in the same manner with that which a person had in any other moveable. Afterwards slaves became 'adscripti glebæ,' and were conveyed by sale, together with the farm or estate to which they belonged. …

5. Slaves had a title to nothing but subsistence and clothes from their master; all the profits of their labour accrued to him. …

6. Slaves were distinguished from freemen by a peculiar dress. Among all the barbarous nations, long hair was a mark of dignity and of freedom; slaves were for that reason, obliged to shave their heads. …

II. 'Villani.' They were likewise 'adscripti glebæ,' or 'villæ,' from which they derived their name, and were transferable along with it. Du Cange, voc. Villanus. But in this they differed from slaves, that they paid a fixed rent to their master for the land which they cultivated, and, after paying that, all the fruits of their labour and industry belonged to themselves in property. This distinction is marked by Pierre de Fontain's Conseil. Vie de St. Louis par Joinville, page 119, édit. de Du Cange. Several cases decided agreeably to this principle are mentioned by Muratori, ibid, page 773.

III. The last class of persons employed in agriculture were freemen. … Notwithstanding the immense difference between the first of these classes and the third, such was the spirit of tyranny which prevailed among the great proprietors of lands … that many freemen, in despair, renounced their liberty, and voluntarily surrendered themselves as slaves to their powerful masters. This they did in order that their masters might become more immediately interested to afford them protection, together with the means of subsisting themselves and their families. … It was still more common for freemen to surrender their liberty to bishops or abbots, that they might partake of the security which the vassals and slaves of churches and monasteries enjoyed. … The number of slaves in every nation of Europe was immense. The greater part of the inferior class of people in France were reduced to this state at the commencement of the third race of kings. Esprit des Loix, liv. xxx. c. ii. The same was the case in England. Brady, Pref. to Gen. Hist. … The humane spirit of the christian religion struggled long with the maxims and manners of the world, and contributed more than any other circumstance to introduce the practice of manumission. … The formality of manumission was executed in a church, as a religious solemnity. … Another method of obtaining liberty was by entering into holy orders, or taking the vow in a monastery. This was permitted for some time; but so many slaves escaped by this means out of the hands of their masters that the practice was afterwards restrained, and at last prohibited, by the laws of almost all the nations of Europe. … Great … as the power of religion was, it does not appear that the enfranchisement of slaves was a frequent practice while the feudal system preserved its vigour. … The inferior order of men owed the recovery of their liberty to the decline of that aristocratical policy."

W. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V., notes 9 and 20.

ALSO IN: A. Gurowski, Slavery in History, chapters 15-20.

T. Smith, Arminius, part 3, chapter 5.

See, also, DEDITITIUS.

SLAVERY: England. Villeinage.

"Chief of all causes [of slavery] in early times and among all peoples was capture in war. The peculiar nature of the English conquests, the frequent wars between the different kingdoms and the private expeditions for revenge or plunder would render this a fruitful means whereby the number of slaves would increase on English soil. In this way the Romanized Briton, the Welshman, the Angle and Saxon and the Dane would all go to swell the body of those without legal status. In those troubled times any were liable to a reduction to slavery; the thegn might become a thrall, the lord might become the slave of one who had been in subjection under him, and Wulfstan, in that strong sermon of his to the English [against Slavery—preserved by William of Malmesbury], shows that all this actually took place. It was at the time of the Danish invasion and the sermon seems to point clearly to a region infested by Danes, a region in which was the seat of Wulfstan's labors, for he was Archbishop of York from 1002 to 1023. Wulfstan's graphic picture does not seem to be corroborated by the evidence of the Domesday Survey. Mr. Seebohm's map shows that in the west and southwest there appears the greatest percentage in that record; that in Gloucestershire nearly one fourth of the population, twenty-four per cent., were in a state of slavery; that in Cornwall, Devon, and Stafford the proportion was only one to every five; in central England about one to every seven; in the east, Essex, Surrey, Cambridge and Herts one to every nine; in East Anglia and Wessex one to every twenty-five, while in the northerly districts in Nottinghamshire one to two hundred is given, and in York, Rutland, Huntingdon and Lincoln no slaves at all are recorded. From this it is evident that the Danish invasion was less serious from this point of view than had been the original conquest. Domesday records the social condition 500 years after the settlement, and many influences, with Christianity as the primary, were at work to alter the results of that movement. The main inference to be drawn is that the continued warfare along the Welsh marches replenished the supply in the west, while in the east the slave element was rapidly decreasing and in the north, notwithstanding the Danish invasion, there was rather a commingling of peoples than a subjection of the one by the other. A second cause was the surrender into slavery of the individual's own body either by himself or a relative. This could be voluntary, the free act of the individual or his relatives, or it could be forced, resulting from the storm and stress of evil days: This surrender was one of the most unfortunate phases of the Anglo-Saxon servitude and indicates to us the growing increase of the traffic in slaves; and the personal subjection was largely the outcome of that which was common to all peoples, the demand for slaves. {2914} Even as early as the time of Strabo, in the half century following Cæsar's conquest, the export of slaves began in Britain and before the Norman Conquest the sale of slaves had become a considerable branch of commerce. The insular position of England, her numerous ports, of which Bristol was one of the chief, gave rise during the Saxon occupation to a traffic in the slaves of all nations, and we know that slaves were publicly bought and sold throughout England and from there transported to Ireland or the continent. It was the prevalence of this practice and the wretched misery which it brought upon so many human beings, as well as the fact that it was against the precepts if not the laws of the church, that led Wulfstan, the Wilberforce of his time, to bring about the cessation of the slave trade at Bristol. From this place lines of women and children, gathered together from all England, were carried into Ireland and sold. … Besides this sale into slavery for purposes of traffic, which as a regular commerce was not prohibited until after the Norman conquest, many seem to have submitted themselves to the mastery of another through the need of food, which a year of famine might bring. A charter in the Codex Diplomaticus tells us of those men who bowed their heads for their meat in the evil days. Kemble thinks that such cases might have been frequent and Simeon of Durham, writing of the year 1069 when there was a dreadful famine in England, which raged particularly in the north, says that many sold themselves into slavery, that they might receive the needed support. … Even so late as the so-called laws of Henry I, such an act was recognized and a special procedure provided. … In addition to all those thus born into slavery or reduced to that condition in the ways above noted, there was another class made up of such as were reduced to slavery unwillingly as a penalty for debt or crime: these were known as 'witetheowas' or 'wite-fæstanmen.' … The legal condition of the slave was a particularly hard one; as a thing, not as a person, he was classed with his lord's goods and cattle and seems to have been rated according to a similar schedule, to be disposed of at the lord's pleasure like his oxen or horses. … They had no legal rights before the law and could bear no arms save the cudgel, the 'billum vel strublum,' as the laws of Henry I call it. Yet the position of the slave appears to have improved in the history of Anglo-Saxon law. … Hardly any part of the work of the Church was of greater importance than that which related to the moral and social elevation of the slave class. Its influence did much to mitigate their hard lot, both directly and indirectly."

