Chapter X: "1. Then, after being filled, thus give ye thanks (7)

17. The _Bacchae_, unlike the preceding play, appears to have been
finished by its author, although it is said not to have been acted, on
the Athenian stage at least, till after his death. It was composed, or
completed, during the residence of Euripides with Archelaus, and in
all probability was originally designed for representation in
Macedonia--a region with whose traditions of orgiastic worship the
Dionysus myth was so congenial. The play is sometimes quoted as the
_Pentheus_. It has been justly observed that Euripides seldom named a
piece from the chorus, unless the chorus bore an important part in the
action or the leading action was divided between several persons.
Possibly, however, in this instance he may designedly have chosen a
title which would at once interest the Macedonian public. _Pentheus_
would suggest a Greek legend about which they might know or care
little. The _Bacchae_ would at once announce a theme connected with
rites familiar to the northern land.

It is a magnificent play, alone among extant Greek tragedies in
picturesque splendour, and in that sustained glow of Dionysiac
enthusiasm to which the keen irony lends the strength of contrast. If
Euripides had left nothing else, the _Bacchae_ would place him in the
first rank of poets, and would prove his possession of a sense rarely
manifested by Greek poets,--perhaps by no one of his own
contemporaries in equal measure except Aristophanes,--a feeling for
natural beauty lit up by the play of fancy. R.Y. Tyrrell, in his
edition of the _Bacchae_, has given the true answer to the theory that
the _Bacchae_ is a recantation. Euripides had never rejected the facts
which formed the basis of the popular religion. He had rather sought
to interpret them in a manner consistent with belief in a benevolent
Providence. The really striking thing in the _Bacchae_ is the spirit
of contentment and of composure which it breathes,--as if the poet had
ceased to be vexed by the seeming contradictions which had troubled
him before. Nor should it be forgotten that, for the Greek mind of his
age, the victory of Dionysus in the _Bacchae_ carried a moral even
more direct than the victory of Aphrodite in the _Hippolytus_. The
great nature-powers who give refreshment to mortals cannot be robbed
of their due tribute without provoking a nemesis. The refusal of such
a homage is not, so the Greeks deemed, a virtue in itself: in the
sight of the gods it may be only a cold form of [Greek: hybris],
overweening self-reliance--the quality personified in Pentheus.

The _Bacchae_ was always an exceptionally popular play--partly because
its opportunities as a spectacle fitted it for gorgeous
representation, and so recommended it for performance at courts and on
great public occasions. "Demetrius the Cynic" (says Lucian, _Adv.
Indoctum_, 19) "saw an illiterate person at Corinth reading a very
beautiful poem--the _Bacchae_ of Euripides, I think it was; he was at
the place where the messenger narrates the doom of Pentheus and the
deed of Agave. Demetrius snatched the book from him and tore it up,
saying, 'It is better for Pentheus to be torn up at once by me than to
be mangled over and over again by you.'"

18. The _Cyclops_, of uncertain date, is the only extant example of a
satyric drama. The plot is taken mainly from the story of Odysseus and
Polyphemus in the 9th book of the _Odyssey_. In order to be really
successful in farce of this kind, a poet should have a fresh feeling
for the nature of the art parodied. It is because Euripides was not in
accord with the spirit of the heroic myths that he is not strong in
mythic travesty. His own tragedies--such as the _Helen_, the
_Electra_, and the _Orestes_--had, in their several ways, contributed
to destroy the meaning of satyric drama. They had done gravely very
much what satyric drama aimed at doing grotesquely. They had made the
heroic persons act and talk like ordinary men and women. The finer
side of such parody had lost its edge; only broad comedy remained.

19. The _Rhesus_ is still held by some to be what the didascaliae and
the grammarians call it--a work of Euripides; and Paley has ably
supported this view. But the scepticism first declared by Valcknaer
has gained ground, and the _Rhesus_ is now almost universally
recognized as spurious. The art and the style, still more evidently
the feeling and the mind, of Euripides are absent. If it cannot be
ascribed to a disciple of his matured school, it is still less like
the work of an Alexandrian. The most probable view seems to be that
which assigns it to a versifier of small dramatic power in the latest
days of Attic tragedy. It has this literary interest, that it is the
only extant play of which the subject is directly taken from our
_Iliad_, of which the tenth book--the [Greek: Doloneia]--has been
followed by the playwright with a closeness which is sometimes
mechanical.

Literary history of Euripides.

When the first protests of the comic poets were over, Euripides was secure of a wide and lasting renown. As the old life of Athens passed away, as the old faiths lost their meaning and the peculiarly Greek instincts in art lost their truth and freshness, Aeschylus and Sophocles might cease to be fully enjoyed save by a few; but Euripides could still charm by qualities more readily and more universally recognized. The comparative nearness of his diction to the idiom of ordinary life rendered him less attractive to the grammarians of Alexandria than authors whose erudite form, afforded a better scope for the display of learning or the exercise of ingenuity. But there were two aspects in which he engaged their attention. They loved to trace the variations which he had introduced into the standard legends. And they sought to free his text from the numerous interpolations which even then had resulted from his popularity on the stage. Philochorus (about 306-260 B.C.), best known for his _Atthis_, dealt, in his treatise on Euripides, especially with the mythology of the plays. From 300 B.C. to the age of Augustus a long series of critics busied themselves with this poet. The first systematic arrangement of his reputed works is ascribed to Dicaearchus and Callimachus in the early part of the 3rd century B.C. Among those who furthered the exact study of his text, and of whose work some traces remain in the extant scholia, were Aristophanes of Byzantium, Callistratus, Apollodorus of Tarsus, Timachidas, and pre-eminently Didymus; probably also Crates of Pergamum and Aristarchus. At Rome Euripides was early made known through the translations of Ennius and the freer adaptations of Pacuvius. When Hellenic civilization was spread through the East, the mixed populations of the new settlements welcomed a dramatic poet whose taste and whose sentiment were not too severely or exclusively Attic. The Parthian Orodes and his court were witnessing the _Bacchae_ of Euripides when the Agave of the hour was suddenly enabled to lend a ghastly reality to the terrible scene of frenzied triumph by displaying the gory head of the Roman Crassus. Mommsen has noted the moment as one in which the power of Rome and the genius of Greece were simultaneously abased in the presence of sultanism. So far as Euripides is concerned, the incident may suggest another and a more pleasing reflection; it may remind us how the charm of his humane genius had penetrated the recesses of the barbarian East, and had brought to rude and fierce peoples at least some dim and distant apprehension of that gracious world in which the great spirits of ancient Hellas had moved. A quaintly significant testimony to the popularity of Euripides is afforded by the Byzantine [Greek: Christos paschon]. This drama, narrating the events which preceded and attended the Passion, is a cento of no less than 2610 verses, taken from the plays of Euripides, principally from the _Bacchae_, the _Troades_ and the _Rhesus_. The traditional ascription of the authorship to Gregory of Nazianzus is now generally rejected; another conjecture assigns it to Apollinaris of Laodicea, and places the date of composition at about A.D. 330.[4] Although the text used by the author of the cento may not have been a good one, the value of the piece for the diplomatic criticism of Euripides is necessarily very considerable; and it was diligently used both by Valcknaer and by Porson.

