Chapter VI: The 19th Century (8)

It was primarily as a sacred poet that Ephraim impressed himself on his fellow-countrymen. With the exception of his commentaries on scripture, nearly all his extant Syriac works are composed in metre. In many cases the metrical structure is of the simplest, consisting only in the arrangement of the discourse in lines of uniform length--usually heptasyllabic (Ephraim's favourite metre) or pentasyllabic. A more complicated arrangement is found in other poems, such as the _Carmina Nisibena_: these are made up of strophes, each consisting of lines of different lengths according to a settled scheme, with a recurring refrain. T.J. Lamy has estimated that, in this class of poems, there are as many as 66 different varieties of metres to be found in the works of Ephraim. These strophic poems were set to music, and sung by alternating choirs of girls. According to Ephraim's biographer, his main motive for providing these hymns set to music was his desire to counteract the baneful effects produced by the heretical hymns of Bardaisan and his son Harmonius, which had enjoyed popularity and been sung among the Edessenes for a century and a half.

The subject-matter of Ephraim's poems covers all departments of theology. Thus the Roman edition contains (of metrical works) exegetical discourses, hymns on the Nativity of Christ, 65 hymns against heretics, 85 on the Faith against sceptics, a discourse against the Jews, 85 funeral hymns, 4 on freewill, 76 exhortations to repentance, 12 hymns on paradise, and 12 on miscellaneous subjects. The edition of Lamy has added many other poems, largely connected with church festivals. It must be confessed that, judged by Western standards, the poems of Ephraim are prolix and wearisome in the extreme, and are distinguished by few striking poetic beauties. And so far as they are made the vehicle of reasoning, their efficiency is seriously hampered by their poetic form. On the other hand, it is fair to remember that the taste of Ephraim's countrymen in poetry was very different from ours. As Duval remarks: "quant a la prolixite de saint Ephrem que nous trouvons parfois fastidieuse, on ne peut la condamner sans tenir compte du gout des Syriens qui aimaient les repetitions et les developpements de la meme pensee, et voyaient des qualites la ou nous trouvons des defauts" (_Litter. syriaque_, p. 19). He is no worse in these respects than the best of the Syriac writers who succeeded him. And he surpasses almost all of them in the richness of his diction, and his skill in the use of metaphors and illustrations.

Of Ephraim as a commentator on Scripture we have only imperfect means of judging. His commentaries on the O.T. are at present accessible to us only in the form they had assumed in the _Catena Patrum_ of Severus (compiled in 861), and to some extent in quotations by later Syriac commentators. His commentary on the Gospels is of great importance in connexion with the textual history of the N.T., for the text on which he composed it was that of the Diatessaron. The Syriac original is lost: but the ancient Armenian version survives, and was published at Venice in 1836 along with Ephraim's commentary on the Pauline epistles (also only extant in Armenian) and some other works. A Latin version of the Armenian Diatessaron commentary has been made by Aucher and Mosinger (Venice, 1876). Using this version as a clue, J.R. Harris[2] has been able to identify a number of Syriac quotations from or references to this commentary in the works of Isho'dadh, Bar-Kepha (Severus), Bar-salibi and Barhebraeus. Although, as Harris points out, it is unlikely that the original text of the Diatessaron had come down unchanged through the two centuries to Ephraim's day, the text on which he comments was in the main unaffected by the revision which produced the Peshitta. Side by side with this conclusion may be placed the result of F.C. Burkitt's[3] careful examination of the quotations from the Gospels in the other works of Ephraim; he shows conclusively that in all the undoubtedly genuine works the quotations are from a pre-Peshitta text.

As a theologian, Ephraim shows himself a stout defender of Nicaean orthodoxy, with no leanings in the direction of either the Nestorian or the Monophysite heresies which arose after his time. He regarded it as his special task to combat the views of Marcion, of Bardaisan and of Mani.

To the modern historian Ephraim's main contribution is in the material supplied by the 72 hymns[4] known as _Carmina Nisibena_ and published by G. Bickell in 1866. The first 20 poems were written at Nisibis between 350 and 363 during the Persian invasions; the remaining 52 at Edessa between 363 and 373. The former tell us much of the incidents of the frontier war, and particularly enable us to reconstruct in detail the history of the third siege of Nisibis in 350.

Of the many editions of Ephraim's works a full list is given by Nestle
in _Realenk. f. protest. Theol. und Kirche_ (3rd ed.). For modern
students the most important are: (1) the great folio edition in 6
volumes (3 of works in Greek and 3 in Syriac), in which the text is
throughout accompanied by a Latin version (Rome, 1732-1746); on the
unsatisfactory character of this edition (which includes many works
that are not Ephraim's) and especially of the Latin version, see
Burkitt, _Ephraim's Quotations_, pp. 4 sqq.; (2) _Carmina Nisibena_,
edited with a Latin translation by G. Bickell (Leipzig, 1866); (3)
_Hymni et sermones_, edited with a Latin translation by T.J. Lamy (4
vols., Malines, 1882-1902). Many selected homilies have been edited or
translated by Overbeck, Zingerle and others (cf. Wright, _Short
History_, pp. 35 sqq.); a selection of the _Hymns_ was translated by
H. Burgess, _Select Metrical Hymns of Ephrem Syrus_ (1853). Of the two
recensions of Ephraim's biography, one was edited in part by J.S.
Assemani (B.O. i. 26 sqq.) and in full by S.E. Assemani in the Roman
edition (iii. pp. xxiii.-lxiii.); the other by Lamy (ii. 5-90) and
Bedjan (_Acta mart. et sanct._ iii. 621-665). The long poem on the
history of Joseph, twice edited by Bedjan (Paris, 1887 and 1891) and
by him attributed to Ephraim, is more probably the work of Balai.
(N. M.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It is true that in the _Confession_ attributed to him and printed
among his Greek works in the first volume of the Roman edition he
speaks (p. 129) of his parents as having become martyrs for the
Christian faith. But this document is of very doubtful authenticity.

