Chapter XXIV: Part 24

_Mosaics and Paintings._--The method of depicting designs by bringing together morsels of variously colored materials is of high antiquity. We are apt to think of a line of distinction between classical and Christian mosaics in that the former were generally of marble and the latter mostly of colored and gilt glass. But glass mosaics were already in use in the Augustan age, and the use of gilt tesserae goes back to the 1st or 2nd century. The first application of glass to this purpose seems to have been made in Egypt, the great glass-working centre of antiquity, and the gilding of tesserae may with probability be traced to the same source, whence, it is generally agreed, most of the gilt glass vessels, of which so many have been found in the catacombs, were derived. The earliest existing mosaics of a typically Christian character are some to be found at Santa Costanza, Rome (4th century). Other mosaics on the vaults of the same church are of marble and follow a classical tradition. It is probable that we have here the meeting-point of two art-currents, the indigenous and the eastern. In Rome, the great apse-mosaic of S. Pudenziana dates from about A.D. 400. The mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, is incrusted within by mosaic work of the 5th century, and most probably the dome mosaics of the church of St George, Salonica, are also of this period. Of the 6th century are many of the magnificent examples still remaining at Ravenna, portions of the original incrustation of St Sophia, Constantinople, those of the basilica at Parenzo, on the Gulf of Istria, and of St Catherines, Sinai. An interesting mosaic which is probably of this period, and has only recently been described, is at the small church of Keti in Cyprus. This, which may be the only Byzantine mosaic in the British dominions, fills the conch of a tiny apse, but is none the less of great dignity. In the centre is a figure of the Virgin with the Holy Child in her arms standing between two angels who hold disks marked with the sign [CHI]. They are named Michael and Gabriel. Another mosaic of this period brought from Ravenna to Germany two generations ago has been recently almost rediscovered, and set up in the new Museum of Decorative Art in Berlin. In this, a somewhat similar composition fills the conch of the apse, but here it is the Risen Christ who stands between the two archangels. Above, in a broad strip, a frieze of angels blowing trumpets stand on the celestial sea on either hand of the Enthroned Majesty.

Such mosaics flowed out widely over the Christian world trom its art centres, as far east as Sanâ, the capital of Yemen, as far north as Kiev in Russia, and Aachen in Germany, and as far west as Paris, and continued in time for a thousand years without break in the tradition save by the iconoclastic dispute. The finest late example is the well-known "mosaic-church" (the Convent of the Saviour) at Constantinople, a work of the 14th century.

The single figures were from the first, and for the most part, treated with an axial symmetry. Almost all are full front; only occasionally will one, like the announcing angel, be drawn with a three-quarter face. The features are thus kept together on the general map of the face. In the same way the details of a tree will be collected on a simple including form which makes a sort of mat for them. Groups, similarly, are closely gathered up into masses of balanced form, and such masses are arranged with strict regard for general symmetry. "The art," as Bayet says, "in losing something of life and liberty became so much the better fitted for the decoration of great edifices." The technical means were just as much simplified, and only a few frank colours were made sufficient, by skilful juxtaposition, to do all that was required of them. The fine pure blue, or bright gold, backgrounds on which the figures were spaced, as well as the broken surface incidental to the process, created an atmosphere which harmonized all together. At St Sophia there were literally acres of such mosaics, and they seem to have been applied with similar profusion in the imperial palace.

Mosaic was only a more magnificent kind of painting, and painted design followed exactly the same laws; the difference is in the splendour of effect and in the solidity and depth of colour. Paintings, from the first, must have been of more grey and pearly hues. A large side chapel at the mosaic church at Constantinople is painted, and it is difficult to say which is really the more beautiful, the deep splendour of the one, or the tender yet gay colour of the other. The greatest thing in Byzantine art was this picturing of the interiors of entire buildings with a series of mosaics or paintings, filling the wall space, vaults and domes with a connected story. The typical character of the personages and scenes, the elimination of non-essentials, and the continuity of the tradition, brought about an intensity of expression such as may nowhere else be found. It is part of the limited greatness of this side of Byzantine art that there was no room in it for the gaiety and humour of the later medieval schools; all was solemn, epical, cosmic. When such stories are displayed on the golden ground of arches and domes, and related in a connected cycle, the result produces, as it was intended to produce, a sense of the universal and eternal. Beside this great power of co-ordination possessed by Byzantine artists, they created imaginative types of the highest perfection. They clothed Christian ideas with forms so worthy, which have become so diffused, and so intimately one with the history, that we are apt to take them for granted, and not to see in them the superb results of Greek intuition and power of expression. Such a type is the Pantocrator,--the Creator-Redeemer, the Judge inflexible and yet compassionate,--who is depicted at the zenith of all greater domes; such the Virgin with the Holy Child, enthroned or standing in the conchs of apses, all tenderness and dignity, or with arms extended, all solicitude; of her image the _Painter's Guide_ directs that it is to be painted with the "complexion the colour of wheat, hair and eyes brown, grand eyebrows, and beautiful eyes, clad in beautiful clothing, humble, beautiful and faultless"; such are the angels with their mighty [v.04 p.0909] wings, splendid impersonations of beneficent power; such are the prophets, doctors, martyrs, saints,--all have been fixed into final types.