Dante, who does not mention Aeschylus or Sophocles, places Euripides, with the tragic poets Antiphon and Agathon, and the lyrist Simonides, in the first circle of Purgatory (xxii. 106), among those

"piue
Greci, che gia di lauro ornar la fronte."

Casaubon, in a letter to Scaliger, salutes that scholar as worthy to have lived at Athens with Aristophanes and Euripides--a compliment which certainly implies respect for his correspondent's powers as a peacemaker. In popular literature, too, where Aeschylus and Sophocles were as yet little known, the 16th and 17th centuries testify to the favour bestowed upon Euripides. G. Gascoigne's and Francis Kinwelmersh's _Jocasta_, played at Gray's Inn in 1566, is a literal translation of Lodovico Dolce's _Giocasta_, which derives from the _Phoenissae_, probably through the Latin translation of R. Winter (Basel, 1541). Among early French translations from Euripides may be mentioned the version of the _Iphigenia in Tauris_ by Thomas Sibilet in 1549, and that of the _Hecuba_ by Bouchetel in 1550. About a century later Racine gave the world his _Andromaque_, his _Iphigenie_ and his _Phedre_; and many have held that, at least in the last-named of these, "the disciple of Euripides" has excelled his master. Bernhardy notices that the performance of the _Hippolytus_ at Berlin in 1851 seemed to show that, for the modern stage, the _Phedre_ has the advantage of its Greek original. Racine's great English contemporary seems to have known and to have liked Euripides better than the other Greek tragedians. In the _Reason of Church Government_ Milton certainly speaks of "those dramatic constitutions in which Sophocles and Euripides reign"; in the preface to his own drama, again, he joins the names of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides,--"the three tragic poets unequalled yet by any." But the _Samson Agonistes_ itself clearly shows that Milton's chief model in this kind was the dramatist whom he himself has called--as if to suggest the skill of Euripides in the delineation of pathetic women--"sad Electra's poet"; and the work bears a special mark of this preference in the use of Euripidean monodies. In the second half of the 18th century such men as J.J. Winckelmann (1717-1768) and G.E. Lessing (1729-1781) gave a new life to the study of the antique. Hitherto the art of the old world had been better known through Roman than through Greek interpreters. The basis of the revived classical taste had been Latin. But now men gained a finer perception of those characteristics which belong to the Greek work of the great time, a fuller sense of the difference between the Greek and the Roman genius where each is at its best, and generally a clearer recognition of the qualities which distinguish ancient art in its highest purity from modern romantic types. Euripides now became the object of criticism from a new point of view. He was compared with Aeschylus and Sophocles as representatives of that ideal Greek tragedy which ranges with the purest type of sculpture. Thus tried, he was found wanting; and he was condemned with all the rigour of a newly illuminated zeal. B.G. Niebuhr (1776-1831) judged him harshly; but no critic approached A.W. Schlegel (1767-1845) in severity of one-sided censure. Schlegel, in fact, will scarcely allow that Euripides is tolerable except by comparison with Racine. L. Tieck (1773-1853) showed truer appreciation for a brother artist when he described the work of Euripides as the dawn of a romantic poetry haunted by dim yearnings and forebodings. Goethe--who, according to Bernhardy, knew Euripides only "at a great distance"--certainly admired him highly, and left an interesting memorial of Euripidean study in his attempted reconstruction of the lost _Phaethon_. There are some passages in Goethe's conversations with Eckermann which form effective quotations against the Greek poet's real or supposed detractors. "To feel and respect a great personality, one must be something oneself. All those who denied the sublime to Euripides were either poor wretches incapable of comprehending such sublimity or shameless charlatans who, in their presumption, wished to make more of themselves than they were." "A poet whom Socrates called his friend, whom Aristotle lauded, whom Alexander admired, and for whom Sophocles and the city of Athens put on mourning on hearing of his death, must certainly have been some one. If a modern man like Schlegel must pick out faults in so great an ancient, he ought only to do it upon his knees" (J.A. Symonds, _Greek Poets_, i. 230). We yield to no one in admiration of Goethe; but we cannot think that these rather bullying utterances are favourable examples of his method in aesthetic discussion; nor have they any logical force except as against those--if there be any such--who deny that Euripides is a great poet. One of the most striking of modern criticisms on Euripides is the sketch by Mommsen in his history of Rome (bk. iii. ch. 14). It is, in our opinion, less than just to Euripides as an artist. But it indicates, with true historical insight, his place in the development of his art, the operation of those external conditions which made him what he was, and the nature of his influence on succeeding ages.

Manuscript tradition of Euripides.

