The name-giver,--the name-giving hero of primitive myths, in
which tribes and races of people set before themselves, partly
by tradition, partly by imagination, an heroic personage who
is supposed to be their common progenitor and the source of
their name.
EPONYM CANON OF ASSYRIA.
See ASSYRIA, EPONYM CANON OF.
EPPING FOREST.
Once so extensive that it covered the whole county of Essex,
England, and was called the Forest of Essex. Subsequently,
when diminished in size, it was called Waltham Forest. Still
later, when further retrenched, it took the name of Epping,
from a town that is embraced in it. It is still quite large,
and within recent years it has been formally declared by the
Queen "a people's park."
J. C. Brown,
Forests of England.
EPULONES, The.
"The epulones [at Rome] formed a college for the
administration of the sacred festivals."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 31.
EQUADOR.
See ECUADOR.
EQUAL RIGHTS PARTY.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1835-1837.
EQUESTRIAN ORDER, Roman.
"The selection of the burgess cavalry was vested in the
censors. It was, no doubt, the duty of these to make the
selection on purely military grounds, and at their musters to
insist that all horsemen incapacitated by age or otherwise, or
at all unserviceable, should surrender their public horse; but
it was not easy to hinder them from looking to noble birth
more than to capacity, and from allowing men of standing, who
were once admitted, senators particularly, to retain their
horse beyond the proper time. Accordingly it became the
practical rule for the senators to vote in the eighteen
equestrian centuries, and the other places in these were
assigned chiefly to the younger men of the nobility. The
military system, of course, suffered from this, not so much
through the unfitness for effective service of no small part
of the legionary cavalry, as through the destruction of
military equality to which the change gave rise; the noble
youth more and more withdrew from serving in the infantry, and
the legionary cavalry became a close aristocratic corps."
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 3, chapter 11.
"The eighteen centuries, therefore, in course of time ... lost
their original military character and remained only as a
voting body. It was by the transformation thus effected in the
character of the eighteen centuries of knights, whilst the
cavalry service passed over to the richer citizens not
included in the senatorial families, that a new class of Roman
citizens began gradually to be formed, distinct from the
nobility proper and from the mass of the people, and
designated as the equestrian order."
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 7, chapter. 1.
The equestrian order became a legally constituted class under
the judicial law of Caius Gracchus, B. C. 123, which fixed its
membership by a census, and transferred to it the judicial
functions previously exercised by the senators only. It formed
a kind of monetary aristocracy, as a counterweight to the
nobility.
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 7, chapter 6.
{984}
ERA, Christian.
"Unfortunately for ancient Chronology, there was no one fixed
or universally established Era. Different countries reckoned
by different eras, whose number is embarrassing, and their
commencements not always easily to be adjusted or reconciled
to each other; and it was not until A. D. 532 that the
Christian Era was invented by Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian by
birth, and a Roman Abbot, who flourished in the reign of
Justinian. ... Dionysius began his era with the year of our
Lord's incarnation and nativity, in U. C. 753, of the
Varronian Computation, or the 45th of the Julian Era. And at
an earlier period, Panodorus, an Egyptian monk, who flourished
under the Emperor Arcadius, A. D. 395, had dated the
incarnation in the same year. But by some mistake, or
misconception of his meaning, Bede, who lived in the next
century after Dionysius, adopted his year of the Nativity, U.
C. 753, yet began the Vulgar Era, which he first introduced,
the year after, and made it commence Jan. 1, U. C. 754, which
was an alteration for the worse, as making the Christian Era
recede a year further from the true year of the Nativity. The
Vulgar Era began to prevail in the West about the time of
Charles Martel and Pope Gregory II. A. D. 730. ... But it was
not established till the time of Pope Eugenius IV. A. D. 1431,
who ordered this era to be used in the public Registers. ...
Dionysius was led to date the year of the Nativity, U. C. 753,
from the Evangelist Luke's account that John the Baptist began
his ministry 'in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius
Cæsar'; and that Jesus, at his baptism, 'was beginning to be
about 30 years of age.' Luke iii. 1-23. ... But this date of
the Nativity is at variance with Matthew's account, that
Christ was born before Herod's death; which followed shortly
after his massacre of the infants at Bethlehem. ... Christ's
birth, therefore, could not have been earlier than U. C. 748,
nor later than U. C. 749. And if we assume the latter year, as
most conformable to the whole tenor of Sacred History, with
Chrysostom, Petavius, Prideaux, Playfair, &c., this would give
Christ's age at his baptism, about 34 years; contrary to
Luke's account."
W. Hales,
New Analysis of Chronology,
volume 1, book l.
In a subsequent table, Mr. Hales gives the results of the
computations made by different chronologists, ancient and
modern, to fix the true year of the Nativity, as accommodated
to what is called "the vulgar," or popularly accepted,
Christian Era. The range is through no less than ten years,
from B. C. 7 to A. D. 3. His own conclusion, supported by
Prideaux and Playfair, is in favor of the year B. C. 5.
Somewhat more commonly at the present time, it is put at B. C.
4.
See, also, JEWS: B. C. 8-A. D. 1.
ERA, French Revolutionary.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER),
and 1793 (OCTOBER).
ERA, Gregorian.
See CALENDAR, GREGORIAN.
ERA, Jalalæan.