[2] _Fragments of the Commentary of Ephrem Syrus upon the
Diatessaron_ (London, 1895).

[3] "Ephraim's Quotations from the Gospel," in _Texts and Studies_,
vol. vii. (Cambridge, 1901).

[4] There were originally 77, but 5 have perished.

EPHRAIM, a tribe of Israel, called after the younger son of Joseph, who in his benediction exalted Ephraim over the elder brother Manasseh (Gen. xlviii.). These two divisions were often known as the "house of Joseph" (Josh. xvii. 14 sqq.; Judg. i. 22; 2 Sam. xix. 20; 1 Kings xi. 28). The relations between them are obscure; conflicts are referred to in Is. ix. 21,[1] and Ephraim's proud and ambitious character is indicated in its demands as narrated in Josh. xvii. 14; Judg. viii. 1-3, xii. 1-6. throughout, Ephraim played a distinctive and prominent part; it probably excelled Manasseh in numerical strength, and the name became a synonym for the northern kingdom of Israel. Originally the name may have been a geographical term for the central portion of Palestine. Regarded as a tribe, it lay to the north of Benjamin, which traditionally belongs to it; but whether the young "brother" (see BENJAMIN) sprang from it, or grew up separately, is uncertain. Northwards, Ephraim lost itself in Manasseh, even if it did not actually include it (Judg. i. 27; 1 Chron. vii. 29); the boundaries between them can hardly be recovered. Ephraim's strength lay in the possession of famous sites: Shechem, with the tomb of the tribal ancestor, also one of the capitals; Shiloh, at one period the home of the ark; Timnath-Serah (or Heres), the burial-place of Joshua; and Samaria, whose name was afterwards extended to the whole district (see SAMARIA).

Shechem itself was visited by Abraham and Jacob, and the latter bought from the sons of Hamor a burial-place (Gen. xxxiii. 19). The story of Dinah may imply some early settlement of tribes in its vicinity (but see SIMEON), and the reference in Gen. xlviii. 22 (see R.V. marg.) alludes to its having been forcibly captured. But how this part of Palestine came into the hands of the Israelites is not definitely related in the story of the invasion (see JOSHUA).

A careful discussion of the Biblical data referring to Ephraim is given by H.W. Hogg, _Ency. Bib._, s.v. On the characteristic narratives which appear to have originated in Ephraim (viz. the Ephraimite or Elohist source, E), see GENESIS and BIBLE: _Old Testament Criticism._ See further ABIMELECH; GIDEON; MANASSEH; and JEWS: _History_.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Inter-tribal feuds during the period of the monarchy may underlie
the events mentioned in 1 Kings xvi. 9 sq., 21 sq.; 2 Kings xv. 10,
14.

EPHTHALITES, or WHITE HUNS. This many-named and enigmatical tribe was of considerable importance in the history of India and Persia in the 5th and 6th centuries, and was known to the Byzantine writers, who call them [Greek: Ephthalitoi, Euthagitoi,] [Greek: Nephthalitoi] or [Greek: Abdeloi]. The last of these is an independent attempt to render the original name, which was probably something like Aptal or Haptal, but the initial [Nu] of the third is believed to be a clerical error. They were also called [Greek: Leukoi Ounnoi] or [Greek: Chounoi], White (that is fair-skinned) Huns. In Arabic and Persian they are known as Haital and in Armenian as Haithal, Idal or Hepthal. The Chinese name Yetha seems an attempt to represent the same sound. In India they were called Hunas. Ephthalite is the usual orthography, but Hephthalite is perhaps more correct.

Our earliest information about the Ephthalites comes from the Chinese chronicles, in which it is stated that they were originally a tribe of the great Yue-Chi (q.v.), living to the north of the Great Wall, and in subjection to the Jwen-Jwen, as were also the Turks at one time. Their original name was Hoa or Hoa-tun; subsequently they styled themselves Ye-tha-i-li-to after the name of their royal family, or more briefly Ye-tha. Before the 5th century A.D. they began to move westwards, for about 420 we find them in Transoxiana, and for the next 130 years they were a menace to Persia, which they continually and successfully invaded, though they never held it as a conquest. The Sassanid king, Bahram V., fought several campaigns with them and succeeded in keeping them at bay, but they defeated and killed Peroz (Firuz), A.D. 484. His son Kavadh I. (Kobad), being driven out of Persia, took refuge with the Ephthalites, and recovered his throne with the assistance of their khan, whose daughter he had married, but subsequently he engaged in prolonged hostilities with them. The Persians were not quit of the Ephthalites until 557 when Chosroes Anushirwan destroyed their power with the assistance of the Turks, who now make their first appearance in western Asia.

The Huns who invaded India appear to have belonged to the same stock as those who molested Persia. The headquarters of the horde were at Bamian and at Balkh, and from these points they raided south-east and south-west. Skandagupta repelled an invasion in 455, but the defeat of the Persians in 484 probably stimulated their activity, and at the end of the 5th century their chief Toromana penetrated to Malwa in central India and succeeded in holding it for some time. His son Mihiragula (c. 510-540) made Sakala in the Punjab his Indian capital, but the cruelty of his rule provoked the Indian princes to form a confederation and revolt against him about 528. He was not, however, killed, but took refuge in Kashmir, where after a few years he seized the throne and then attacked the neighbouring kingdom of Gandhara, perpetrating terrible massacres. About a year after this he died (c. 540), and shortly afterwards the Ephthalites collapsed under the attacks of the Turks. They do not appear to have moved on to another sphere, as these nomadic tribes often did when defeated, and were probably gradually absorbed in the surrounding populations. Their political power perhaps continued in the Gurjara empire, which at one time extended to Bengal in the east and the Nerbudda in the south, and continued in a diminished form until A.D. 1040. These Gurjaras appear to have entered India in connexion with the Hunnish invasions.