The manuscript tradition of Euripides has a very curious and
instructive history. It throws a suggestive light on the capricious
nature of the process by which some of the greatest literary treasures
have been saved or lost. Nine plays of Euripides were selected,
probably in early Byzantine times, for popular and educational use.
These were--_Alcestis, Andromache, Hecuba, Hippolytus, Medea, Orestes,
Phoenissae, Rhesus, Troades_. This list includes at least two plays,
the _Andromache_ and the _Troades_, which, even in the small number of
the extant dramas, are universally allowed to be of very inferior
merit--to say nothing of the _Rhesus_, which is generally allowed to
be spurious. On the other hand, the list omits at least three plays of
first-rate beauty and excellence, the very flower, indeed, of the
extant collection--the _Ion_, the _Iphigenia in Tauris_, and the
_Bacchae_--the last certainly, in its own kind, by far the most
splendid work of Euripides that we possess. Had these three plays been
lost, it is not too much to say that the modern estimate of Euripides
must have been decidedly lower. But all the ten plays not included in
the select list had a narrow escape of being lost, and, as it is, have
come to us in a much less satisfactory condition.

A. Kirchhoff was the first, in his editions, thoroughly to investigate
the history and the affinities of the Euripidean manuscripts.[5] All
our MSS. are, he thinks, derived from a lost archetype of the 9th or
10th century, which contained the nineteen plays (counting the
_Rhesus_) now extant. From this archetype a copy, also lost, was made
about A.D. 1100, containing only the nine select plays. This copy
became the source of all our best MSS. for those plays. They are--(1)
Marcianus 471, in the library of St Mark at Venice (12th century):
_Andromache, Hecuba, Hippolytus_ (to v. 1234), _Orestes, Phoenissae_;
(2) Vaticanus 909, 12th century, nine plays; (3) Parisinus 2712, 13th
century, 7 plays (all but _Troades_ and _Rhesus_). Of the same stock,
but inferior, are (4) Marcianus 468, 13th century: _Hecuba, Orestes,
Medea_ (v. 1-42), _Orestes, Phoenissae_; (5) Havniensis (from
_Hafnia_, Copenhagen, according to Paley), a late transcript from a
MS. resembling Vat. 909, nine plays. A second family of MSS. for the
nine plays, sprung from the same copy, but modified by a Byzantine
recension of the 13th century, is greatly inferior.

The other ten plays have come to us only through the preservation of
two MSS., both of the 14th century, and both ultimately derived, as
Kirchhoff thinks, from the archetype of the 9th or 10th century. These
are (1) Palatinus 287, Kirchhoff's B, usually called Rom. C., thirteen
plays, viz. six of the select plays (_Androm., Med., Rhes., Hipp.,
Alc., Troad._), and seven others--_Bacchae, Cyclops, Heracleidae,
Supplices, Ion, Iphigenia in Aulide, Iphigenia in Tauris_; and (2)
Flor. 2, Elmsley's C., eighteen plays, viz. all but the _Troades_.
This MS. is thus the only one for the _Helena_, the _Electra_, and the
_Hercules Furens_. By far the greatest number of Euripidean MSS.
contain only three plays,--the _Hecuba, Orestes_ and
_Phoenissae_,--these having been chosen out of the select nine for
school use--probably in the 14th century.

It is to be remembered that, as a selection, the nine chosen plays of
Euripides correspond to those seven of Aeschylus and those seven of
Sophocles which alone remain to us. If, then, these nine did not
include the _Iphigenia in Tauris_, the _Ion_ or the _Bacchae_, may we
not fairly infer that the lost plays of the other two dramatists
comprised works at least equal to any that have been preserved? May we
not even reasonably doubt whether we have received those masterpieces
by which their highest excellence should have been judged?

Scholia.

The extant scholia on Euripides are for the nine select plays only.
The first edition of the scholia on seven of these plays (all but the
_Troades_ and _Rhesus_) was published by Arsenius--a Cretan whom the
Venetians had named as bishop of Monemvasia, but whom the Greeks had
refused to recognize--at Venice in 1534. The scholia on the _Troades_
and _Rhesus_ were first published by L. Dindorf, from Vat. 909, in
1821. The best complete edition is that of W. Dindorf (1863).[6] The
collection, though loaded with rubbish--including worthless analyses
of the lyric metres by Demetrius Triclinius--includes some invaluable
comments derived from the Alexandrian critics and their followers.

EDITIONES PRINCIPES.--1496. J. Lascaris (Florence), _Medea,
Hippolytus, Alcestis, Andromache_. 1503. M. Musurus (Aldus, Venice),
_Eur. Tragg._ XVII., to which in vol. ii. the _Hercules Furens_ was
added as an 18th; i.e. this edition contained all the extant plays
except the _Electra_, which was first given to the world by P.
Victorius from Florentinus C. in 1545. The Aldine edition was
reprinted at Basel in 1537.

The complete edition of Joshua Barnes (1694) is no longer of any
critical value. The first thorough work done on Euripides was by L.C.
Valcknaer in his edition of the _Phoenissae_ (1755), and his _Diatribe
in Eur. perditorum dramatum relliquias_ (1767), in which he argued
against the authenticity of the _Rhesus_.

PRINCIPAL EDITIONS OF SELECTED PLAYS.--J. Markland (1763-1771),
_Supplices, Iphigenia A., Iphigenia T._; Ph. Brunck (1779-1780),
_Andromache, Medea, Orestes, Hecuba_; R. Porson (1797-1801), _Hecuba,
Orestes, Phoenissae, Medea_; H. Monk (1811-1818), _Hippolytus,
Alcestis, Iphigenia A., Iphigenia T._; P. Elmsley (1813-1821), _Medea,
Bacchae, Heraclidae, Supplices_; G. Hermann (1831-1841), _Hecuba_
(animadv. ad R. Porsoni notas, first in 1800), _Orestes, Alcestis,
Iphigenia A., Iphigenia T., Helena, Ion, Hercules Furens_; C. Badham
(1851-1853), _Iphigenia T., Helena, Ion_; H. Weil, _Hipp., Medea,
Hec., Iph. in T., Iph. in A., Electra, Orestes_ (2nd ed., 1890). It is
impossible to give a list of the English and foreign editions of
single plays, but mention may be made of the _Bacchae_, by J.E. Sandys
(4th ed., 1900) and R.Y. Tyrrell (1892); _Medea_, by A.W. Verrall
(1883); _Hippolytus_, by J.P. Mahaffy (1881); and of the _Hercules
Furens_, by Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (2nd ed., 1895), with a
comprehensive introduction on the literature of Euripides. A selected
list (up to 1896) will be found in J.B. Mayor's _Guide to the Choice
of Classical Books_; see also N. Wecklein in C. Bursian's
_Jahresbericht_, xxviii. (1897), and for the earlier literature W.
Engelmann, _Scriptores Graeci_ (1881). The little volumes on Euripides
by J.P. Mahaffy (1879) and W.B. Donne in Blackwood's "Ancient Classics
for English Readers" will be found generally useful; see also P.
Decharme, _Euripide et l'esprit de son theatre_ (1893); A.W. Verrall,
_Euripides the Rationalist_ (1895), and _Essays on Four Plays of
Euripides_ (1905); N.J. Patin, _Etude sur Euripide_ (1872); O.
Ribbeck, _Euripides und seine Zeit_; and (for the life of the poet)
Wilamowitz's ed. of the _Hercules Furens_ (i. 1-42); P. Masqueray,
_Euripide et ses idees_ (1908).