We are apt to speak of the rigidity and fixity of Byzantine work, but the method is germane in the strictest sense to the result desired, and we should ask ourselves how far it is possible to represent such a serious and moving drama except by dealing with more or less unchangeable types. It could be no otherwise. This art was not a matter of taste, it was a growth of thought, cast into an historical mould. Again, the artists had an extraordinary power of concentrating and abstracting the great things of a story into a few elements or symbols. For example, the seven days of creation are each figured by some simple detail, such as a tree, or a flight of birds, or symbolically, as seven spirits; the flood by an ark on the waters. What the capabilities of such a method are, where invention is not allowed to wander into variety, but may only add intensity, may, for instance, be seen in representations of the Agony in the Garden. This subject is usually divided into three sections, each consecutive one showing, with the same general scene, greater darkness, an advance up the hill, and the figure of Christ more bowed. Another composition, the "Sleep (death) of the Virgin," is all sweetness and peace, but no less powerful. A remarkable invention is the _etomasia_, a splendid empty throne prepared for the Second Advent. The stories of the Old Testament are put into relation with the Gospel by way of type and anti-type. There are allegories: the anchorite life contrasted with the mad life of the world, the celestial ladder, &c., and fine impersonations, such as night and dawn, mercy and truth, cities and rivers, are frequently found, especially in MS. pictures.

A few general schemes may be briefly summarized. St Sophia has the Pantocrator in the middle of the dome, and four cherubim of colossal size at the four corners; on the walls below were angels, prophets, saints and doctors. On the circle of the apse was enthroned the Virgin. To the right and left, high above the altar, were two archangels holding banners inscribed "Holy, Holy, Holy." These last are also found at Nicaea, and at the monastery of St Luke. The church of the Holy Apostles had the Ascension in the central dome, and below, the Life of Christ. St Sophia, Salonica, also has the Ascension, a composition which is repeated on the central dome of St Mark's, Venice. In the eastern dome of the Venetian church is Christ surrounded by prophets, and, in the western dome, the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles. A Pentecost similar to the last occupies the dome over the Bema of St Luke's monastery in Phocis; in the central dome of this church is the Pantocrator, while in a zone below stand, the Virgin to the east, St John Baptist to the west, and the four archangels, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel, to the north and south. A better example of grandeur of treatment can hardly be cited than the paintings of the now destroyed dome of the little church of Megale Panagia at Athens, a dome which was only about 12 ft. across. At the centre was Christ enthroned, next came a series of nine semicircles containing the orders of the angels, seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels and angels. Below these came a wide blue belt set with stars and the signs of the zodiac; to the east the sun, to the west the moon. Still below these were the winds, hail and snow; and still lower mountains and trees and the life on the earth, with all of which were interwoven passages from the last three Psalms, forming a Benedicite. After St Mark's, Venice, the completest existing scheme of mosaics is that of the church of St Luke; those of Daphne, Athens, are the most beautiful. A complete series of paintings exists in one of the monastic churches on Mount Athos. The Pantocrator is at the centre of the dome, then comes a zone with the Virgin, St John Baptist and the orders of the angels. Then the prophets between the windows of the dome and the four evangelists in the pendentives. On the rest of the vaults is the life of Christ, ending at the Bema with the Ascension; in the apse is the Virgin above, the Divine Liturgy lower, and the four doctors of the church below. All the walls are painted as well as the vaults. The mosaics overflowed from the interiors on to the external walls of buildings even in Roman days, and the same practice was continued on churches. The remains of an external mosaic of the 6th century exist on the west façade of the basilica at Parenzo. Christ is there seated amongst the seven candlesticks, and adored by saints. At the basilica at Bethlehem the gable end was appropriately covered with a mosaic of the Nativity, also a work of the age of Justinian. In Rome, St Peter's and other churches had mosaics on the façades; a tradition represented, in a small way, at San Miniato, Florence. At Constantinople, according to Clavigo, the Spanish ambassador who visited that city about 1400, the church of St Mary of the Fountain had its exterior richly worked in gold, azure and other colours; and it seems almost necessary to believe that the bare front of the narthex of St Sophia was intended to be decorated in a similar manner. In Damascus the courtyard of the Great Mosque seems to have been adorned with mosaics; photographs taken before the fire in 1893 show patches on the central gable in some of the spandrels of the side colonnade and on the walls of the isolated octagonal treasury. The mosaics here were of Byzantine workmanship, and their effect, used in such abundance, must have been of great splendour. In Jerusalem the mosque of Omar also had portions of the exterior covered with mosaics. We may imagine that such external decorations of the churches, where a few solemn figures told almost as shadows on the golden background brightly reflecting the sun, must have been even more glorious than the imagery of their interiors.

Painted books were hardly different in their style from the paintings on the walls. Of the MSS. the Cottonian Genesis, now only a collection of charred fragments, was an early example. The great _Natural History_ of Dioscorides of Vienna (c. 500) and the Joshua Roll of the Vatican, which have both been lately published in perfect facsimile, are magnificent works. In the former the plants are drawn with an accuracy of observation which was to disappear for a thousand years. The latter shows a series of drawings delicately tinted in pinks and blues. Many of the compositions contain classical survivals, like personified rivers.

In some of the miniatures of the later school of the art the classical revival of the 10th century was especially marked. Still later others show a very definite Persian influence in their ornamentation, where intricate arabesques almost of the style of eastern rugs are found.