Our knowledge of the Indian Hunas is chiefly derived from coins, from a few inscriptions distributed from the Punjab to central India, and from the account of the Chinese pilgrim Hsuan Tsang, who visited the country just a century after the death of Mihiragula. The Greek monk Cosmas Indicopleustes, who visited India about 530, describes the ruler of the country, whom he calls Gollas, as a White Hun king, who exacted an oppressive tribute with the help of a large army of cavalry and war elephants. Gollas no doubt represents the last part of the name Mihiragula or Mihirakula.

The accounts of the Ephthalites, especially those of the Indian Hunas, dwell on their ferocity and cruelty. They are represented as delighting in massacres and torture, and it is said that popular tradition in India still retains the story that Mihiragula used to amuse himself by rolling elephants down a precipice and watching their agonies. Their invasions shook Indian society and institutions to the foundations, but, unlike the earlier Kushans, they do not seem to have introduced new ideas into India or have acted as other than a destructive force, although they may perhaps have kept up some communication between India and Persia. The first part of Mihiragula seems to be the name of the Persian deity Mithra, but his patron deity was Siva, and he left behind him the reputation of a ferocious persecutor of Buddhism. Many of his coins bear the Nandi bull (Siva's emblem), and the king's name is preceded by the title _sahi_ (shah), which had previously been used by the Kushan dynasty. Toramana's coins are found plentifully in Kashmir, which, therefore, probably formed part of the Huna dominions before Mihiragula's time, so that when he fled there after his defeat he was taking refuge, if not with his own subjects, at least with a kindred clan.

Greek writers give a more flattering account of the Ephthalites, which may perhaps be due to the fact that they were useful to the East Roman empire as enemies of Persia and also not dangerously near. Procopius says that they were far more civilized than the Huns of Attila, and the Turkish ambassador who was received by Justin is said to have described them as [Greek: astikoi], which may merely mean that they lived in the cities which they conquered. The Chinese writers say that their customs were like those of the Turks; that they had no cities, lived in felt tents, were ignorant of writing and practised polyandry. Nothing whatever is known of their language, but some scholars explain the names Toramana and Jauvla as Turkish.

For the possible connexion between the Ephthalites and the European Huns see HUNS. The Chinese statement that the Hoa or Ye-tha were a section of the great Yue-Chi, and that their customs resembled those of the Turks (Tu-Kiue), is probably correct, but does not amount to much, for the relationship did not prevent them from fighting with the Yue-Chi and Turks, and means little more than that they belonged to the warlike and energetic section of central Asian nomads, which is in any case certain. They appear to have been more ferocious and less assimilative than the other conquering tribes. This may, however, be due to the fact that their contact with civilization was so short; the Yue-Chi and Turks had had some commerce with more advanced races before they played any part in political history, but the Ephthalites appear as raw barbarians, and were annihilated as a nation in little more than a hundred years. Like the Yue-Chi they have probably contributed to form some of the physical types of the Indian population, and it is noticeable that polyandry is a recognized institution among many Himalayan tribes, and is also said to be practised secretly by the Jats and other races of the plains.

Among original authorities may be consulted Procopius, Menander
Protector, Cosmas Indicopleustes (trans. McCrindle, Hakluyt Society,
1897), the Kashmir chronicle _Rajatarangini_ (trans. Stein, 1900, and
Yuan Chwang). See also A. Stein, _White Huns and Kindred Tribes_
(1905); O. Franke, _Beitrage aus chinesischen Quellen zur Kenntnis der
Turkvolker und Skythen_ (1904); Ujfalvy, _Memoire sur les Huns Blancs_
(1898); Drouin, _Memoire sur les Huns Ephthalites_ (1895); and various
articles by Vincent Smith, Specht, Drouin, and E.H. Parker in the
_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, _Journal asiatique_, _Revue
numismatique_, _Asiatic Quarterly_, &c. (C. El.)

EPI, the French architectural term for a light finial, generally of metal, but sometimes of terra-cotta, forming the termination of a spire or the angle of a roof.

EPICENE (from the Gr. [Greek: epikoinos], common), a term in Greek and Latin grammar denoting nouns which, possessing but one gender, are used to describe animals of either sex. In English grammar there are no true epicene nouns, but the term is sometimes used instead of _common gender_. In figurative and literary language, epicene is an adjective applied to persons having the characteristics of both sexes, and hence is occasionally used as a synonym of "effeminate."