See TURKS (THE SELJUK): A. D. 1073-1092.
ERA, Julian.
See CALENDAR, JULIAN.
ERA, Mahometan, or Era of the Hegira.
"The epoch of the Era of the Hegira is, according to the civil
calculation, Friday, the 16th of July, A. D. 622, the day of
the flight of Mahomet from Mecca to Medina, which is the date
of the Mahometans; but astronomers and some historians assign
it to the preceding day, viz., Thursday, the 15th of July; an
important fact to be borne in mind when perusing Arabian
writers. The years of the Hegira are lunar years, and contain
twelve months, each commencing with the new moon; a practice
which necessarily leads to great confusion and uncertainty,
inasmuch as every year must begin considerably earlier in the
season than the preceding. In chronology and history, however,
and in dating their public instruments, the Turks use months
which contain alternately thirty and twenty-nine days,
excepting the last month, which, in intercalary years,
contains thirty days. ... The years of the Hegira are divided
into cycles of thirty years, nineteen of which are termed
common years, of 354 days each; and the eleven others
intercalary, or abundant, from their consisting of one day
more: these are the 2d, 5th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th, 18th,
21st, 24th, 26th and 29th. To ascertain whether any given year
be intercalary or not divide it by 30; and if either of the
above numbers remain, the year is one of 355 days."
Sir H. Nicolas,
Chronology of History.
See, also, MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.
ERA, Spanish.
"The Spanish era dates from 38 B. C. (A. U. 716) and is
supposed to mark some important epoch in the organization of
the province by the Romans. It may coincide with the campaign
of Calvinus, which is only known to us from a notice in the
Fasti Triumphales. ... The Spanish era was preserved in Aragon
till 1358, in Castile till 1383, and in Portugal till 1415."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 34, note.
ERA OF DIOCLETIAN, or Era of Martyrs.
See ROME: A. D. 192-284.
ERA OF GOOD FEELING.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1821-1824.
ERA OF THE FOUNDATION OF ROME.
See ROME: B. C. 753.
ERA OF THE OLYMPIADS.
See OLYMPIADS, ERA OF THE.
ERANI.
Associations existing in ancient Athens which resembled the
mutual benefit or friendly-aid societies of modern times.
G. F. Schömann,
Antiquity of Greece: The State,
part 3, chapter 3.
ERASTIANISM.
A doctrine which "received its name from Thomas Erastus, a
German physician of the 16th century, contemporary with
Luther. The work in which he delivered his theory and
reasonings on the subject is entitled 'De Excommunicatione
Ecclesiastica.' ... The Erastians ... held that religion is an
affair between man and his creator, in which no other man or
society of men was entitled to interpose. ... Proceeding on
this ground, they maintained that every man calling himself a
Christian has a right to make resort to any Christian place of
worship, and partake in all its ordinances. Simple as this
idea is, it strikes at the root of all priestcraft."
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth,
volume 1, chapter 13.
ERCTÉ, Mount, Hamilcar on.
See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.
See, also, ERYX.
ERDINI, The.
See IRELAND, TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.
EREMITES OF ST. FRANCIS.
See MINIMS.
ERETRIA.
See CHALCIS AND ERETRIA.
ERFURT, IMPERIAL CONFERENCE AND TREATY OF.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1808 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).
{985}
ERECTHEION AT ATHENS, The.
"At a very early period there was, opposite the long northern
side of the Parthenon, a temple which, according to Herodot,
was dedicated jointly to Athene Polias and the Attic hero,
Erectheus. ... This temple was destroyed by fire while the
Persians held the city. Not unlikely the rebuilding of the
Erectheion was begun by Perikles together with that of the
other destroyed temples of the Akropolis; but as it was not
finished by him, it is generally not mentioned amongst his
works. ... This temple was renowned amongst the ancients as
one of the most beautiful and perfect in existence, and seems
to have remained almost intact down to the time of the Turks.
The siege of Athens by the Venetians in 1687 seems to have
been fatal to the Erectheion, as it was to the Parthenon."
E. Guhl and W. Koner,
Life of the Greeks,
section 14.
See, also, ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS.
ERIC,
King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, A. D. 1412-1439.
Eric Blodaexe, King of Norway, A. D. 934-940.
Eric I., King of Denmark, A. D: 850-854.
Eric I. (called Saint), King of Sweden, A. D. 1155-1161.
Eric II., King of Denmark, A. D. 854-883.
Eric II., King of·Norway, A. D. 1280-1299.
Eric II. (Knutsson), King of Sweden, A. D. 1210-1216.
Eric III., King of Denmark, A. D. 1095-1103.
Eric III. (called The Stammerer), King of Sweden, A. D. 1222-1250.
Eric IV., King of Denmark, A. D. 1134-1137.
Eric V., King of Denmark, A. D. 1137-1147.
Eric VI., King of Denmark, A. D. 1241-1250.
Eric VII., King of Denmark, A. D. 1259-1286.
Eric VIII., King of Denmark, A. D. 1286-1319.
Eric XIV., King of Sweden, A. D. 1560-1568.
ERICSSON, John
Invention and construction of the Monitor.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MARCH).
ERIE, The City of: A. D. 1735.
Site occupied by the French.
See CANADA: A. D. 1700-1735.
ERIE, Fort: A. D. 1764-1791.