_The Plastic Art._--If painting under the new conditions entered on a fresh course of power and conquest, if it set itself successfully to provide an imagery for new and intense thought, sculpture, on the other hand, seems to have withered away as it became removed from the classic stock. Already in the pre-Constantinian epoch of classical art sculpture had become strangely dry and powerless, and as time went on the traditions of modelling appear to have been forgotten. Two points of recent criticism may be mentioned here. It has been shown that the porphyry images of warriors at the southwest angle of St Mark's, Venice, are of Egyptian origin and are of late classical tradition. The celebrated bronze St Peter at Rome is now assigned to the 13th century. Not only did statue-making become nearly a lost art, but architectural carvings ceased to be seen as _modelled form_, and a new system of relief came into use. Ornament, instead of being gathered up into forcible projections relieved against retiring planes, and instead of having its surfaces modulated all over with delicate gradations of shade, was spread over a given space in an even fretwork. Such a highly developed member as the capital, for instance, was thought of first as a simple, solid form, usually more or less the shape of a bowl, and the carving was spread out over the general surface, the background being sunk into sharply defined spaces of shadow, all about the same size. Often the background was so deeply excavated that it ceased to be a plane supporting the relieved parts, but passed wholly into darkness. Strzygowski has given to this process the name of the "deep-dark" ground. A further step was to relieve the upper fretwork of carving from the ground altogether in certain places by cutting away the sustaining portions.

[v.04 p.0910] The simplicity, the definition and crisp sharpness of some of the results are entirely delightful. The bluntness and weariness of many of the later modelled Roman forms disappear in the new energy of workmanship which was engaged in exploring a fresh field of beauty. These brightly illuminated lattices of carved ornament seem to hold within them masses of cold shadow. Beautiful as was this method of architectural adornment, it must be allowed that it was, in essence, much more elementary than the school of modelled form. All such carvings were usually brightly coloured and gilt, and it seems probable that the whole was considered rather as a colour arrangement than as sculpture proper.

Plaster work, again, an art on which wonderful skill was lavished in Rome, became under the Byzantines extremely rude. Many good examples of this work exist at San Vitale and Sant' Apollinare in Classe at Ravenna, also at Parenzo, and at St Sophia, Constantinople. Later examples of plaster work of Byzantine tradition are to be found at Cividale, and at Sant' Ambrogio, Milan, where the tympana of the well-known baldachin are of this material, and contain modelled figures.

Coins and medallions of even the best period of Byzantine art prove what a deep abyss separates them from the power over modelled relief shown in classical examples. The sculptural art is best displayed by ivory carvings, although this is more to be attributed to their pictorial quality than to a feeling for modelling.

_Metal Work, Ivories and Textiles._--One of the greatest of Byzantine arts is the goldsmith's. This absorbed so much from Persian and Oriental schools as to become semi-barbaric. Under Justinian the transformation from Classical art was almost complete. Some few examples, like a silver dish from Cyprus in the British Museum, show refined restraint; on the other hand, the mosaic portraits of the emperor and Theodora show crowns and jewels of full Oriental style, and the description of the splendid fittings of St Sophia read like an eastern tale. Goldsmith's work was executed on such a scale for the great church as to form parts of the architecture of the interior. The altar was wholly of gold, and its ciborium and the iconastasis were of silver. In the later palace-church, built by Basil the Macedonian, the previous metals were used to such an extent that it is clear, from the description, that the interior was intended to be, as far as possible, like a great jewelled shrine. Gold and silver, we are told, were spread over all the church, not only in the mosaics, but in plating and other applications. The enclosure of the bema, with its columns and entablatures, was of silver gilt, and set with gems and pearls.

The most splendid existing example of goldsmith's work on a large scale is the _Paid d'Oro_ of St Mark's, Venice; an assemblage of many panels on which saints and angels are enamelled. The monastic church of St Catherine, Sinai, is entered through a pair of enamelled doors, and several doors inlaid with silver still exist. In these doors the ground was of gilt-bronze; but there is also record of silver doors in the imperial palace at Constantinople. The inlaid doors of St Paul Outside the Walls at Rome were executed in Constantinople by Stauricios, in 1070, and have Greek inscriptions. There are others at Salerno (c. 1080), but the best known are those at St Mark's, Venice. In all these the imagery was delineated in silver on the gilt-bronze ground. The earliest works of this sort are still to be found in Constantinople. The panels of a door at St Sophia bear the monograms of Theophilus and Michael (840). Two other doors in the narthex of the same church, having simpler ornamentation of inlaid silver, are probably as early as the time of Justinian.

The process of enamelling dates from late classical times and Venturi supposes that it was invented in Alexandria. The cloisonné process, characteristic of Byzantine enamels, is thought by Kondakov to be derived from Persia, and to its study he has devoted a splendid volume. One of the finest examples of this cloisonné is the reliquary at Limburg on which the enthroned Christ appears between St Mary and St John in the midst of the twelve apostles. An inscription tells that it was executed for the emperors Constantine and Romanus (948-959).

A reliquary lately added to the J. Pierpont Morgan collection at South Kensington is of the greatest beauty in regard to the colour and clearness of the enamel. The cover, which is only about 4½ by 3 ins., has in the centre a crucifixion with St Mary and St John to the right and left, while around are busts of the apostles. Christ is vested in a tunic. The ground colour is the green of emerald, the rest mostly blue and white. The cloisons are of gold. Two other Byzantine enamels are in the permanent collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum: one is a cross with the crucifixion on a background of the same emerald enamel; the other is a small head of St Paul of remarkably fine workmanship.