C. McL. Andrews, The Old English Manor, page 181-188.

The Domesday Survey "attests the existence [in England, at the time of the Norman Conquest] of more than 25,000 servi, who must be understood to be, at the highest estimate of their condition, landless labourers; over 82,000 bordarii; nearly 7,000 cotarii and cotseti, whose names seem to denote the possession of land or houses held by service of labour or rent paid in produce; and nearly 110,000 villani. Above these were the liberi homines and sokemanni, who seem to represent the medieval and modern freeholder. The villani of Domesday are no doubt the ceorls of the preceding period, the men of the township, the settled cultivators of the land, who in a perfectly free state of society were the owners of the soil they tilled, but under the complicated system of rights and duties which marked the close of the Anglo-Saxon period had become dependent on a lord, and now under the prevalence of the feudal idea were regarded as his customary tenants; irremoveable cultivators, who had no proof of their title but the evidence of their fellow ceorls. For two centuries after the Conquest the villani are to be traced in the possession of rights both social and to a certain extent political. … They are spoken of by the writers of the time as a distinct order of society, who, although despicable for ignorance and coarseness, were in possession of considerable comforts, and whose immunities from the dangers of a warlike life compensated for the somewhat unreasoning contempt with which they were viewed by clerk and knight. During this time the villein could assert his rights against every oppressor but his master; and even against his master the law gave him a standing-ground if he could make his complaint known to those who had the will to maintain it. But there can be little doubt that the Norman knight practically declined to recognise the minute distinctions of Anglo-Saxon dependence, and that the tendency of both law and social habit was to throw into the class of native or born villeins the whole of the population described in Domesday under the heads of servi, bordarii and villani."

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 11, section 132.

"It has become a commonplace to oppose medieval serfdom to ancient slavery, one implying dependence on the lord of the soil and attachment to the glebe, the other being based on complete subjection to an owner. … If, from a general survey of medieval servitude we turn to the actual condition of the English peasantry, say in the 13th century, the first fact we have to meet will stand in very marked contrast to our general proposition. The majority of the peasants are villains, and the legal conception of villainage has its roots not in the connexion of the villain with the soil, but in his personal dependence on the lord. … As to the general aspect of villainage in the legal theory of English feudalism there can be no doubt. The 'Dialogus de Scaccario' gives it in a few words: the lords are owners not only of the chattels but of the bodies of their 'ascripticii,' they may transfer them wherever they please, 'and sell or otherwise alienate them if they like.' Glanville and Bracton, Fleta and Britton follow in substance the same doctrine, although they use different terms. They appropriate the Roman view that there is no difference of quality between serfs and serfs: all are in the same abject state. Legal theory keeps a very firm grasp of the distinction between status and tenure, between a villain and a free man holding in villainage, but it does not admit of any distinction of status among serfs: 'servus,' 'villanus' and 'nativus' are equivalent terms as to personal condition, although this last is primarily meant to indicate something else besides condition, namely, the fact that a person has come to it by birth. … Manorial lords could remove peasants from their holdings at their will and pleasure. An appeal to the courts was of no avail. {2915} … Nor could the villain have any help as to the amount and nature of his services; the King's Courts will not examine any complaint in this respect, and may sometimes go so far as to explain that it is no business of theirs to interfere between the lord and his man. … Even as to his person, the villain was liable to be punished and put into prison by the lord, if the punishment inflicted did not amount to loss of life or injury to his body. … It is not strange that in view of such disabilities Bracton thought himself entitled to assume equality of condition between the English villain and the Roman slave, and to use the terms 'servus,' 'villanus,' and 'nativus' indiscriminately."