MODERN COMPLETE EDITIONS.--W. Dindorf (1870, in _Poet. Scenici_, ed.
5); A. Kirchhoff (1855, ed. min. 1867); F.A. Paley (2nd ed.,
1872-1880), with commentary; A. Nauck (1880-1887, Teubner series);
G.G. Murray in Oxford _Scriptorum Classicorum bibliotheca_ (1902,
foll.).

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS.--Among these may be noted the complete verse
translation by A.S. Way (1894-1898); that in prose by E.P. Coleridge
(1896); and G.G. Murray's verse translations (1902-1906). A literary
interest attaches to Robert Browning's "Transcript" of the _Alcestis_
in his _Balaustion_, and to Goethe's reconstruction of Euripides' lost
_Phaethon_ in the 1840 edition of his works, vol. xxxiii. pp. 22-43.
(R. C. J.; X.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A considerable fragment of the _Antiope_ was discovered in Egypt
in the latter part of the 19th century; ed. J.P. Mahaffy in vol.
viii. of the _Cunningham Memoirs_ (Dublin, 1891); and quite recently
fragments, probably from the _Hypsipyle_, the _Phaethon_, and the
_Cretans_ (see _Berliner Klassikertexte_, v. 2, 1907).

[2] (Originally simply _Heracles_, the addition _Mainomenos_ being
due to the Aldine ed.)

[3] Introduction to the _Electra_ of Sophocles, p. xiii., in _Catena
Classicorum_, 2nd ed.

[4] (According to Karl Krumbacher, _Gesch. der byz. Lit._, it is an
11th-century production of unknown authorship.)

[5] See also a clear account in the preface to vol. iii. of Paley's
edition.

[6] New ed. by E. Schwartz (1887-1891).

EUROCLYDON (Gr. [Greek: euros], east wind; [Greek: klydon], wave), a stormy wind from the N.E. or N.N.E. in the eastern Mediterranean. Where the Authorized Version of the Bible (Acts xxvii. 14) mentions _euroclydon_, the Revised Version, taking the reading [Greek: eurakylon], has _euraquilo_, or north-easter. The word is sometimes used for the Bora (q.v.).

EUROPA (or rather, EUROPE), in Greek mythology, according to Homer (_Iliad_, xiv. 321), the daughter of Phoenix or, in a later story, of Agenor, king of Phoenicia. The beauty of Europa fired the love of Zeus, who approached her in the form of a white bull and carried her away from her native Phoenicia to Crete, where she became the mother of Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon. She was worshipped under the name of Hellotis in Crete, where the festival Hellotia, at which her bones, wreathed in myrtle, were carried round, was held in her honour (Athenaeus xv. p. 678). Some consider Europa to be a moon-goddess; others explain the story by saying that she was carried off by a king of Crete in a ship decorated with the figure-head of a bull. O. Gruppe (_De Cadmi Fabula_, 1891) endeavours to show that the myth of Europa is only another version of the myth of Persephone.

See Apollodorus iii. 1; Ovid, _Metam._ ii. 833; articles by Helbig in
Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_, and by Hild in Daremberg and
Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquites_. Fig. 26 in the article GREEK
ART (archaic metope from Palermo) represents the journey of Europa
over the sea on the back of the bull.

EUROPE, the smallest of those principal divisions of the land-surface of the globe which are usually distinguished by the conventional name of continents.

1. GEOGRAPHY AND STATISTICS

Individuality of the continent.

It has justly become a commonplace of geography to describe Europe as a mere peninsula of Asia, but while it is necessary to bear this in mind in some aspects of the geography of the continent, more particularly in relation to the climate, the individuality of the continent is established in the clearest manner by the course of history and the resultant distribution of population. The earliest mention of Europe is in the Homeric _Hymn to Apollo_, but there Europe is not the name of a continent, but is opposed to the Peloponnesus and the islands of the Aegean. The distinction between Europe and Asia is found, however, in Aeschylus in the 5th century B.C., but there seems to be little doubt that this opposition was learnt by the Greeks from some Asiatic people. On Assyrian monuments the contrast between _asu_, "(the land of) the rising sun," and _ereb_ or _irib_, "(the land of) darkness" or "the setting sun," is frequent, and these names were probably passed on by the Phoenicians to the Greeks, and gave rise to the names of Asia and Europe. Where the names originated the geographical distinction was clearly marked by the intervention of the sea, and this intervention marked equally clearly the distinction between Europe and Libya (Africa). As the knowledge of the world extended, the difficulty, which still exists, of fixing the boundary between Europe and Asia where there is land connexion, caused uncertainty in the application of the two names, but never obscured the necessity for recognizing the distinction. Even in the 3rd century B.C. Europe was regarded by Eratosthenes as including all that was then known of northern Asia. But the character of the physical features and climate finally determined the fact that what we know as Europe came to be occupied by more or less populous countries in intimate relation with one another, but separated on the east by unpeopled or very sparsely peopled areas from the countries of Asia, and the boundary between the two continents has long been recognized as running somewhere through this area. Within the limits thus marked out on the east and on other sides by the sea "the climatic conditions are such that inhabitants are capable of and require a civilization of essentially the same type, based upon the cultivation of our European grains."[1] Those inhabitants have had a common history in a greater measure than those of any other continent, and hence are more thoroughly conscious of their dissimilarities from, than of their consanguinity with, the peoples of the east and the south.