Ivory-working was another characteristic Byzantine art, although, like so many others it had its origin in antiquity. One of the earliest ivories of the Byzantine type is the diptych at Monza, showing a princess and a boy, supposed to be Galla Placidia and Valentinian III. This already shows the broad, flattened treatment which seems to mark the ivory work of the East. The majestic archangel of the British Museum, one of the largest panels known, is probably of the 5th century, and almost certainly, as Strzygowski has shown, of Syrian origin. Design and execution are equally fine. The drawing of the body, and the modelling of the drapery, are accomplished and classical. Only the full front pose, the balanced disposition of the large wings, and the intense outlook of the face, give it the Byzantine type.

Ivory, like gold-work and enamel, was pressed into the adornment of architectural works. The ambo erected by Justinian at St Sophia was in part covered by ivory panels set into the marble. The best existing specimen of this kind of work is the celebrated ivory throne at Ravenna. This masterpiece, which resembles a large, high-backed chair, is entirely covered with sculptured ivory, delicate carvings of scriptural subjects and ornament. It is of the 6th century and bears the monogram of Bishop Maximian. It is probably of Egyptian or Syrian origin.

So many fragments of ivories have been discovered in recent explorations in Egypt that it is most likely that Alexandria, a fit centre for receiving the material, was also its centre of distribution. The weaving of patterned silks was known in Europe in the classical age, and they reached great development in the Byzantine era. A fragment, long ago figured by Semper, showing a classical design of a nereid on a sea-horse, is so like the designs found on many ivories discovered in Egypt that we may probably assign it to Alexandria. Such fabrics going back to the 3rd century have been found in Egypt which must have been one of the chief centres for the production of silk as for linen textiles. The Victoria and Albert Museum is particularly rich in early silks. One fine example, having rose-coloured stripes and repeated figures of Samson and the lion, must be of the great period of the 6th century. The description of St Sophia written at that time tells of the altar curtains that they bore woven images of Christ, St Peter and St Paul standing under tabernacles upon a crimson ground, their garments being enriched with gold embroidery. Later the patterns became more barbaric and of great scale, lions trampled across the stuff, and in large circles were displayed eagles, griffins and the like in a fine heraldic style. From the origin of the raw material in China and India and the ease of transport, such figured stuffs gathered up and distributed patterns over both Europe and Asia. The Persian influence is marked. There is, for example, a pattern of a curious dragon having front feet and a peacock's tail. It appears on a silver Persian dish in the Hermitage Museum, it is found on the mixed Byzantine and Persian carvings of the palace of Mashita, and it occurs on several silks of which there are two varieties at the Victoria and Albert Museum, both of which are classed as Byzantine; it is difficult to say of many of these patterns whether they are Sassanian originals or Byzantine adaptations from them.

AUTHORITIES.--A very complete bibliography is given by H. Leclercq, _Manuel d'archéologie chrétienne_ (Paris, 1907). The current authorities for all that concerns Byzantine history or art [v.04 p.0911] are:--_Byzantinische Zeitschrift ..._ (Leipzig, 1892 seq.); _Oriens Christianus_ (Rome, 1900 seq.). See also Dom R.P. Cabrol, _Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne_, &c. (Paris, 1902 seq.). The best general introduction is:--C. Bayet, _L'Art byzantin_ (Paris, 1883, new edition, 1904). See J. Strzygowski, _Orient oder Rom_ (Leipzig, 1901) and other works; Kondakov, _Les Émaux byz._ (1892), and other works; C. Diehl, _Justinien et la civilis. byz._ (Paris, 1901), and other works; G. Millet, _Le Monastère de Daphne_, &c. (Paris, 1899), and other works; L.G. Schlumberger, _L'Epopée byz._ &c. (1896 seq.); A. Michel, _Histoire de l'art_, vol. i. (Paris, 1905); H. Brockhaus, _Die Kunst in den Athos-Klostern_ (Leipzig, 1891); E. Molinier, _Histoire générale des arts_, &c. i., _Ivoires_ (Paris, 1896); O. Dalton, _Catalogue of Early Christian Antiquities...of the British Museum_ (1901); A. van Millingen, _Byzantine Constantinople_ (1899); Salzenberg, _Altchristliche Baudenkmaler_ &c. (Berlin, 1854); A. Choisy, _L'Art de bâtir chez les Byzantins_ (Paris, 1875); Couchand, _Églises byzantines en Grèce_; Ongania, _Basilica di S. Marco_; Texier and Pullan, _L'Architecture b. 73_ (1864); Lethaby and Swainson, _Sancta Sophia, Constantinople_ (1894); Schultz and Barnsley, _The Monastery of St Luke_, &c. (1890); L. de Beylié, _L'Habitation byz._ (Paris, 1903). For Syria: M. de Vogüé, _L'Architecture...dans la Syrie centrale_ (Paris, 1866-1877); H.C. Butler, _Architecture and other Arts_, &c. (New York, 1904). For Egypt: W.E. Crum, _Coptic Monuments_ (Cairo, 1902); A. Gayet, _L'Art Copte_ (Paris, 1902); A.J. Butler, _Ancient Coptic Churches_. For North Africa: S. Csell, _Les Monuments antiques de l'Algérie_ (Paris, 1901). For Italy: A. Venturi, _Storia dell' arte Italiana_ (Milan, 1901); G. Rivoira, _Le Origini della architettura Lombarda_ (Rome, 1901); C. Errard and A. Gayet, _L'Art byzantin_, &c. (Paris,1903).

(W. R. L.)

[1] For Byzantine literature see GREEK LITERATURE: _Byzantine_.