Origin.
Four years after the British conquest of Canada, in 1764,
Colonel John Bradstreet built a blockhouse and stockade near
the site of the later Fort Erie, which was not constructed
until 1791. When war with the United States broke out, in
1812, the British considered the new fort untenable, or
unnecessary, and evacuated and partly destroyed it, in May,
1813.
C. K. Remington,
Old Fort Erie.
ERIE, Fort: A. D. 1814.
The siege and the destruction.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
ERIE, Fort: A. D. 1866.
The Fenian invasion.
See CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.
----------ERIE: End----------
ERIE, Lake:
The Indian name.
See NIAGARA: THE NAME, &c.
ERIE, Lake: A. D. 1679.
Navigated by La Salle.
See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.
ERIE, Lake: A. D. 1813.
Perry's naval victory.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.
----------ERIE, Lake: End----------
ERIE CANAL, Construction of the.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1817-1825.
ERIES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HURONS, &c.,
and IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY: THEIR CONQUESTS.
ERIN.
See IRELAND.
ERMANRIC, OR HERMANRIC, The empire of.
See GOTHS (OSTROGOTHS): A. D. 350-375; and 376.
ERMYN STREET.
A corruption of Eormen street, the Saxon name of one of the
great Roman roads in Britain, which ran from London to
Lincoln. Some writers trace it northwards through York to the
Scottish border and southward to Pevensey.
See ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.
ERNESTINE LINE OF SAXONY.
See SAXONY: A. D. 1180-1553.
ERPEDITANI, The.
See IRELAND, TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.
ERTANG, The.
The sacred book of the Manicheans.
See MANICHEANS.
ERYTHRÆ.-ERYTHRÆAN SIBYL.
Erythræ was an ancient Ionian city on the Lydian coast of Asia
Minor, opposite the island of Chios or Scio. It was chiefly
famous as the home or seat of one of the most venerated of the
sibyls--prophetic women--of antiquity. The collection of
Sibylline oracles which was sacredly preserved at Rome appears
to have been largely derived from Erythræ. The Cumæan Sibyl is
sometimes identified with her Erythræan sister, who is said to
have passed into Europe.
See, also, SIBYLS.
ERYTHRÆAN SEA, The.
The Erythræan Sea, in the widest sense of the term, as used by
the ancients, comprised "the Arabian Gulf (or what we now call
the Red Sea), the coasts of Africa outside the straits of Bab
el Mandeb as far as they had then been explored, as well as
those of Arabia and India down to the extremity of the Malabar
coast." The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea is a geographical
treatise of great importance which we owe to some unknown
Greek writer supposed to be nearly contemporary with Pliny. It
is "a kind of manual for the instruction of navigators and
traders in the Erythræan Sea."
E. H. Bunbury,
History of Ancient Geography,
chapter 25.
"The Erythrêam Sea is an appellation ... in all appearance
deduced [by the ancients] from their entrance into it by the
straits of the Red Sea, styled Erythra by the Greeks, and not
excluding the gulph of Persia, to which the fabulous history
of a king Erythras is more peculiarly appropriate."
W. Vincent,
Periplus of the Erythrêan Sea,
book 1, prelim. disquis.
ERYX.--ERCTE.
A town originally Phoœnician or Carthaginian on the
northwestern coast of Sicily. It stood on the slope of a
mountain which was crowned with an ancient temple of
Aphrodite, and which gave the name Erycina to the goddess when
her worship was introduced at Rome.
See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.
ERZEROUM: A. D. 1878.
Taken by the Russians.
See TURKS: A. D. 1877-1878.
ESCOCÉS, The party of the.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1822-1828.
ESCOMBOLI.
See STAMBOUL.
ESCORIAL, The.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1559-1563.
ESCUYER.--ESQUIRE.
See CHIVALRY.
ESDRAELON, Valley of.
See MEGIDDO.
ESKIMO, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ESKIMAUAN FAMILY.
ESNE.
See THEOW.
ESPARTERO, Regency of.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1833-1846.
ESPINOSA, Battle of.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).
{986}
ESQUILINE, The.
See SEVEN HILLS OF ROME.
ESQUIRE.--ESCUYER.--SQUIRE.
See CHIVALRY.
ESQUIROS, Battle of (1521).
See NAVARRE: A. D. 1442-1521.
ESSELENIAN FAMILY, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ESSELENIAN FAMILY.
ESSENES, The.
See Supplement in volume 5.
ESSEX.
Originally the kingdom formed by that body of the Saxon
conquerors of Britain, in the fifth and sixth centuries, who
acquired, from their geographical position in the island, the
name of the East Saxons. It covered the present county of
Essex and also included London and Middlesex.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 477-527.
ESSEX JUNTO, The.
In the Massachusetts election of 1781, "the representatives of
the State in Congress, and some of the more moderate leaders
at home, opposed Governor Hancock, the popular candidate, and
supported James Bowdoin, who was thought to represent the more
conservative elements. ... It was at this time that Hancock is
said to have bestowed on his opponents the title of the 'Essex
Junto,' and this is the first appearance of the name in
American politics. ... The 'Junto' was generally supposed to
be composed of such men as Theophilus Parsons, George Cabot,
Fisher Ames, Stephen Higginson, the Lowells, Timothy
Pickering, &c., and took its name from the county to which
most of its reputed members originally belonged. ... The
reputed members of the 'Junto' held political power in
Massachusetts [as leaders of the Federalist party] for more
than a quarter of a century." According to Chief Justice
Parsons, as quoted by Colonel Pickering in his Diary, the term
'Essex Junto' was applied by one of the Massachusetts royal
governors, before the Revolution, to certain gentlemen of
Essex county who opposed his measures. Hancock, therefore,
only revived the title and gave it currency, with a new
application.