Boundaries.

On the subject of the boundaries of Europe there is still divergence of opinion. While some authorities take the line of the Caucasus as the boundary in the south-east, others take the line of the Manych depression, between the upper end of the Sea of Azov and the Caspian Sea, nearly parallel to the Caucasus. Various limits are assigned to the continent on the east. Officially the crest of the Caucasus and that of the Urals are regarded in Russia as the boundaries between Europe and Asia on the south-east and east respectively,[2] although in neither case does the boundary correspond with the great administrative divisions, and in the Urals it is impossible to mark out any continuous crest. Reclus, without attempting to assign any precise position to the boundary line between the two continents, makes it run through the relatively low and partly depressed area north of the Caucasus and east of the Urals. The Manych depression, marking the lowest line of this area to the north of the Caucasus, has been taken as the boundary of Europe on the south-east by Wagner in his edition of Guthe's _Lehrbuch der Geographie_,[3] and the same limit is adopted in Kirchhoff's _Laenderkunde des Erdteils Europa_[4] and Stanford's _Compendium of Geography and Travel_. In favour of this limit it appears that much weight ought to be given to the consideration put forward by Wagner, that from time immemorial the valleys on both sides of the Caucasus have formed a refuge for Asiatic peoples, especially when it is borne in mind that this contention is reinforced by the circumstance that the steppes to the north of the Caucasus must interpose a belt of almost unpeopled territory between the more condensed populations belonging undoubtedly to Asia and Europe respectively. Continuity of population would be an argument in favour of assigning the whole of the Urals to Europe, but here the absence of any break in such continuity on the east side makes it more difficult to fix any boundary line outside of that system. Hence on this side it is perhaps reasonable to attach greater importance to the fact that the Urals form a boundary not only orographically, but to some extent also in respect of climate and vegetation,[5] and on that account to take a line following the crest of the different sections of that system as the eastern limit between the two continents.[6] Obviously, however, any eventual agreement among geographers on this head must be more or less arbitrary and conventional. In any case it must be borne in mind that, whatever conventional boundary be adopted, the use of the name Europe as so limited must be confined to statements of extent or implying extent. The facts as to climate, fauna and flora have no relation to any such arbitrary boundary, and all statistical statements referring to the countries of Europe must include the part of Russia beyond the Urals up to the frontier of Siberia. In such statements, however, in the present article the whole of the lieutenancy of the Caucasus will be left out of account. As to extent it is provisionally advisable to give the area of the continent within different limits.

Extent.

The following calculations in English square miles (round numbers) of the area of Europe, within different limits, are given in Behm and Wagner's _Bevoelkerung der Erde_, No. viii. (Gotha, Justus Perthes, 1891), p. 53:--Europe, within the narrowest physical limits (to the crest of the Urals and the Manych depression, and including the Sea of Azov, but excluding the Caspian Steppe, Iceland, Novaya Zemlya, Spitsbergen and Bear Island) 3,570,000 sq. m. The same, with the addition of the Caspian Steppe up to the Ural river and the Caspian Sea, 3,687,750 sq. m. The same, with the addition of the area between the Manych depression and the Caucasus, 3,790,500 sq. m. The same, with the addition of territories east of the Ural Mountains, the portion of the Caspian Steppe east of the Ural river as far as the Emba, and the southern slopes of the Caucasus, 3,988,500 sq. m. The same, with Iceland, Novaya Zemlya, Spitsbergen and Bear Island, 4,093,000 sq. m. In all these calculations the islands in the Sea of Marmora, the Canary Islands, Madeira, and even the Azores, are excluded, but all the Greek islands of the Aegean Sea and the Turkish islands of Thasos, Lemnos, Samothrace, Imbros, Hagiostrati or Bozbaba, and even Tenedos, are included.

Extreme points.

The most northern point of the mainland area is Cape Nordkyn in
Norway, 71 deg. 6' N.; its most southern, Cape Tarifa in Spain, in 36 deg. 0'
N.; its most western, Cape da Roca in Portugal, 9 deg. 27' W.; and its
most eastern, a spot near the north end of the Ural Mountains, in 66 deg.
20' E. A line drawn from Cape St Vincent in Portugal to the Ural
Mountains near Ekaterinburg has a length of 3293 m., and finds its
centre in the W. of Russian Poland. From the mouth of the Kara to the
mouth of the Ural river the direct distance is 1600 m., but the
boundary line has a length of 2400 m.

Coastline.

Two of the most striking features in the general conformation of
Europe are the great number of its primary and secondary peninsulas,
and the consequent exceptional development of its coast-line--an
irregularity and development which have been one of the most potent of
the physical factors of its history. The total length of coast-line
was estimated by Reuschle in 1869 at 19,820 m., of which about 3600
were counted as belonging to the Arctic Ocean, 8390 to the Atlantic,
and 7830 to the Black Sea and Mediterranean. This estimate, however,
does not take into account minor indentations. Reclus's estimate,
including the more important indentations, brings the coast-line up to
26,700 m., and that of Strelbitsky up to 47,790 m. (smaller islands
not included), or 1 m. of coast for about 75 sq. m. of area.
Rohrbach[7] calculated the mean distance of all points in the interior
of Europe from the sea at 209 m. as compared with 292 m. in the case
of North America, the continent which ranks next in this respect. It
must be pointed out, however, that such calculations are apt to be
very misleading, inasmuch as the commercial value of the relations
thus determined depends not merely on the existence of natural
harbours or the presence of facilities for the construction of
artificial harbours, but also on the presence of natural facilities
for communication between such harbours and a productive interior.

Changes of coast-line.