BYZANTIUM, an ancient Greek city on the shores of the Bosporus, occupying the most easterly of the seven hills on which modern Constantinople stands. It was said to have been founded by Megarians and Argives under Byzas about 657 B.C., but the original settlement having been destroyed in the reign of Darius Hystaspes by the satrap Otanes, it was recolonized by the Spartan Pausanias, who wrested it from the Medes after the battle of Plataea (479 B.C.)--a circumstance which led several ancient chroniclers to ascribe its foundation to him. Its situation, said to have been fixed by the Delphic oracle, was remarkable for beauty and security. It had complete control over the Euxine grain-trade; the absence of tides and the depth of its harbour rendered its quays accessible to vessels of large burden; while the tunny and other fisheries were so lucrative that the curved inlet near which it stood became known as the Golden Horn. The greatest hindrance to its prosperity was the miscellaneous character of the population, partly Lacedaemonian and partly Athenian, who flocked to it under Pausanias. It was thus a subject of dispute between these states, and was alternately in the possession of each, till it fell into the hands of the Macedonians. From the same cause arose the violent intestine contests which ended in the establishment of a rude and turbulent democracy. About seven years after its second colonization, the Athenian Cimon wrested it from the Lacedaemonians; but in 440 B.C. it returned to its former allegiance. Alcibiades, after a severe blockade (408 B.C.), gained possession of the city through the treachery of the Athenian party; in 405 B.C. it was retaken by Lysander and placed under a Spartan harmost. It was under the Lacedaemonian power when the Ten Thousand, exasperated by the conduct of the governor, made themselves masters of the city, and would have pillaged it had they not been dissuaded by the eloquence of Xenophon. In 390 B.C. Thrasybulus, with the assistance of Heracleides and Archebius, expelled the Lacedaemonian oligarchy, and restored democracy and the Athenian influence.

After having withstood an attempt under Epaminondas to restore it to the Lacedaemonians, Byzantium joined with Rhodes, Chios, Cos, and Mausolus, King of Caria, in throwing off the yoke of Athens, but soon after sought Athenian assistance when Philip of Macedon, having overrun Thrace, advanced against it. The Athenians under Chares suffered a severe defeat from Amyntas, the Macedonian admiral, but in the following year gained a decisive victory under Phocion and compelled Philip to raise the siege. The deliverance of the besieged from a surprise, by means of a flash of light which revealed the advancing masses of the Macedonian army, has rendered this siege memorable. As a memorial of the miraculous interference, the Byzantines erected an altar to Torch-bearing Hecate, and stamped a crescent on their coins, a device which is retained by the Turks to this day. They also granted the Athenians extraordinary privileges, and erected a monument in honour of the event in a public part of the city.

During the reign of Alexander Byzantium was compelled to acknowledge the Macedonian supremacy; after the decay of the Macedonian power it regained its independence, but suffered from the repeated incursions of the Scythians. The losses which they sustained by land roused the Byzantines to indemnify themselves on the vessels which still crowded the harbour, and the merchantmen which cleared the straits; but this had the effect of provoking a war with the neighbouring naval powers. The exchequer being drained by the payment of 10,000 pieces of gold to buy off the Gauls who had invaded their territories about 279 B.C., and by the imposition of an annual tribute which was ultimately raised to 80 talents, they were compelled to exact a toll on all the ships which passed the Bosporus--a measure which the Rhodians resented and avenged by a war, wherein the Byzantines were defeated. After the retreat of the Gauls Byzantium rendered considerable services to Rome in the contests with Philip II., Antiochus and Mithradates.

During the first years of its alliance with Rome it held the rank of a free confederate city; but, having sought arbitration on some of its domestic disputes, it was subjected to the imperial jurisdiction, and gradually stripped of its privileges, until reduced to the status of an ordinary Roman colony. In recollection of its former services, the emperor Claudius remitted the heavy tribute which had been imposed on it; but the last remnant of its independence was taken away by Vespasian, who, in answer to a remonstrance from Apollonius of Tyana, taunted the inhabitants with having "forgotten to be free." During the civil wars it espoused the party of Pescennius Niger; and though skilfully defended by the engineer Periscus, it was besieged and taken (A.D. 196) by Severus, who destroyed the city, demolished the famous wall, which was built of massive stones so closely riveted together as to appear one block, put the principal inhabitants to the sword and subjected the remainder to the Perinthians. This overthrow of Byzantium was a great loss to the empire, since it might have served as a protection against the Goths, who afterwards sailed past it into the Mediterranean. Severus afterwards relented, and, rebuilding a large portion of the town, gave it the name of Augusta Antonina. He ornamented the city with baths, and surrounded the hippodrome with porticos; but it was not till the time of Caracalla that it was restored to its former political privileges. It had scarcely begun to recover its former position when, through the capricious resentment of Gallienus, the inhabitants were once more put to the sword and the town was pillaged. From this disaster the inhabitants recovered so far as to be able to give an effectual check to an invasion of the Goths in the reign of Claudius II., and the fortifications were greatly strengthened during the civil wars which followed the abdication of Diocletian. Licinius, after his defeat before Adrianople, retired to Byzantium, where he was besieged by Constantine, and compelled to surrender (A.D. 323-324). To check the inroads of the barbarians on the north of the Black Sea, Diocletian had resolved to transfer his capital to Nicomedia; but Constantine, struck with the advantages which the situation of Byzantium presented, resolved to build a new city there on the site of the old and transfer the seat of government to it. The new capital was inaugurated with special ceremonies, A.D. 330. (See CONSTANTINOPLE.)