EPICHARMUS (c. 540-450 B.C.), Greek comic poet, was born in the island of Cos. Early in life he went to Megara in Sicily, and after its destruction by Gelo (484) removed to Syracuse, where he spent the rest of his life at the court of Hiero, and died at the age of ninety or (according to a statement in Lucian, _Macrobii_, 25) ninety-seven. A brazen statue was set up in his honour by the inhabitants, for which Theocritus composed an inscription (_Epigr._ 17). Epicharmus was the chief representative of the Sicilian or Dorian comedy. Of his works 35 titles and a few fragments have survived. In the city of tyrants it would have been dangerous to present comedies like those of the Athenian stage, in which attacks were made upon the authorities. Accordingly, the comedies of Epicharmus are of two kinds, neither of them calculated to give offence to the ruler. They are either mythological travesties (resembling the satyric drama of Athens) or character comedies. To the first class belong the _Busiris_, in which Heracles is represented as a voracious glutton; the _Marriage of Hebe_, remarkable for a lengthy list of dainties. The second class dealt with different classes of the population (the sailor, the prophet, the boor, the parasite). Some of the plays seem to have bordered on the political, as _The Plunderings_, describing the devastation of Sicily in the time of the poet. A short fragment has been discovered (in the Rainer papyri) from the [Greek: Odysseus automolos], which told how Odysseus got inside Troy in the disguise of a beggar and obtained valuable information. Another feature of his works was the large number of excellent sentiments expressed in a brief proverbial form; the Pythagoreans claimed him as a member of their school, who had forsaken the study of philosophy for the writing of comedy. Plato (_Theaetetus_, 152 E) puts him at the head of the masters of comedy, coupling his name with Homer and, according to a remark in Diogenes Laertius, Plato was indebted to Epicharmus for much of his philosophy. Ennius called his didactic poem on natural philosophy _Epicharmus_ after the comic poet. The metres employed by Epicharmus were iambic trimeter, and especially trochaic and anapaestic tetrameter. The plot of the plays was simple, the action lively and rapid; hence they were classed among the _fabulae motoriae_ (stirring, bustling), as indicated in the well-known line of Horace (_Epistles_, ii. 1. 58):

"Plautus ad exemplar Siculi properare Epicharmi."

Epicharmus is the subject of articles in Suidas and Diogenes Laertius
(viii. 3). See A.O. Lorenz, _Leben und Schriften des Koers E._ (with
account of the Doric drama and fragments, 1864); J. Girard, _Etudes
sur la poesie grecque_ (1884); Kaibel in Pauly-Wissowa's
_Realencyclopadie_, according to whom Epicharmus was a Siceliot; for
the papyrus fragment, Blass in _Jahrbucher fur Philologie_, cxxxix.,
1889.

EPIC POETRY, or EPOS (from the Gr. [Greek: epos], a story, and [Greek: epikos], pertaining to a story), the names given to the most dignified and elaborate forms of narrative poetry. The word _epopee_ is also, but more rarely, employed to designate the same thing, [Greek: epopoios] in Greek being a maker of epic poetry, and [Greek: epopoiia] what he makes.

It is to Greece, where the earliest literary monuments which we possess are of an epical character, that we turn for a definition of these vast heroic compositions, and we gather that their subject-matter was not confined, as Voltaire and the critics of the 18th century supposed, to "narratives in verse of warlike adventures." When we first discover the epos, hexameter verse has already been selected for its vehicle. In this form epic poems were composed not merely dealing with war and personal romance, but carrying out a didactic purpose, or celebrating the mysteries of religion. These three divisions, to which are severally attached the more or less mythical names of Homer, Hesiod and Orpheus seem to have marked the earliest literary movement of the Greeks. But, even here, we must be warned that what we possess is not primitive; there had been unwritten epics, probably in hexameters, long before the composition of any now-surviving fragment. The saga of the Greek nation, the catalogue of its arts and possessions, the rites and beliefs of its priesthood, must have been circulated, by word of mouth, long before any historical poet was born. We look upon Homer and Hesiod as records of primitive thought, but Professor Gilbert Murray reminds us that "our _Iliad, Odyssey_, _Erga_ and _Theogony_ are not the first, nor the second, nor the twelfth of such embodiments." The early epic poets, Lesches, Linus, Orpheus, Arctinus, Eugammon are the veriest shadows, whose names often betray their symbolic and fabulous character. It is now believed that there was a class of minstrels, the Rhapsodists or Homeridae, whose business it was to recite poetry at feasts and other solemn occasions. "The real bards of early Greece were all nameless and impersonal." When our tradition begins to be preserved, we find everything of a saga-character attributed to Homer, a blind man and an inhabitant of Chios. This gradually crystallized until we find Aristotle definitely treating Homer as a person, and attributing to him the composition of three great poems, the _Iliad_, the _Odyssey_ and the _Margites_, now lost (see HOMER). The first two of these have been preserved and form for us the type of the ancient epic; when we speak of epic poetry, we unconsciously measure it by the example of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. It is quite certain, however, that these poems had not merely been preceded by a vast number of revisions of the mythical history of the country, but were accompanied by innumerable poems of a similar character, now entirely lost. That antiquity did not regard these other epics as equal in beauty to the _Iliad_ seems to be certain; but such poems as _Cypria_, _Iliou Persis_ (Sack of Ilion) and _Aethiopis_ can hardly but have exhibited other sides of the epic tradition. Did we possess them, it is almost certain that we could speak with more assurance as to the scope of epic poetry in the days of oral tradition, and could understand more clearly what sort of ballads in hexameter it was which rhapsodes took round from court to court. In the 4th century B.C. it seems that people began to write down what was not yet forgotten of all this oral poetry. Unfortunately, the earliest critic who describes this process is Proclus, a Byzantine neo-Platonist, who did not write until some 800 years later, when the whole tradition had become hopelessly corrupted. When we pass from Homer and Hesiod, about whose actual existence critics will be eternally divided, we reach in the 7th century a poet, Peisander of Rhodes, who wrote an epic poem, the _Heracleia_, of which fragments remain. Other epic writers, who appear to be undoubtedly historic, are Antimachus of Colophon, who wrote a _Thebais_; Panyasis, who, like Peisander, celebrated the feats of Heracles; Choerilus of Samos; and Anyte, of whom we only know that she was an epic poetess, and was called "The female Homer." In the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. there was a distinct school of philosophical epic, and we distinguish the names of Xenophanes, Parmenides and Empedocles as the leaders of it.