H. C. Lodge,
Life and Letters of George Cabot,
pages 17-22.
ESSLINGEN, OR ASPERN, Battle of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JANUARY-JUNE).
ESSUVII, The.
A Gallic tribe established anciently in the modern French
department of the Orne.
Napoleon III.,
History of Cæsar,
book 3, chapter 2, note.
ESTATES, Assembly of.
"An assembly of estates is an organised collection, made by
representation or otherwise, of the several orders, states or
conditions of men, who are recognised as possessing political
power. A national council of clergy and barons is not an
assembly of estates, because it does not include the body of
the people, the plebs, the simple freemen or commons."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 15, section 185.
See, also, ESTATES, THE THREE.
ESTATES, The Three.
"The arrangement of the political factors in three estates is
common, with some minor variations, to all the European
constitutions, and depends on a principle of almost universal
acceptance. This classification differs from the system of
caste and from all divisions based on differences of blood or
religion, historical or prehistorical. ... In Christendom it
has always taken the form of a distinction between clergy and
laity, the latter being subdivided according to national
custom into noble and non-noble, patrician and plebeian,
warriors and traders, landowners and craftsmen. ... The
Aragonese cortes contained four brazos or arms, the clergy,
the great barons or ricos hombres, the minor barons, knights
or infanzones, and the towns. The Germanic diet comprised
three colleges, the electors, the princes and the cities, the
two former being arranged in distinct benches, lay and
clerical. ... The Castilian cortes arranged the clergy, the
ricos hombres and the communidades, in three estates. The
Swedish diet was composed of clergy, barons, burghers and
peasants. ... In France, both in the States General and in the
provincial estates, the division is into gentz de l'eglise,
nobles, and gentz des bonnes villes. In England, after a
transitional stage, in which the clergy, the greater and
smaller barons, and the cities and boroughs, seemed likely to
adopt the system used in Aragon and Scotland, and another in
which the county and borough communities continued to assert
an essential difference, the three estates of clergy, lords
and commons, finally emerge as the political constituents of
the nation, or, in their parliamentary form, as the lords
spiritual and temporal and the commons. This familiar formula
in either shape bears the impress of history. The term commons
is not in itself an appropriate expression for the third
estate; it does not signify primarily the simple freemen, the
plebs, but the plebs organised and combined in corporate
communities, in a particular way for particular purposes. The
commons are the communitates or universitates, the organised
bodies of freemen of the shires and towns. ... The third
estate in England differs from the same estate in the
continental constitutions, by including the landowners under
baronial rank. In most of those systems it contains the
representatives of the towns or chartered communities only."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 15, sections 185, 193.
"The words 'gens de tiers et commun état' are found in many
acts [France] of the 15th century. The expressions 'tiers
état,' 'commun état,' and 'le commun' are used indifferently,
... This name of 'Tiers État, when used in its ordinary sense,
properly comprises only the population of the privileged
cities; but in effect it extends much beyond this; it includes
not only the cities, but the villages and hamlets--not only
the free commonalty, but all those for whom civil liberty is a
privilege still to come."
A. Thierry,
Formation and Progress of the Tiers État in France,
volume 1, pages 61 and 60.
ESTATES, or "States," of the Netherland Provinces.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1584-1585.
ESTATES GENERAL.
See STATES GENERAL.
ESTE, The House of.
"Descended from one of the northern families which settled in
Italy during the darkest period of the middle ages, the Este
traced their lineal descent up to the times of Charlemagne.
They had taken advantage of the frequent dissensions between
the popes and the German emperors of the houses of Saxony and
Swabia, and acquired wide dominions in Lunigiana, and the
March of Treviso, where the castle of Este, their family
residence, was situated. Towards the middle of the 11th
century, that family had been connected by marriages with the
Guelphs of Bavaria, and one of the name of Este was eventually
to become the common source from which sprung the illustrious
houses of Brunswick and Hanover. The Este had warmly espoused
the Guelph party [see GUELFS], during the wars of the Lombard
League. ...
{987}
Towards the year 1200, Azzo V., Marquis of Este, married
Marchesella degli Adelardi, daughter of one of the most
conspicuous Guelphs at Ferrara, where the influence of the
House of Este was thus first established."
L. Mariotti (A. Gallenga),
Italy,
volume 2, pages 62-63.