The ancient historians invariably note the profligacy of the inhabitants of Byzantium. They are described as an idle, depraved people, spending their time for the most part in loitering about the harbour, or carousing over the fine wine of Maronea. In war they trembled at the sound of a trumpet, in peace they quaked before the shouting of their own demagogues; and during the assault of Philip II. they could only be prevailed on to man the walls by the savour of extempore cook-shops distributed along the ramparts. The modern Greeks attribute the introduction of Christianity into Byzantium to St Andrew; it certainly had some hold there in the time of Severus.

[v.04 p.0912] C The third letter in the Latin alphabet and its descendants corresponds in position and in origin to the Greek Gamma ([Gamma], [gamma]), which in its turn is borrowed from the third symbol of the Phoenician alphabet (Heb. _Gimel_). The earliest Semitic records give its form as or more frequently or The form is found in the earliest inscriptions of Crete, Attica, Naxos and some other of the Ionic islands. In Argolis and Euboea especially a form with legs of unequal length is found From this it is easy to pass to the most widely spread Greek form, the ordinary In Corinth, however, and its colony Corcyra, in Ozolian Locris and Elis, a form inclined at a different angle is found. From this form the transition is simple to the rounded which is generally found in the same localities as the pointed form, but is more widely spread, occurring in Arcadia and on Chalcidian vases of the 6th century B.C., in Rhodes and Megara with their colonies in Sicily. In all these cases the sound represented was a hard G (as in _gig_). The rounded form was probably that taken over by the Romans and with the value of G. This is shown by the permanent abbreviation of the proper names Gaius and Gnaeus by C. and Cn. respectively. On the early inscription discovered in the Roman Forum in 1899 the letter occurs but once, in the form written from right to left. The broad lower end of the symbol is rather an accidental pit in the stone than an attempt at a diacritic mark--the word is _regei_, in all probability the early dative form of _rex_, "king." It is hard to decide why Latin adopted the _g_-symbol with the value of _k_, a letter which it possessed originally but dropped, except in such stereotyped abbreviations as K. for the proper name _Kaeso_ and _Kal._ for _Calendae_. There are at least two possibilities: (1) that in Latium _g_ and _k_ were pronounced almost identically, as, _e.g._, in the German of Württemberg or in the Celtic dialects, the difference consisting only in the greater energy with which the _k_-sound is produced; (2) that the confusion is graphic, K being sometimes written which was then regarded as two separate symbols. A further peculiarity of the use of C in Latin is in the abbreviation for the district _Subura_ in Roma and its adjective _Suburanus_, which appears as SVC. Here C no doubt represents G, but there is no interchange between _g_ and _b_ in Latin. In other dialects of Italy _b_ is found representing an original voiced guttural (_gw_), which, however, is regularly replaced by _v_ in Latin. As the district was full of traders, _Subura_ may very well be an imported word, but the form with C must either go back to a period before the disappearance of _g_ before _v_ or must come from some other Italic dialect. The symbol G was a new coinage in the 3rd century B.C. The pronunciation of C throughout the period of classical Latin was that of an unvoiced guttural stop (_k_). In other dialects, however, it had been palatalized to a sibilant before _i_-sounds some time before the Christian era; _e.g._ in the Umbrian _façia_ = Latin _facial_. In Latin there is no evidence for the interchange of _c_ with a sibilant earlier than the 6th century A.D. in south Italy and the 7th century A.D. in Gaul (Lindsay, _Latin Language_, p. 88). This change has, however, taken place in all Romance languages except Sardinian. In Anglo-Saxon _c_ was adopted to represent the hard stop. After the Norman conquest many English words were re-spelt under Norman influence. Thus Norman-French spelt its palatalized _c_-sound (_=tsh_) with _ch_ as in _cher_ and the English palatalized _cild_, &c. became _child_, &c. In Provençal from the 10th century, and in the northern dialects of France from the 13th century, this palatalized _c_ (in different districts _ts_ and _tsh_) became a simple _s_. English also adopted the value of _s_ for _c_ in the 13th century before _e_, _i_ and _y_. In some foreign words like _cicala_ the _ch-_ (_tsh_) value is given to c. In the transliteration of foreign languages also it receives different values, having that of _tsh_ in the transliteration of Sanskrit and of _ts_ in various Slavonic dialects.

As a numeral C denotes 100. This use is borrowed from Latin, in which the symbol was originally This, like the numeral symbols later identified with L and M, was thus utilized since it was not required as a letter, there being no sound in Latin corresponding to the Greek [theta]. Popular etymology identified the symbol with the initial letter of _centum_, "hundred."

(P. GI.)

CAB (shortened about 1825 from the Fr. _cabriolet_, derived from _cabriole_, implying a bounding motion), a form of horsed vehicle for passengers either with two ("hansom") or four wheels ("four-wheeler" or "growler"), introduced into London as the _cabriolet de place_, from Paris in 1820 (see CARRIAGE). Other vehicles plying for hire and driven by mechanical means are included in the definition of the word "cab" in the London Cab and Stage Carriage Act 1007. The term "cab" is also applied to the driver's or stoker's shelter on a locomotive-engine.