From the dawn of Latin literature epic poetry seems to have been cultivated in Italy. A Greek exile, named Livius Andronicus, translated the _Odyssey_ into Latin during the first Punic War, but the earliest original epic of Rome was the lost _Bellum Punicum_ of Naevius, a work to which Virgil was indebted. A little later, Ennius composed, about 172 B.C., in 18 books, an historical epic of the _Annales_, dealing with the whole chronicle of Rome. This was the foremost Latin poem, until the appearance of the _Aeneid_; it was not imitated, remaining, for a hundred years, as Mr Mackail has said, "not only the unique, but the satisfying achievement in this kind of poetry." Virgil began the most famous of Roman epics in the year 30 B.C., and when he died, nine years later, he desired that the MS. of the _Aeneid_ should be burned, as it required three years' work to complete it. Nevertheless, it seems to us, and seemed to the ancient world, almost perfect, and a priceless monument of art; it is written, like the great Greek poems on which it is patently modelled, in hexameters. In the next generation, the _Pharsalia_ of Lucan, of which Cato, as the type of the republican spirit, is the hero, was the principal example of Latin epic. Statius, under the Flavian emperors, wrote several epic poems, of which the _Thebaid_ survives. In the 1st century A.D. Valerius Flaccus wrote the _Argonautica_ in 8 books, and Silius Italicus the _Punic War_, in 17 books; these authors show a great decline in taste and merit, even in comparison with Statius, and Silius Italicus, in particular, is as purely imitative as the worst of the epic writers of modern Europe. At the close of the 4th century the style revived with Claudian, who produced five or six elaborate historical and mythological epics of which the _Rape of Proserpine_ was probably the most remarkable; in his interesting poetry we have a valuable link between the Silver Age in Rome and the Italian Renaissance. With Claudian the history of epic poetry among the ancients closes.

In medieval times there existed a large body of narrative poetry to which the general title of Epic has usually been given. Three principal schools are recognized, the French, the Teutonic and the Icelandic. Teutonic epic poetry deals, as a rule, with legends founded on the history of Germany in the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, and in particular with such heroes as Ermanaric, Attila and Theodoric. But there is also an important group in it which deals with English themes, and among these _Beowulf_, _Waldere_, _The Lay of Maldon_ and _Finnesburh_ are pre-eminent. To this group is allied the purely German poem of _Hildebrand_, attributed to c. 800. Among these _Beowulf_ is the only one which exists in anything like complete form, and it is of all examples of Teutonic epic the most important. With all its trivialities and incongruities, which belong to a barbarous age, _Beowulf_ is yet a solid and comprehensive example of native epic poetry. It is written, like all old Teutonic work of the kind, in alliterative unrhymed rhythm. In Iceland, a new heroic literature was invented in the middle ages, and to this we owe the Sagas, which are, in fact, a reduction to prose of the epics of the warlike history of the North. These Sagas took the place of a group of archaic Icelandic epics, the series of which seems to have closed with the noble poem of _Atlamal_, the principal surviving specimen of epic poetry as it was cultivated in the primitive literature of Iceland. The surviving epical fragments of Icelandic composition are found thrown together in the _Codex Regius_, under the title of _The Elder Edda_, a most precious MS. discovered in the 17th century. The Icelandic epics seem to have been shorter and more episodical in character than the lost Teutonic specimens; both kinds were written in alliterative verse. It is not probable that either possessed the organic unity and vitality of spirit which make the Sagas so delightful. The French medieval epics (see CHANSONS DE GESTE) are late in comparison with those of England, Germany and Iceland. They form a curious transitional link between primitive and modern poetry; the literature of civilized Europe may be said to begin with them. There is a great increase of simplicity, a great broadening of the scene of action. The Teutonic epics were obscure and intense, the French _chansons de geste_ are lucid and easy. The existing masterpiece of this kind, the magnificent _Roland_, is doubtless the most interesting and pleasing of all the epics of medieval Europe. Professor Ker's analysis of its merits may be taken as typical of all that is best in the vast body of epic which comes between the antique models, which were unknown to the medieval poets, and the artificial epics of a later time which were founded on vast ideal themes, in imitation of the ancients. "There is something lyrical in _Roland_, but the poem is not governed by lyrical principles; it requires the deliberation and the freedom of epic; it must have room to move in before it can come up to the height of its argument. The abruptness of its periods is not really an interruption of its even flight; it is an abruptness of detail, like a broken sea with a larger wave moving under it; it does not impair or disguise the grandeur of the movement as a whole." Of the progress and decline of the chansons de geste (q.v.) from the ideals of _Roland_ a fuller account is given elsewhere. _To the Nibelungenlied_ (q.v.) also, detailed attention is given in a separate article.