The Marquesses of Este became, "after some of the usual
fluctuations, permanent lords of the cities of Ferrara [1264]
and Modena [1288]. About the same time they lost their
original holding of Este, which passed to Padua, and with
Padua to Venice. Thus the nominal marquess of Este and real
lord of Ferrara was not uncommonly spoken of as Marquess of
Ferrara. In the 15th century these princes rose to ducal rank;
but by that time the new doctrine of the temporal dominion of
the Popes had made great advances. Modena, no man doubted, was
a city of the Empire; but Ferrara was now held to be under the
supremacy of the Pope. The Marquess Borso had thus to seek his
elevation to ducal rank from two separate lords. He was
created Duke of Modena [1453] and Reggio by the Emperor, and
afterwards Duke of Ferrara [1471] by the Pope. This difference
of holding ... led to the destruction of the power of the
house of Este. In the times in which we are now concerned,
their dominions lay in two masses. To the west lay the duchy
of Modena and Reggio; apart from it to the east lay the duchy
of Ferrara. Not long after its creation, this last duchy was
cut short by the surrender of the border-district of Rovigo to
Venice. ... Modena and Ferrara remained united, till Ferrara
was annexed [1598] as an escheated fief to the dominions of
its spiritual overlord. But the house of Este still reigned
over Modena with Reggio and Mirandola, while its dominions
were extended to the sea by the addition of Massa and other
small possessions between Lucca and Genoa. The duchy in the
end passed by female succession to the House of Austria
[1771-1803]."
E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
chapter 8, sections 3-4.
"The government of the family of Este at Ferrara, Modena, and
Reggio displays curious contrasts of violence and popularity.
Within the palace frightful deeds were perpetrated; a princess
was beheaded [1425] for alleged adultery with a stepson;
legitimate and illegitimate children fled from the court, and
even abroad their lives were threatened by assassins sent in
pursuit of them (1471). Plots from without were incessant; the
bastard of a bastard tried to wrest the crown from the lawful
heir, Hercules I.: this latter is said afterwards (1493) to
have poisoned his wife on discovering that she, at the
instigation of her brother, Ferrante of Naples, was going to
poison him. This list of tragedies is closed by the plot of
two bastards against their brothers; the ruling Duke Alfonso
I. and the Cardinal Ippolito (1506), which was discovered in
time, and punished with imprisonment for life. ... It is
undeniable that the dangers to which these princes were
constantly exposed developed in them capacities of a
remarkable kind."
J. Burckhardt,
The Civilization of the Period of the Renaissance in Italy,
part 1, chapter 5.
For the facts of the ending of the legitimate Italian line of
Este,
See PAPACY: A. D. 1597.
ESTHONIA, OR ESTONIA:
Origin of the name.
See ÆSTII.
ESTHONIA, OR ESTONIA: Christian conquest.
See LIVONIA: 12TH-13TH CENTURIES.
ESTIENNES, The Press of the.
See PRINTING: A. D. 1496-1598.
ESTREMOS, OR AMEIXAL, Battle of (1663).
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1637-1668.
ETCHEMINS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.
ETHANDUN, OR EDINGTON, Battle of (A. D. 878).
See ENGLAND: A. D. 855-880.
ETHEL, ETHELINGS, OR ÆTHELINGS.
"The sons and brothers of the king [of the English] were
distinguished by the title of Æthelings. The word Ætheling,
like eorl, originally denoted noble birth simply; but as the
royal house of Wessex rose to pre-eminence and the other royal
houses and the nobles generally were thereby reduced to a
relatively lower grade, it became restricted to the near
kindred of the national king."
T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History,
page 29.
"It has been sometimes held that the only nobility of blood
recognized in England before the Norman Conquest was that of
the king's kin. The statement may be regarded as deficient in
authority, and as the result of a too hasty generalization
from the fact that only the sons and brothers of the kings
bear the name of ætheling. On the other hand must be alleged
the existence of a noble (edhiling) class among the
continental Saxons who had no kings at all. ... The laws of
Ethelbert prove the existence of a class bearing the name of
eorl of which no other interpretation can be given. That
these, eorlas and æthel, were the descendants of the primitive
nobles of the first settlement, who, on the institution of
royalty, sank one step in dignity from the ancient state of
rude independence, in which they had elected their own chiefs
and ruled their own dependents, may be very reasonably
conjectured. ... The ancient name of eorl, like that of
ætheling, changed its application, and, under the influence,
perhaps, of Danish association, was given like that of jarl to
the official ealdorman. Henceforth the thegn takes the place
of the æthel, and the class of thegns probably embraces all
the remaining families of noble blood. The change may have
been very gradual; the 'north people's law' of the tenth or
early eleventh century still distinguishes the eorl and
ætheling with a wergild nearly double that of the ealdorman
and seven times that of the thegn; but the north people's law
was penetrated with Danish influence, and the eorl probably
represents the jarl rather than the ealdorman, the great eorl
of the fourth part of England as it was divided by Canute. ...
The word eorl is said to be the same as the Norse jarl and
another form of ealdor (?); whilst the ceorl answers to the
Norse Karl; the original meaning of the two being old man and
young man."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 6, section 64, and note.
ETHEL.--Family-land.
See ALOD; and FOLCLAND.
ETHELBALD,
King of Mercia, A. D. 716-755.
Ethelbald, King of Wessex, A. D. 858-860.
ETHELBERT,
King of Kent, A. D. 565-616.
Ethelbert, King of Wessex, A. D. 860-866.
ETHELFRITH, King of Northumberland, A. D. 593-617.
ETHELRED,
King of Wessex, A. D. 866-871.
Ethelred, called the Unready, King of Wessex, A. D. 979-1016.
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ETHELSTAN, King of Wessex, A. D. 925-940.