Cabs, or hackney carriages, as they are called in English acts of parliament, are regulated in the United Kingdom by a variety of statutes. In London the principal acts are the Hackney Carriage Acts of 1831-1853, the Metropolitan Public Carriages Act 1869, the London Cab Act 1896 and the London Cab and Stage Carriage Act 1907. In other large British towns cabs are usually regulated by private acts which incorporate the Town Police Clauses Act 1847, an act which contains provisions more or less similar to the London acts. The act of 1869 defined a hackney carriage as any carriage for the conveyance of passengers which plies for hire within the metropolitan police district and is not a stage coach, _i.e._ a conveyance in which the passengers are charged separate and distinct fares for their seats. Every cab must be licensed by a licence renewable every year by the home secretary, the licence being issued by the commissioner of police. Every cab before being licensed must be inspected at the police station of the district by the inspector of public carriages, and certified by him to be in a fit condition for public use. The licence costs £2. The number of persons which the cab is licensed to carry must be painted at the back on the outside. It must carry a lighted lamp during the period between one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise. The cab must be under the charge of a driver having a licence from the home secretary. A driver before obtaining a licence, which costs five shillings per annum, must pass an examination as to his ability to drive and as to his knowledge of the topography of London.

General regulations with regard to fares and hiring may be made from time to time by the home secretary under the London Cab and Stage Carriage Act 1907. The hiring is by distance or by time as the hirer may decide at the beginning of the hiring; if not otherwise expressed the fare is paid according to distance. If a driver is hired by distance he is not compelled to drive more than six miles, and if hired by time he is not compelled to drive for more than one hour. When a cab is hired in London by distance, and discharged within a circle the radius of which is four miles (the centre being taken at Charing Cross), the fare is one shilling for any distance not exceeding two miles, and sixpence for every additional mile or part of a mile. Outside the circle the fare for each mile, or part of a mile, is one shilling. When a cab is hired by time, the fare (inside or outside the circle) is two shillings and sixpence for the first hour, and eightpence for every quarter of an hour afterwards. Extra payment has to be made for luggage (twopence per piece outside), for extra passengers (sixpence each for more than two), and for waiting (eightpence each completed quarter of an hour). If a horse cab is fitted with a taximeter (_vide infra_) the fare for a journey wholly _within_ or partly without and partly within the four-mile radius, and not exceeding one mile or a period of ten minutes, is sixpence. For each half mile or six minutes an additional threepence is paid. If the journey is wholly _without_ the four-mile radius the fare for the first mile is one shilling, and for each additional quarter of a mile or period of three minutes, threepence is paid. If the cab is one propelled by mechanical means the fare for a journey not [v.04 p.0913] exceeding one mile or a period of ten minutes is eightpence, and for every additional quarter mile or period of 2½ minutes twopence is paid. A driver required to wait may demand a reasonable sum as a deposit and also payment of the sum which he has already earned. The London Cab Act 1896 (by which for the first time legal sanction was given to the word "cab") made an important change in the law in the interest of cab drivers. It renders liable to a penalty on summary conviction any person who (_a_) hires a cab knowing or having reason to believe that he cannot pay the lawful fare, or with intent to avoid payment; (_b_) fraudulently endeavours to avoid payment; (_c_) refuses to pay or refuses to give his address, or gives a false address with intent to deceive. The offences mentioned (generally known as "bilking") may be punished by imprisonment without the option of a fine, and the whole or any part of the fine imposed may be applied in compensation to the driver.

Strictly speaking, it is an offence for a cab to ply for hire when not waiting on an authorized "standing," but cabs passing in the street for this purpose are not deemed to be "plying for hire." These stands for cabs are appointed by the commissioner of police or the home secretary. "Privileged cabs" is the designation given to those cabs which by virtue of a contract between a railway company and a number of cab-owners are alone admitted to ply for hire within a company's station, until they are all engaged, on condition (1) of paying a certain weekly or annual sum, and (2) of guaranteeing to have cabs in attendance at all hours. This system was abolished by the act of 1907, but the home secretary was empowered to suspend or modify the abolition if it should interfere with the proper accommodation of the public.

At one time there was much discussion in England as to the desirability of legalizing on cabs the use of a mechanical fare-recorder such as, under the name of taximeter or taxameter, is in general use on the continent of Europe. It is now universal on hackney carriages propelled by mechanical means, and it has also extended largely to those drawn by animal power. A taximeter consists of a securely closed and sealed metal box containing a mechanism actuated by a flexible shaft connected with the wheel of the vehicle, in the same manner as the speedometer on a motor car. It has, within plain view of the passenger, a number of apertures in which appear figures showing the amount payable at any time. A small lever, with a metal flag, bearing the words "for hire" stands upright upon it when the cab is disengaged. As soon as a passenger enters the cab the lever is depressed by the driver and the recording mechanism starts. At the end of the journey the figures upon the dials show exactly the sum payable for hire; this sum is based on a combination of time and distance.

CABAL (through the Fr. _cabale_ from the _Cabbala_ or _Kabbalah_, the theosophical interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures), a private organization or party engaged in secret intrigues, and applied also to the intrigues themselves. The word came into common usage in English during the reign of Charles II. to describe the committee of the privy council known as the "Committee for Foreign Affairs," which developed into the cabinet. The invidious meaning attached to the term was stereotyped by the coincidence that the initial letters of the names of the five ministers, Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale, who signed the treaty of alliance with France in 1673, spelled cabal.