What may be called the artificial or secondary epics of modern Europe, founded upon an imitation of the _Iliad_ and the _Aeneid_, are more numerous than the ordinary reader supposes, although but few of them have preserved much vitality. In Italy the _Chanson de Roland_ inspired romantic epics by Luigi Pulci (1432-1487), whose _Morgante Maggiore_ appeared in 1481, and is a masterpiece of burlesque; by M.M. Boiardo (1434-1494), whose _Orlando Innamorato_ was finished in 1486; by Francesco Bello (1440?-1495), whose _Mambriano_ was published in 1497; by Lodovico Ariosto (q.v.), whose _Orlando Furioso_, by far the greatest of its class, was published in 1516, and by Luigi Dolce (1508-1568), as well as by a great number of less illustrious poets. G.G. Trissino (1478-1549) wrote a _Deliverance of Italy from the Goths_ in 1547, and Bernardo Tasso (1493-1569) an _Amadigi_ in 1559; Berni remodelled the epic of Boiardo in 1541, and Teofilo Folengo (1491-1544), ridiculed the whole school in an _Orlandino_ of 1526. An extraordinary feat of mock-heroic epic was _The Bucket_ (1622) of Alessandro Tassoni (1565-1638). The most splendid of all the epics of Italy, however, was, and remains, the _Jerusalem Delivered_ of Torquato Tasso (q.v.), published originally in 1580, and afterwards rewritten as _The Conquest of Jerusalem_, 1593. The fantastic _Adone_ (1623) of G.B. Marini (1569-1625) and the long poems of Chiabrera, close the list of Italian epics. Early Portuguese literature is rich in epic poetry. Luis Pereira Brandao wrote an _Elegiada_ in 18 books, published in 1588; Jeronymo Corte-Real (d. 1588) a _Shipwreck of Sepulveda_ and two other epics; V.M. Quevedo, in 1601, an _Alphonso of Africa_, in 12 books; Sa de Menezes (d. 1664) a _Conquest of Malacca_, 1634; but all these, and many more, are obscured by the glory of Camoens (q.v.), whose magnificent _Lusiads_ had been printed in 1572, and forms the summit of Portuguese literature. In Spanish poetry, the _Poem of the Cid_ takes the first place, as the great national epic of the middle ages; it is supposed to have been written between 1135 and 1175. It was followed by the _Rodrigo_, and the medieval school closes with the _Alphonso XI._ of Rodrigo Yanez, probably written at the close of the 12th century. The success of the Italian imitative epics of the 15th century led to some imitation of their form in Spain. Juan de la Cueva (1550?-1606) published a _Conquest of Betica_ in 1603; Cristobal de Virues (1550-1610) a _Monserrate_, in 1588; Luis Barahona de Soto continued Ariosto in a _Tears of Angelica_; Gutierrez wrote an _Austriada_ in 1584; but perhaps the finest modern epic in Spanish verse is the _Araucana_ (1569-1590) of Alonso de Ercilla y Zuniga (1533-1595), "the first literary work of merit," as Mr Fitzmaurice-Kelly remarks, "composed in either American continent." In France, the epic never flourished in modern times, and no real success attended the _Franciade_ of Ronsard, the _Alaric_ of Scudery, the _Pucelle_ of Chapelain, the _Divine Epopee_ of Soumet, or even the _Henriade_ of Voltaire. In English literature _The Faery Queen_ of Spenser has the same claim as the Italian poems mentioned above to bear the name of epic, and Milton, who stands entirely apart, may be said, by his isolated _Paradise Lost_, to take rank with Homer and Virgil, as one of the three types of the mastery of epical composition.

See Bossu, _Traite du poeme epique_ (1675); Voltaire, _Sur la poesie
epique_; Fauviel, _L'Origine de l'epopee chevaleresque_ (1832); W.P.
Ker, _Epic and Romance_ (1897), and _Essays in Medieval Literature_
(1905); Gilbert Murray, _History of Ancient Greek Literature_ (1897);
W. von Christ, _Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur_ (1879); Gaston
Paris, _La Litterature francaise au moyen age_ (1890); Leon Gautier,
_Les Epopees francaises_ (1865-1868). For works on the Greek epics see
also GREEK LITERATURE and CYCLE. (E. G.)

EPICTETUS (born c. A.D. 60), Greek philosopher, was probably a native of Hierapolis in south-west Phrygia. The name Epictetus is merely the Greek for "acquired" (from [Greek: epiktasthai]); his original name is not known. As a boy he was a slave in the house of Epaphroditus, a freedman and courtier of the emperor Nero. He managed, however, to attend the lectures of the Stoic Musonius Rufus, and subsequently became a freedman. He was lame and of weakly health. In 90 he was expelled with the other philosophers by Domitian, who was irritated by the support and encouragement which the opposition to his tyranny found amongst the adherents of Stoicism. For the rest of his life he settled at Nicopolis, in southern Epirus, not far from the scene of the battle of Actium. There for several years he lived, and taught by close earnest personal address and conversation. According to some authorities he lived into the time of Hadrian; he himself mentions the coinage of the emperor Trajan. His contemporaries and the next generation held his character and teaching in high honour. According to Lucian, the earthenware lamp which had belonged to the sage was bought by an antiquarian for 3000 drachmas. He was never married. He wrote nothing; but much of his teaching was taken down with affectionate care by his pupil Flavius Arrianus, the historian of Alexander the Great, and is preserved in two treatises, of the larger of which, called the _Discourses of Epictetus_ ([Greek: Epiktetou Diatribai]), four books are still extant. The other treatise is a shorter and more popular work, the _Encheiridion_ ("Handbook"). It contains in an aphoristic form the main doctrines of the longer work.