The consideration just mentioned gives great significance to the fact
that while the coast-line of Europe is in its general features very
much the same as it was at the beginning of the true historic period,
it has undergone a number of important local changes, some at least of
which are due to causes that are at work over very extensive areas.
These changes may be conveniently classified under four heads: the
formation of deltas by the alluvium of rivers; the increase of the
land-surface due to upheaval; the advance of the sea by reason of its
own erosive activity; and the advance of the sea through the
subsidence of the land. The actual form of the coast, however, is
frequently due to the simultaneous or successive action of several of
the causes--sea and river and subterranean forces helping or resisting
each other. That changes in the coast-line on the shores of the Gulf
of Bothnia have taken place within historical times through elevation
of the land seems now to be generally admitted. The commune of
Hvittisbofjaerd north of Bjorneborg on the Finland side of that gulf
gained about 21/4 sq. m. between 1784 and 1894, an amount greater than
could be accounted for by the most liberal estimates of alluvial
deposit, and the most careful investigation seems to show that on the
Swedish coast of that gulf a rise has taken place in recent years on
the east coast of Sweden from about 57 deg. 20' N. increasing in amount
towards the north up to 62 deg. 20' N., where it reaches an average of
about two-fifths of an inch annually.[8] Our information is naturally
most complete in regard to the Mediterranean coasts, as these were the
best known to the first book-writing nations. There we find that all
the great rivers have been successfully at work--more especially the
Rhone, the Ebro and the Po. The activity of the Rhone, indeed, as a
maker of new land, is astonishing. The tower of St Louis, erected on
the coast in 1737, is now upwards of four miles inland; the city of
Arles is said to be nearly twice as far from the sea as it was in the
Roman period. The present St Gilles was probably a harbour when the
Greeks founded Marseilles, and Aigues Mortes, which took its place in
the middle ages, was no longer on the coast in the time of St Louis
(13th century), but Narbonne continued to be a seaport till the 14th
century. At the mouth of the Herault, according to Fischer,[9] the
coast advances at least two metres or about 7 ft. annually; and it
requires great labour to keep the harbour of Cette from being silted
up. The Po is even more efficient than the Rhone, if the size of its
basin be taken into account. Ravenna, which was at one time an insular
city like Venice, has now a wide stretch of downs partly covered with
pine forest between it and the sea. Aquileia, one of the greatest
seaports of the Mediterranean in the early centuries of the Christian
era, is now 7 m. from the coast, and Adria, which gives its name to
the sea, is 13. The islands on which Venice is built have sunk about 3
ft. since the 16th century: the pavement of the square of St Mark's
has frequently required to be raised, and the boring of a well has
shown that a layer of vegetable remains, indicating a flora identical
with that observed at present on the neighbouring mainland, exists at
a depth of 400 ft. below the alluvial deposits. A little to the south
of Rovigno on the Istrian coast on the opposite side of the Adriatic a
diver found at the depth of about 85 ft. the remains of a town, which
has been identified with the island town of Cissa, of which nothing
had been known after the year 679.[10] At Zara ancient pavements and
mosaics are found below the sea-level, and the district at the mouth
of the Narenta has been changed into a swamp by the advance of the
sea. A process of elevation, on the other hand, is indicated along
nearly all the coasts of Sicily, at the southern end of Sardinia, the
east of Corsica, and perhaps in the neighbourhood of Nice, while the
west coast of Italy from the latitude of Rome to the southern shores
of the Gulf of Salerno has undergone considerable oscillations of
level within historical times. About the time of the settlement of the
Greeks the coast stood at least 20 ft. above the level of the present
day. Depression began in Roman times, though then the land was still
16 ft. higher than now. A more rapid depression began in the middle
ages, so that the sea-level rose from 18 to 20 ft. above the present
zero, and the coast began gradually to rise again at the close of the
15th century.[11] Passing eastward to the Balkan peninsula, we find
considerable changes on the coast-line of Greece; but as they are only
repetitions on a smaller scale of the phenomena already described, it
is sufficient to indicate the Gulf of Arta and the mouth of the
Spercheios as two of the more important localities. The latter
especially is interesting to the historian as well as to the
geologist, as the river has greatly altered the physical features of
one of the world's most famous scenes--the battlefield of Thermopylae.

If we proceed to the Atlantic seaboard we observe, as we might expect,
great modifications in the embouchures of the Garonne and the Loire,
but by far the most remarkable variations of sea and land have taken
place in the region extending from the south of Belgium in the
neighbourhood of the Straits of Dover to the mouth of the Elbe and the
west coast of Schleswig-Holstein. Here there has been a prolonged
struggle between man and nature, in which on the whole nature has
hitherto had the best of the battle. While, as is well known, much
land below sea-level in the Low Countries has been protected against
the sea by dikes and reclaimed, and the coast-line has been, on the
whole, advanced between the Elbe and the Eider,[12] there has been a
great loss of land in the interior of Holland since the beginning of
the Christian era, and on the balance a large loss of land north of
the Eider since the first half of the 13th century.[13] In the 1st
century A.D. the Zuider Zee appears to have been represented only by a
comparatively small inland lake, the dimensions of which were
increased by different inroads of the sea, the last and greatest of
which occurred in 1395. Among the local changes of European
significance within this area may be mentioned the silting up towards
the end of the 15th century of the channel known as the Zwin running
north-eastwards from Bruges, which through that cause lost its
shipping and in the end all its former renown as a seat of commerce.

The Baltic shores of Germany display the same phenomena of local gain
and loss. In the western section inroads of the sea have been
extensive: the island of Ruegen would no longer serve for the
disembarkation of an army like that of Gustavus Adolphus; Wollin and
Usedom are growing gradually less; large stretches of the mainland are
fringed with submerged forests; and at intervals the sites of
well-known villages are occupied by the sea. Towards the east the
great rivers are successfully working in the opposite direction. In
the Gulf of Danzig the alluvial deposits of the Vistula cover an area
of 615 sq. m.; in the 13th century the knights of Marienburg enclosed
with dikes about 350 sq. m.; and an area of about 70 sq. m. was added
in the course of the 14th. The Memel is silting up the Kurisches Haff,
which, like the Frisches Haff, is separated from the open sea by a
line of dunes comparable with those of the Landes in France. The
so-called strand or coast-lines at various altitudes round the
Scandinavian peninsula, though belonging for the most part to glacial
times, speak also of relative changes of level in the post-glacial
period.