ETHELWULF, King of Wessex, A. D. 836-858.
ETHIOPIA.
The Ethiopia of the ancients, "in the ordinary and vague sense
of the term, was a vast tract extending in length above a
thousand miles, from the 9th to the 24th degree of north
latitude, and in breadth almost 900 miles, from the shores of
the Red Sea and Indian Ocean to the desert of the Sahara. This
tract was inhabited for the most part by wild and barbarous
tribes--herdsmen, hunters, or fishermen--who grew no corn,
were unacquainted with bread, and subsisted on the milk and
flesh of their cattle, or on game, turtle, and fish, salted or
raw. The tribes had their own separate chiefs, and
acknowledged no single head, but on the contrary were
frequently at war one with the other, and sold their prisoners
for slaves. Such was Ethiopia in the common vague sense; but
from this must be distinguished another narrower Ethiopia,
known sometimes as 'Ethiopia Proper' or 'Ethiopia above
Egypt,' the limits of which were, towards the south, the
junction of the White and Blue Niles, and towards the north
the Third Cataract. Into this tract, called sometimes 'the
kingdom of Meroë,' Egyptian civilisation had, long before the
eighth century [B. C.], deeply penetrated. Temples of the
Egyptian type, stone pyramids, avenues of sphinxes, had been
erected; a priesthood had been set up, which was regarded as
derived from the Egyptian priesthood; monarchical institutions
had been adopted; the whole tract formed ordinarily one
kingdom, and the natives were not very much behind the
Egyptians in arts or arms, or very different from them in
manners, customs, and mode of life. Even in race the
difference was not great. The Ethiopians were darker in
complexion than the Egyptians, and possessed probably a
greater infusion of Nigritic blood; but there was a common
stock at the root of the two races--Cush and Mizraim were
brethren. In the region of Ethiopia Proper a very important
position was occupied in the eighth century [B. C.] by Napata.
Napata was situated midway in the great bend of the Nile,
between latitude 18° and 19°. ... It occupied the left bank of
the river in the near vicinity of the modern Gebel Berkal. . .
Here, when the decline of Egypt enabled the Ethiopians to
reclaim their ancient limits, the capital was fixed of that
kingdom, which shortly became a rival of the old empire of the
Pharaohs, and aspired to take its place. ... The kingdom of
Meroë, whereof it was the capital, reached southward as far as
the modern Khartoum, and eastward stretched up to the
Abyssinian highlands, including the valleys of the Atbara and
its tributaries, together with most of the tract between the
Atbara and the Blue Nile. ... Napata continued down to Roman
times a place of importance, and only sank to ruin in
consequence of the campaigns of Petronius against Candacé in
the first century after our era."
G. Rawlinson,
History of Ancient Egypt,
chapter 25.
ALSO IN:
A. H. L. Heeren,
Historical Researches, Carthaginians,
Ethiopians, &c., pages 143-249.
See, also, EGYPT: ABOUT B. C. 1200-670;
and LIBYANS, THE.
ETON SCHOOL.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.--ENGLAND.
ETRURIA, Ancient.
See ETRUSCANS.
ETRURIA, The kingdom of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803;
also PORTUGAL: A. D. 1807;
and FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808(NOVEMBER-FEBRUARY).
ETRUSCANS, The.
"At the time when Roman history begins, we find that a
powerful and warlike race, far superior to the Latins in
civilisation and in the arts of life, hemmed in the rising
Roman dominion in the north. The Greeks called them Turrhenoi,
the Romans called them Etrusci, they called themselves the
Rasenna. Who they were and whence they came has ever been
regarded as one of the most doubtful and difficult problems in
ethnology. One conclusion only can be said to have been
universally accepted both in ancient and in modern times. It
is agreed on every hand that in all essential points, in
language, in religion, in customs, and in appearance, the
Etruscans were a race wholly different from the Latins. There
is also an absolute agreement of all ancient tradition to the
effect that the Etruscans were not the original inhabitants of
Etruria, but that they were an intrusive race of conquerors.
... It has been usually supposed that the Rasenna made their
appearance in Italy some ten or twelve centuries before the
Christian era. ... For some six or seven centuries, the
Etruscan power and territory continued steadily to increase,
and ultimately stretched far south of the Tiber, Rome itself
being included in the Etruscan dominion, and being ruled by an
Etruscan dynasty. The early history of Rome is to a great
extent the history of the uprising of the Latin race, and its
long struggle for Italian supremacy with its Etruscan foe. It
took Rome some six centuries of conflict to break through the
obstinate barrier of the Etruscan power. The final conquest of
Etruria by Rome was effected in the year 281 B. C. ... The
Rasennic people were collected mainly in the twelve great
cities of Etruria proper, between the Arno and the Tiber.
[Modern Tuscany takes its name from the ancient Etruscan
inhabitants of the region.] This region was the real seat of
the Etruscan power. ... From the 'Shah-nameh,' the great
Persian epic, we learn that the Aryan Persians called their
nearest non-Aryan neighbours--the Turkic or Turcoman tribes to
the north of them--by the name Turan, a word from which we
derive the familiar ethnologic term Turanian. The Aryan
Greeks, on the other hand, called the Turkic tribe of the
Rasenna, the nearest non-Aryan race, by the name of Turrhenoi.