The philosophy of Epictetus is intensely practical, and exhibits a high idealistic type of morality. He is an earnest, sometimes stern and sometimes pathetic, preacher of righteousness, who despises the mere graces of style and the subtleties of an abstruse logic. He has no patience with mere antiquarian study of the Stoical writers. The problem of how life is to be carried out well is the one question which throws all other inquiries into the shade. True education lies in learning to wish things to be as they actually are; it lies in learning to distinguish what is our own from what does not belong to us. But there is only one thing which is fully our own,--that is, our will or purpose. God, acting as a good king and a true father, has given us a will which cannot be restrained, compelled or thwarted. Nothing external, neither death nor exile nor pain nor any such thing, can ever force us to act against our will; if we are conquered, it is because we have willed to be conquered. And thus, although we are not responsible for the ideas that present themselves to our consciousness, we are absolutely and without any modification responsible for the way in which we use them. Nothing is ours besides our will. The divine law which bids us keep fast what is our own forbids us to make any claim to what is not ours; and while enjoining us to make use of whatever is given to us, it bids us not long after what has not been given. "Two maxims," he says, "we must ever bear in mind--that apart from the will there is nothing either good or bad, and that we must not try to anticipate or direct events, but merely accept them with intelligence." We must, in short, resign ourselves to whatever fate and fortune bring to us, believing, as the first article of our creed, that there is a god, whose thought directs the universe, and that not merely in our acts, but even in our thoughts and plans, we cannot escape his eye. In the world the true position of man is that of member of a great system, which comprehends God and men. Each human being is in the first instance a citizen of his own nation or commonwealth; but he is also a member of the great city of gods and men, whereof the city political is only a copy in miniature. All men are the sons of God, and kindred in nature with the divinity. For man, though a member in the system of the world, has also within him a principle which can guide and understand the movement of all the members; he can enter into the method of divine administration, and thus can learn--and it is the acme of his learning--the will of God, which is the will of nature. Man, said the Stoic, is a rational animal; and in virtue of that rationality he is neither less nor worse than the gods, for the magnitude of reason is estimated not by length nor by height but by its judgments. Each man has within him a guardian spirit, a god within him, who never sleeps; so that even in darkness and solitude we are never alone, because God is within, our guardian spirit. The body which accompanies us is not strictly speaking ours; it is a poor dead thing, which belongs to the things outside us. But by reason we are the masters of those ideas and appearances which present themselves from without; we can combine them, and systematize, and can set up in ourselves an order of ideas corresponding with the order of nature.

The natural instinct of animated life, to which man also is originally subject, is self-preservation and self-interest. But men are so ordered and constituted that the individual cannot secure his own interests unless he contribute to the common welfare. We are bound up by the law of nature with the whole fabric of the world. The aim of the philosopher therefore is to reach the position of a mind which embraces the whole world in its view,--to grow into the mind of God and to make the will of nature our own. Such a sage agrees in his thought with God; he no longer blames either God or man; he fails of nothing which he purposes and falls in with no misfortune unprepared; he indulges in neither anger nor envy nor jealousy; he is leaving manhood for godhead, and in his dead body his thoughts are concerned about his fellowship with God.

The historical models to which Epictetus reverts are Diogenes and Socrates. But he frequently describes an ideal character of a missionary sage, the perfect Stoic--or, as he calls him, the Cynic. This missionary has neither country nor home nor land nor slave; his bed is the ground; he is without wife or child; his only mansion is the earth and sky and a shabby cloak. He must suffer stripes, and must love those who beat him as if he were a father or a brother. He must be perfectly unembarrassed in the service of God, not bound by the common ties of life, nor entangled by relationships, which if he transgresses he will lose the character of a man of honour, while if he upholds them he will cease to be the messenger, watchman and herald of the gods. The perfect man thus described will not be angry with the wrong-doer; he will only pity his erring brother; for anger in such a case would only betray that he too thought the wrong-doer gained a substantial blessing by his wrongful act, instead of being, as he is, utterly ruined.

The best editions of the works of Epictetus are by J. Schweighauser (6
vols., Leipzig, 1799-1800) and H. Schenkl (Leipzig, 1894, 1898).
English translations by Elizabeth Carter (London, 1758); G. Long
(London, 1848, ed. 1877, 1892, 1897); T.W. Higginson (Boston, 1865,
new ed. 1890); of the _Encheiridion_ alone by H. Talbot (London,
1881); T.W.H. Rolleston (London, 1881). See A. Bonhoffer, _Epiktet und
die Stoa_ (Stuttgart, 1890) and _Die Ethik des Stoikers Epiktet_
(1894): E.M. Schranka, _Der Stoiker Epiktet und seine Philosophie_
(Frankfort, 1885); T. Zahn, _Der Stoiker Epiktet und sein Verhaltnis
zum Christentum_ (2nd ed. Erlangen, 1895). See also STOICS and works
quoted. (W. W.; X.)

EPICURUS (342-270 B.C.), Greek philosopher, was born in Samos in the end of 342 or the beginning of 341 B.C., seven years after the death of Plato. His father Neocles, a native of Gargettos, a small village of Attica, had settled in Samos, not later than 352, as one of the cleruchs sent out after the victory of Timotheus in 366-365. At the age of eighteen he went to Athens, where the Platonic school was flourishing under the lead of Xenocrates. A year later, however, Antipater banished some 12,000 of the poorer citizens, and Epicurus joined his father, who was now living at Colophon. It seems possible that he had listened to the lectures of Nausiphanes, a Democritean philosopher, and Pamphilus the Platonist, but he was probably, like his father, merely an ordinary teacher. Stimulated, however, by the perusal of some writings of Democritus, he began to formulate a doctrine of his own; and at Mitylene, Colophon and Lampsacus, he gradually gathered round him several enthusiastic disciples. In 307 he returned to Athens, which had just been restored to a nominal independence by Demetrius Poliorcetes, and there he lived for the rest of his life. The scene of his teaching was a garden which he bought for about L300 (80 _minae_). There he passed his days as the loved and venerated head of a remarkable, and up to that time unique, society of men and women. Amongst the number were Metrodorus (d. 277), his brother Timocrates, and his wife Leontion (formerly a hetaera), Polyaenus, Hermarchus, who succeeded Epicurus as chief of the school, Leonteus and his wife Themista, and Idomeneus, whose wife was a sister of Metrodorus. It is possible that the relations between the sexes--in this prototype of Rabelais's Abbey of Theleme--were not entirely what is termed Platonic. But there is on the other hand scarcely a doubt that the tales of licentiousness circulated by opponents are groundless. The stories of the Stoics, who sought to refute the views of Epicurus by an appeal to his alleged antecedents and habits, were no doubt in the main, as Diogenes Laertius says, the stories of maniacs. The general charges, which they endeavoured to substantiate by forged letters, need not count for much, and in many cases they only exaggerated what, if true, was not so heinous as they suggested. Against them trustworthy authorities testified to his general and remarkable considerateness, pointing to the statues which the city had raised in his honour, and to the numbers of his friends, who were many enough to fill whole cities.