Volcanoes and earthquakes.

The changes briefly indicated above take place so gradually for the
most part that it requires careful observation and comparison of data
to establish their reality. It is very different with those changes
which we usually ascribe to volcanic agency. Besides the great
outlying "hearth" of Iceland, there are four centres of volcanic
activity in Europe--all of them, however, situated in the
Mediterranean. Vesuvius on the western coast of Italy, Etna in the
island of Sicily, and Stromboli in the Lipari group, have been
familiarly known from the earliest historic times; but the fourth has
only attracted particular attention since the 18th century. It lies in
the Archipelago, on the southern edge of the Cyclades, near the little
group of islets called Santorin. The region was evidently highly
volcanic at an earlier period, for Milo, one of the nearest of the
islands, is simply a ruined crater still presenting smoking solfataras
and other traces of former activity. The devastations produced by the
eruptions of the European volcanoes are usually confined within very
narrow limits; and it is only at long intervals that any part of the
continent is visited by a really formidable earthquake. The only part
of Europe, however, for which there are no recorded earthquakes is
central and northern Russia; and the Alps and Carpathians, especially
the intra-Carpathian area of depression, Greece, Italy, especially
Calabria and the adjoining part of Sicily, the Sierra Nevada and the
Pyrenees, the Lisbon district and the rift valley of the upper Rhine
(between the Vosges and the Black Forest) are all regions specially
liable to earthquake shocks and occasionally to shocks of considerable
intensity. One well-marked seismic line extends along the south side
of the Alps from Lake Garda by Udine and Goerz to Fiume, and another
forms a curve convex towards the south-east passing first through
Calabria, then through the north-east of Sicily to the south of the
Peloritan Mountains.[14] Of all European earthquakes in modern times,
the most destructive are that of Lisbon in 1755, and that of Calabria
in 1783; the devastation produced by the former has become a classical
instance of such disasters in popular literature, and by the latter
100,000 people are said to have lost their lives. Calabria again
suffered severely in 1865, 1870, 1894, 1905 and 1908.

Relief.

If the European mountains are arranged according to their greatest
elevations, they rank as follows:--(1) the Swiss Alps, with their
highest peaks above 15,000 ft.; (2) the Sierra Nevada, the Pyrenees,
and Etna, about 11,000 ft.; (3) the Apennines, the Corsican Mountains,
the Carpathians, the Balkans, and the Despoto Dagh, from 8000 to 9000;
(4) the Guadarrama, the Scandinavian Alps, the Dinaric Alps, the Greek
Mountains, and the Cevennes, between 6000 and 8000; (5) the mountains
of Auvergne, the Jura, the Riesengebirge, the mountains of Sardinia,
Majorca, Minorca, and the Crimea, the Black Forest, the Vosges, and
the Scottish Highlands, from 4000 to 6000.

The following estimates are based on those contained in the fifth
edition, by Dr Hermann Wagner, of Guthe's _Lehrbuch der Geographie_.
In the original the figures are given in German sq. m. and in sq.
kilometres in round numbers, and the equivalents here given in English
sq. m. are similarly treated:--

Sq. m.
The great European plain in its widest sense 2,660,000
The same exclusive of inland seas 2,300,000
The same exclusive of the Scandinavian and
British lowlands 2,125,000
All other European lowlands 385,000
_The Hungarian plain_ 38,000
_The Po plain_ 21,000
The Scandinavian highlands 190,000
The Ural Mountains 127,000
The Alps 85,000
The Carpathians 72,000
The Apennines 42,500
The Pyrenees 21,500

Several estimates have been made of the average elevation of the
continent, but it is enough to give here the main results. In the
following list, where a conversion from metres into feet has been
necessary, the nearest multiple of 5 ft. has been given:--Humboldt,
675 ft.; Leipoldt,[15] 975 ft.; De Lapparent,[16] 960 ft.; Murray,[17]
939 ft.; Supan,[18] 950 ft.; von Tillo,[19] 1040 ft.; Heiderich,[20]
1230 ft.; Penck,[21] 1085 ft. The exceptionally high estimate of
Heiderich is due to the fact that by him Transcaucasia and the islands
of Novaya Zemlya, Spitsbergen and Iceland are reckoned as included in
Europe.

Arrangement of the highlands.

Of more geographical significance than these estimates are the facts
with regard to the arrangement of the highlands of the continent. It
is indeed this arrangement combined with the form of the coast-line
which has indirectly given to Europe its individuality. Three points
have to be noted under this head:--(1) the fact that the highlands of
Europe are so distributed as to allow of the penetration of westerly
winds far to the east; (2) the fact that the principal series of
highlands has a direction from east to west, Europe in this point
resembling Asia but differing from North America; and (3) that in
Europe the mountain systems belonging to the series of highlands
referred to not only have more or less well-marked breaks between
them, but are themselves so notched by passes and cut by transverse
valleys as to present great facilities for crossing in proportion to
their average altitude. The first and second of these points have
special importance with reference to the climate and will accordingly
be considered more fully under that head. The second is also of
importance with reference to the means of communication, to which the
third also refers, and detailed consideration of these points in that
relation will be reserved for that heading. Here, however, it may be
noted that in Europe the distribution of the natural resources for the
maintenance of the inhabitants is such that, if we leave out of
account Russia, which is almost entirely outside of the series of
highlands running east and west, the population north of the mountains
is roughly about 50% greater than that south of the mountains, whereas
in Asia the population north of the east and west highland barrier is
utterly insignificant as compared with that to the south.