The argument of this book is to prove that the Tyrrhenians of
Italy were of kindred race with the Turanians of Turkestan. Is
it too much to conjecture that the Greek form Turrhene may be
identically the same word as the Persian form Turan?"
I. Taylor,
Etruscan Researches,
chapter 2.
"The utmost we can say is that several traces, apparently
reliable, point to the conclusion that the Etruscans may be on
the whole included among the Indo-Germans. ... But even
granting those points of connection, the Etruscan people
appears withal scarcely less isolated. 'The Etruscans,'
Dionysius said long ago, 'are like no other nation in language
and manners'; and we have nothing to add to his statement. ...
Reliable traces of any advance of the Etruscans beyond the
Tiber, by land, are altogether wanting. ... South of the Tiber
no Etruscan settlement can be pointed out as having owed its
origin to founders who came by land; and that no indication
whatever is discernible of any serious pressure by the
Etruscans upon the Latin nation."
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 1, chapter 9.
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EUBŒA.
"The island of Eubœa, long and narrow like Krête, and
exhibiting a continuous backbone of lofty mountains from
northwest to southeast, is separated from Bœotia at one point
by a strait so narrow (celebrated in antiquity under the name
of the Eurīpus) that the two were connected by a bridge for a
large portion of the historical period of Greece, erected
during the later times of the Peloponnesian war by the
inhabitants of Chalkis [Chalcis]. Its general want of breadth
leaves little room for plains. The area of the island consists
principally of mountain, rock, dell, and ravine, suited in
many parts for pasture, but rarely convenient for
grain-culture or town habitations. Some plains there were,
however, of great fertility, especially that of Lelantum,
bordering on the sea near Chalkis, and continuing from that
city in a southerly direction towards Eretria. Chalkis and
Eretria, both situated on the western coast, and both
occupying parts of this fertile plain, were the two principal
places in the island: the domain of each seems to have
extended across the island from sea to sea. ... Both were in
early times governed by an oligarchy, which among the
Chalcidians was called the Hippobotæ, or Horse feeders,--
proprietors probably of most part of the plain called
Lelantum."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 12.
See, also, NEGROPONT.
EUBOIC TALENT.
See TALENT.
EUCHITES, The.
See MYSTICISM.
EUDES, King of France
(in partition with Charles the Simple), A. D. 887-898.
EUDOSES, The.
See AVIONES.
EUGENE (Prince) of Savoy, Campaigns of.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1699-1718;
GERMANY: A. D. 1704;
ITALY (SAVOY AND PIEDMONT): A. D. 1701-1713;
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1708-1709, and 1710-1712.
EUGENE I., Pope, A. D. 655-657.
Eugene II., Pope, A. D. 824-827.
Eugene III., Pope, A. D. 1145-1153.
Eugene IV., Pope, A. D. 1431-1447.
EUGENIANS, The.
See HY-NIALS.
EUMENES, and the wars of the Diadochi.
See MACEDONIA: B. C. 323-316.
EUMOLPHIDÆ, The.
See PHYLÆ.
EUPATRIDÆ, The.
"The Eupatridæ [in ancient Athens] are the wealthy and
powerful men, belonging to the most distinguished families in
all the various gentes, and principally living in the city of
Athens, after the consolidation of Attica: from them are
distinguished the middling and lower people, roughly
classified into husbandmen and artisans. To the Eupatridæ is
ascribed a religious as well as a political and social
ascendency. They are represented as the source of all
authority on matters both sacred and profane,"
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 10.
EUROKS, OR YUROKS.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MODOCS.
EUROPE.
A HISTORICAL SKETCH.
A general sketch of the history of Europe at large cannot, for
obvious reasons, be constructed of quotations from the
historians, on the plan followed in other parts of this work.
The editor has found it necessary, therefore, to introduce
here an essay of his own.
The first inhabitants of the continent of Europe have left no
trace of their existence on the surface of the land. The
little that we know of them has been learned by the discovery
of deeply buried remains, including a few bones and skulls,
many weapons and tools which they had fashioned out of stone
and bone, and some other rude marks of their hands which time
has not destroyed. The places in which these remains are
found--under deposits that formed slowly in ancient river beds
and in caves--have convinced geologists that the people whose
existence they reveal lived many thousands of years ago, and
that the continent of Europe in their time was very different
from the Europe of the present day, in its climate, in its
aspect, and in its form. They find reason to suppose that the
peninsula of Italy, as well as that of Spain, was then an
isthmus which joined Europe to Africa; and this helps to
explain the fact that remains of such animals as the elephant,
the lion, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and the hyena, as
well as the mammoth, are found with the remains of these early
men. They all seem to have belonged, together, to a state of
things, on the surface of the earth, which was greatly changed
before the men and the animals that we have historical
knowledge of appeared.
The Stone Age.
These primitive Europeans were evidently quite at the bottom
of the savage state. They had learned no use of metals, since
every relic of their workmanship that can be found is of
stone, or bone, or wood. It is thought possible that they
shaped rough vessels out of unbaked clay; but that is
uncertain. There is nothing to show that they had domesticated
any animals. It is plain that they dwelt in caves, wherever
nature provided such dwellings; but what shelters they may
have built elsewhere for themselves is unknown.