The mode of life in his community was plain. The general drink was water and the food barley bread; half a pint of wine was held an ample allowance. "Send me," says Epicurus to a correspondent, "send me some Cythnian cheese, so that, should I choose, I may fare sumptuously." There was no community of property, which, as Epicurus said, would imply distrust of their own and others' good resolutions. The company was held in unity by the charms of his personality, and by the free intercourse which he inculcated and exemplified. Though he seems to have had a warm affection for his countrymen, it was as human beings brought into contact with him, and not as members of a political body, that he preferred to regard them. He never entered public life. His kindliness extended even to his slaves, one of whom, named Mouse, was a brother in philosophy.

Epicurus died of stone in 270 B.C. He left his property, consisting of the garden ([Greek: Kepoi Epikourou]), a house in Melite (the south-west quarter of Athens), and apparently some funds besides, to two trustees on behalf of his society, and for the special interest of some youthful members. The garden was set apart for the use of the school; the house became the house of Hermarchus and his fellow-philosophers during his lifetime. The surplus proceeds of the property were further to be applied to maintain a yearly offering in commemoration of his departed father, mother and brothers, to pay the expenses incurred in celebrating his own birthday every year on the 7th of the month Gamelion, and for a social gathering of the sect on the 20th of every month in honour of himself and Metrodorus. Besides similar tributes in honour of his brothers and Polyaenus, he directed the trustees to be guardians of the son of Polyaenus and the son of Metrodorus; whilst the daughter of the last mentioned was to be married by the guardians to some member of the society who should be approved of by Hermarchus. His four slaves, three men and one woman, were left their freedom. His books passed to Hermarchus.

_Philosophy._--The Epicurean philosophy is traditionally divided into the three branches of logic, physics and ethics. It is, however, only as a basis of facts and principles for his theory of life that logical and physical inquiries find a place at all. Epicurus himself had not apparently shared in any large or liberal culture, and his influence was certainly thrown on the side of those who depreciated purely scientific pursuits as one-sided and misleading. "Steer clear of all culture" was his advice to a young disciple. In this aversion to a purely or mainly intellectual training may be traced a recoil from the systematic metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle, whose tendency was to subordinate the practical man to the philosopher. Ethics had been based upon logic and metaphysics. But experience showed that systematic knowledge of truth is not synonymous with right action. Hence, in the second place, Plato and Aristotle had assumed a perfect state with laws to guide the individual aright. It was thus comparatively easy to show how the individual could learn to apprehend and embody the moral law in his own conduct. But experience had in the time of Epicurus shown the temporary and artificial character of the civic form of social life. It was necessary, therefore, for Epicurus to go back to nature to find a more enduring and a wider foundation for ethical doctrine, to go back from words to realities, to give up reasonings and get at feelings, to test conceptions and arguments by a final reference to the only touchstone of truth--to sensation. There, and there only, one seems to find a common and a satisfactory ground, supposing always that all men's feelings give the same answer. Logic must go, but so also must the state, as a specially-privileged and eternal order of things, as anything more than a contrivance serving certain purposes of general utility.

To the Epicureans the elaborate logic of the Stoics was a superfluity. In place of logic we find canonic, the theory of the three tests of truth and reality. (1) The only ultimate canon of reality is sensation; whatever we feel, whatever we perceive by any sense, that we know on the most certain evidence we can have to be real, and in proportion as our feeling is clear, distinct and vivid, in that proportion are we sure of the reality of its object. But in what that vividness ([Greek: enargeia]) consists is a question which Epicurus does not raise, and which he would no doubt have deemed superfluous quibbling over a matter sufficiently settled by common sense. (2) Besides our sensations, we learn truth and reality by our preconceptions or ideas ([Greek: prolepseis]). These are the fainter images produced by repeated sensations, the "ideas" resulting from previous "impressions"--sensations at second-hand as it were, which are stored up in memory, and which a general name serves to recall. These bear witness to reality, not because we feel anything now, but because we felt it once; they are sensations registered in language, and again, if need be, translatable into immediate sensations or groups of sensation. (3) Lastly, reality is vouched for by the imaginative apprehensions of the mind ([Greek: phantastikai epibolai]), immediate feelings of which the mind is conscious as produced by some action of its own. This last canon, however, was of dubious validity. Epicureanism generally was content to affirm that whatever we effectively feel in consciousness is real; in which sense they allow reality to the fancies of the insane, the dreams of a sleeper, and those feelings by which we imagine the existence of beings of perfect blessedness and endless life. Similarly, just because fear, hope and remembrance add to the intensity of consciousness, the Epicurean can hold that bodily pain and pleasure is a less durable and important thing than pain and pleasure of mind. Whatever we feel to affect us does affect us, and is therefore real. Error can arise only because we mix up our opinions and suppositions with what we actually feel. The Epicurean canon is a rejection of logic; it sticks fast to the one point that "sensation is sensation," and there is no more to be made of it. Sensation, it says, is unreasoning ([Greek: alogos]); it must be accepted, and not criticized. Reasoning can come in only to put sensations together, and to point out how they severally contribute to human welfare; it does not make them, and cannot alter them.

_Physics._--In the Epicurean physics there are two parts--a general metaphysic and psychology, and a special explanation of particular phenomena of nature. The method of Epicurus is the argument of analogy. It is an attempt to make the phenomena of nature intelligible to us by regarding them as instances on a grand scale of that with which we are already familiar on a small scale. This is what Epicurus calls explaining what we do not see by what we do see.