CABALLERO, FERNÁN (1796-1877), the pseudonym adopted from the name of a village in the province of Ciudad Real by the Spanish novelist Cecilia Francisca Josefa Böhl de Faber y Larrea. Born at Morges in Switzerland on the 24th of December 1796, she was the daughter of Johan Nikolas Böhl von Faber, a Hamburg merchant, who lived long in Spain, married a native of Cadiz, and is creditably known to students of Spanish literature as the editor of the _Floresta de rimas antiguas castellanas_ (1821-1825), and the _Teatro español anterior á Lope de Vega_ (1832). Educated principally at Hamburg, she visited Spain in 1815, and, unfortunately for herself, in 1816 married Antonio Planells y Bardaxi, an infantry captain of bad character. In the following year Planells was killed in action, and in 1822 the young widow married Francisco Ruiz del Arco, marqués de Arco Hermoso, an officer in one of the Spanish household regiments. Upon the death of Arco Hermoso in 1835, the marquesa found herself in straitened circumstances, and in less than two years she married Antonio Arrón de Ayala, a man considerably her junior. Arrón was appointed consul in Australia, engaged in business enterprises and made money; but unfortunate speculations drove him to commit suicide in 1859. Ten years earlier the name of Fernán Caballero became famous in Spain as the author of _La Gaviola_. The writer had already published in German an anonymous romance, _Sola_ (1840), and curiously enough the original draft of _La Gaviota_ was written in French. This novel, translated into Spanish by José Joaquín de Mora, appeared as the _feuilleton_ of _El Heraldo_ (1849), and was received with marked favour. Ochoa, a prominent critic of the day, ratified the popular judgment, and hopefully proclaimed the writer to be a rival of Scott. No other Spanish book of the 19th century has obtained such instant and universal recognition. It was translated into most European languages, and, though it scarcely seems to deserve the intense enthusiasm which it excited, it is the best of its author's works, with the possible exception of _La Familia de Alvareda_ (which was written, first of all, in German). Less successful attempts are _Lady Virginia_ and _Clemencia_; but the short stories entitled _Cuadros de Costumbres_ are interesting in matter and form, and _Una en otra_ and _Elia ó la España treinta años ha_ are excellent specimens of picturesque narration. It would be difficult to maintain that Fernán Caballero was a great literary artist, but it is certain that she was a born teller of stories and that she has a graceful style very suitable to her purpose. She came into Spain at a most happy moment, before the new order had perceptibly disturbed the old, and she brought to bear not alone a fine natural gift of observation, but a freshness of vision, undulled by long familiarity. She combined the advantages of being both a foreigner and a native. In later publications she insisted too emphatically upon the moral lesson, and lost much of her primitive simplicity and charm; but we may believe her statement that, though she occasionally idealized circumstances, she was conscientious in choosing for her themes subjects which had occurred in her own experience. Hence she may be regarded as a pioneer in the realistic field, and this historical fact adds to her positive importance. For many years she was the most popular of Spanish writers, and the sensation caused by her death at Seville on the 7th of April 1877 proved that her naïve truthfulness still attracted readers who were interested in records of national customs and manners.

Her _Obras completas_ are included in the _Colección de escritores castellanos_: a useful biography by Fernando de Gabriel Ruiz de Apodaca precedes the _Últimas producciones de Fernán Caballero_ (Seville, 1878).

(J. F.-K.)

CABANEL, ALEXANDRE (1823-1889), French painter, was born at Montpellier, and studied in Paris, gaining the Prix de Rome in 1845. His pictures soon attracted attention, and by his "Birth of Venus" (1863), now in the Luxembourg, he became famous, being elected that year to the Institute. He became the most popular portrait painter of the day, and his pupils included a number of famous artists.

CABANIS, PIERRE JEAN GEORGE (1757-1808), French physiologist, was born at Cosnac (Corrèze) on the 5th of June 1757, and was the son of Jean Baptiste Cabanis (1723-1786), a lawyer and agronomist. Sent at the age of ten to the college of Brives, he showed great aptitude for study, but his independence of spirit was so excessive that he was almost constantly in a state of rebellion against his teachers, and was finally dismissed from the school. He was then taken to Paris by his father and left to carry on his studies at his own discretion for two years. From 1773 to 1775 he travelled in Poland and Germany, and on his return to Paris he devoted himself mainly to poetry. About this time he ventured to send in to the Academy a translation of the passage from Homer proposed for their prize, and, though his attempt passed without notice, he received so much encouragement from his friends that he contemplated translating the whole of the _Iliad_. But at the [v.04 p.0914] desire of his father he relinquished these pleasant literary employments, and resolving to engage in some settled profession selected that of medicine. In 1789 his _Observations sur les hôpitaux_ procured him an appointment as administrator of hospitals in Paris, and in 1795 he became professor of hygiene at the medical school of Paris, a post which he exchanged for the chair of legal medicine and the history of medicine in 1799. From inclination and from weak health he never engaged much in practice as a physician, his interests lying in the deeper problems of medical and physiological science. During the last two years of Mirabeau's life he was intimately connected with that extraordinary man, and wrote the four papers on public education which were found among the papers of Mirabeau at his death, and were edited by the real author soon afterwards in 1791. During the illness which terminated his life Mirabeau confided himself entirely to the professional skill of Cabanis. Of the progress of the malady, and the circumstances attending the death of Mirabeau, Cabanis drew up a detailed narrative, intended as a justification of his treatment of the case. Cabanis espoused with enthusiasm the cause of the Revolution. He was a member of the Council of Five Hundred and then of the Conservative senate, and the dissolution of the Directory was the result of a motion which he made to that effect. But his political career was not of long continuance. A foe to tyranny in every shape, he was decidedly hostile to the policy of Bonaparte, and constantly rejected every solicitation to accept a place under his government. He died at Meulan on the 5th of May 1808.