In one direction, only, did these ancient people exhibit a
faculty finer than we see in the lowest savages of the present
day: they were artists, in a way. They have left carvings and
drawings of animals--the latter etched with a sharp point on
horns, bones, and stones--which are remarkable for uncultured
men.
The period in man's life on the earth at which these people
lived--the period before metals were known--has been named by
archæologists the Stone Age. But the Stone Age covers two
stages of human culture--one in which stone implements were
fashioned unskilfully, and a second in which they were
finished with expert and careful hands. The first is called
the Palæolithic or Old Stone Age, the second the Neolithic or
New Stone Age. Between the two periods in Europe there seems
to have been a long interval of time, and a considerable
change in the condition of the country, as well as in that of
its people.
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In fact, the Europe of the Neolithic Age was probably not very
different in form and climate from the Europe of our own day.
Relics of the human life of that time are abundantly scattered
over the face of the continent. There are notable deposits of
them in the so-called "kitchen-middens" of Denmark, which are
great mounds of shells,--shells of oysters and other
molluscs,--which these ancient fishermen had opened and
emptied, and then cast upon a refuse heap. Buried in those
mounds, many bits of their workmanship have been preserved,
and many hints of their manner of life are gleaned from the
signs and tokens which these afford. They had evidently risen
some degrees above the state of the men of the Palæolithic or
Old Stone Age; but they were inferior in art.
The Bronze Age.
The discovery and use of copper--the metal most easily worked,
and most frequently found in the metallic state--is the event
by which archæologists mark the beginning of a second state in
early civilizations. The period during which copper, and
copper hardened by an alloy of tin, are the only metals found
in use, they call the Bronze Age. There is no line of positive
division between this and the Neolithic period which it
followed. The same races appear to have advanced from the one
stage to the other, and probably some were in possession of
tools and weapons of bronze, while others were still
contenting themselves with implements of stone.
Lake Dwellings.
In many parts of Europe, especially in Switzerland and
northern Italy, plain traces of some curious habitations of
people who lived through the later Stone Age into the Bronze
Age, and even after it, have been brought to light. These are
the "lake dwellings," or "lacustrine habitations," as they
have been called, which have excited interest in late years.
They were generally built on piles, driven into a lake-bottom,
at such distance from shore as would make them easy of defence
against enemies. The foundations of whole villages of these
dwellings have been found in the Swiss and North Italian
lakes, and less numerously elsewhere. From the lake-mud under
and around them, a great quantity of relics of the
lake-dwellers have been taken, and many facts about their arts
and mode of life have been learned. It is known that, even
before a single metal had come into their hands, they had
begun to cultivate the earth; had raised wheat and barley and
flax; had domesticated the horse, the ox, the sheep, the goat,
the pig and the dog; had become fairly skilful in weaving, in
rope-making, and in the art of the potter, but without the
potter's wheel.
Gradually copper and bronze made their appearance among the
implements of these people, as modern search discovers them
imbedded, layer upon layer, in the old ooze of the lake-beds
where they were dropped. In time, iron, too, reveals itself
among their possessions, showing that they lived in their
lake-villages from the later Stone Age into that third period
of the early process of civilization which is named the Iron
Age--when men first acquired the use of the most useful of all
the metals. It appears, in fact, that the lake-dwellings were
occupied even down to Roman times, since articles of Roman
make have been found in the ruins of them.
Barrows.
In nearly all parts of Europe there are found burial mounds,
called barrows, which contain buried relics of people who
lived at one or the other of the three periods named. For the
most part, they represent inhabitants of the Neolithic and of
the Bronze Ages. In Great Britain some of these barrows are
long, some are round; and the skulls found in the long barrows
are different in shape from those in the round ones, showing a
difference of race. The people to whom the first belonged are
called "long-headed," or "dolichocephalic"; the others are
called "broad-headed," or "brachycephalic." In the opinion of
some ethnologists, who study this subject of the distinctions
of race in the human family, the broad-headed people were
ancestors of the Celtic or Keltic tribes, whom the Romans
subdued in Gaul and Britain; while the long-headed men were of
a preceding race, which the Celts, when they came, either
drove out of all parts of Europe, except two or three
mountainous corners, or else absorbed by intermarriage. The
Basques of northwestern Spain, and some of their neighbors on
the French side of the Pyrenees, are supposed to be survivals
of this very ancient people; and there are suspected to be
traces of their existence seen in the dark-haired and
dark-skinned people of parts of Wales, Ireland, Corsica, North
Africa, and elsewhere.
The Aryan Nations.
At least one part of this conjecture has much to rest upon.
The inhabitants of western Europe when our historical
knowledge of them--that is, our recorded and reported
knowledge of them--begins, were, certainly, for the most
part, Celtic peoples, and it is extremely probable that they
had been occupying the country as long as the period
represented by the round barrows. It is no less probable that
they were the lake-dwellers of Switzerland, North Italy, and
other regions; and that they did, in fact, displace some
earlier people in most parts of Western Europe.
The Celts--whose nearly pure descendants are found now in the
Bretons of France, the Welsh, the Highland Scotch and the
Celtic Irish, and who formed the main stock of the larger part
of the French nation--were one branch of the great family of
nations called Aryan or Indo-European. The Aryan peoples are
assumed to be akin to one another--shoots from one
stem--because their languages are alike in grammatical
structure and contain great numbers of words that are