+--------------------+-------------------------+-------------+
| | Length in English Miles.|Area of Basin|
| | | in sq. m. |
| Name of River. +------------+------------+-------------+
| |Strelbitsky.| Other | Strelbitsky.|
| | |Authorities.| |
+--------------------+------------+------------+-------------+
| Volga | 1977[22] | 2107[23] | 563,300 |
| Danube | 1644 | .. | 315,435 |
| Ural | 1446 | 1477[23] | 96,350 |
| Dnieper (Dnyepr) | 1064 | 1328[23] | 203,460 |
| Kama | 984 | 1115[23] | 202,615 |
| Don (Russia) | 980 | 1123[23] | 166,125 |
| Pechora | 915 | 1024[23] | 127,225 |
| Rhine | 709 | .. | 63,265 |
| Oka | 706 | 914[23] | 93,205 |
| Dniester (Dnyestr) | 646 | 835[23] | 29,675 |
| Elbe | 612 | .. | 55,340 |
| Vistula | 596 | 646[23] | 73,905 |
| Vyatka | 596 | 680[23] | 50,555 |
| Tagus | 566 | .. | 31,865[24]|
| Theiss (Tisza) | 550 | .. | 59,350 |
| Loire | 543 | .. | 46,755 |
| Save | 535 | .. | 37,595 |
| Meuse | 530 | .. | 12,740 |
| Mezen | 496 | 507[23] | 30,410 |
| Donets | 487 | 613[23] | 37,890 |
| Douro | 485 | .. | 36,705 |
| Duena (S. Dvina) | 470 | 576[23] | 32,975 |
| Ebro | 470 | .. | 38,580[24]|
| Rhone | 447 | .. | 38,180 |
| Desna | 438 | 590[23] | 33,535 |
| Niemen (Nyeman) | 437 | 537[23] | 34,965 |
| Drave | 434 | .. | 15,745 |
| Bug (Southern) | 428 | 477[23] | 26,225 |
| Seine | 425 | .. | 30,030 |
| Oder | 424 | .. | 17,150 |
| Kuban | 405 | 509[23] | 21,490 |
| Khoper | 387 | 563[23] | 23,120 |
| Maros | 390 | .. | 16,975 |
| Pripet | 378 | 404[23] | 46,805 |
| Guadalquivir | 374 | .. | 21,580[24]|
| Pruth (Prut[)u] | 368 | 503[23] | 10,330 |
| Northern Dvina | 358 | 447[23] | 141,075 |
| Weser-Werra | 355 | .. | 19,925 |
| Po | 354 | .. | 28,920[24]|
| Garonne-Gironde | 342 | .. | 32,745 |
| Vetluga | 328 | 464[23] | 14,325 |
| Pinega | 328 | 407[23] | 17,425 |
| Glommen | 326 | 352[25] | 15,930 |
| Bug (Western) | 318 | 450[23] | 22,460 |
| Guadiana | 316 | .. | 25,300[24]|
| Aluta (Alt, Oltu) | 308 | .. | 9,095 |
| Mosel | 300 | .. | 10,950 |
| Main | 300 | .. | 10,600 |
| Maritsa | 272 | .. | 20,790 |
| Jucar | 270 | .. | 7,620[24]|
| Mologa | 268 | 338[23] | 15,005 |
| Tornea | 268 | .. | 13,045 |
| Inn | 268 | .. | 9,825 |
| Saone | 268 | .. | 8,295 |
| Moldau | 255 | 267[25] | 10,860 |
| Moksha | 249 | 371[23] | 19,090 |
| Ljusna | 243 | .. | 7,700 |
| Mur | 242 | .. | 5,200 |
| Morava, Servian | 235 | .. | 15,715 |
| Klar | 224 | .. | 4,520 |
| Voronezh | 218 | 305[23] | 7,760 |
| Berezina | 218 | 285[23] | 9,295 |
| Saale | 215 | .. | 8,970 |
| Onega | 212 | 245[23] | 22,910 |
| Vag (Waag) | 212 | .. | 6,245 |
| Dema | 209 | 275[23] | 4,830 |
| San | 203 | 444[23] | 6,135 |
| Moskva | 189 | 305[23] | 5,910 |
| Western Manych | 176 | 295[23] | 37,820 |
| Klyazma | 159 | 394[23] | 15,200 |
+--------------------+------------+------------+-------------+

From the table given on p. 909 (col. 1) it will be seen that the most
extensive of the highland areas of Europe is that of Scandinavia,
which has a general trend from south-south-west to north-north-east,
and is completely detached by seas and plains from the highland area
to the south. There are other completely detached highland areas in
Iceland, the British Isles, the Ural Mountains, the small Yaila range
in the south of the Crimea, and the Mediterranean islands. The
connected series of highlands is that which extends from the Iberian
peninsula to the Black Sea stretching in the middle of Germany
northwards to about 52 deg. N. In the Iberian peninsula we have the most
marked example of the tableland form in Europe, and these tablelands
are bounded on the north by the Cantabrian Mountains, which descend to
the sea, and the Pyrenees, which, except at their extremities, cut off
the Iberian peninsula from the adjoining country more extensively than
any other chain in the continent. Between the foot-hills of the
Pyrenees, however, and those of the central plateau of France the
ground sinks in the Passage of Naurouse or Gap of Carcassonne to a
well-marked gap establishing easy communication between the valley of
the Garonne and the lower part of that of the Rhone. The highlands in
the north spread northwards and then north-eastwards till they join
the Vosges, but sink in elevation towards the north-east so as to
allow of several easy crossings. East of the Vosges the Rhine valley
forms an important trough running north and south through the
highlands of western Germany. To the south of the Vosges again
undulating country of less than 1500 ft. in elevation, the well-known
Burgundy Gate or Gap of Belfort, constitutes a well-marked break
between those mountains and the Jura, and establishes easy
communication between the Rhine and the Saone-Rhone valleys. The
latter valley divides in the clearest manner the highlands of central
France from both the Alps and the Jura, while between these last two
systems there lies the wedge of the Swiss midlands contracting
south-westwards to a narrow but important gap at the outlet of the
Lake of Geneva. Between the Alps and the mountains of the Italian and
Balkan peninsulas the orographical lines of demarcation are less
distinct, but on the north the valley of the Danube mostly forms a
wide separation between the Alps and the mountains of the Balkan
peninsula on the south and the highlands of Bohemia and Moravia, the
Carpathians and the Transylvanian Alps on the north. The valleys of
the Eger and the Elbe form distinct breaks in the environment of
Bohemia, and the Sudetes on the north-east of Bohemia and Moravia are
even more clearly divided from the Carpathians by the valley of the
upper Oder, the Moravian Gate, as it is called, which forms the
natural line of communication between the south-east of Prussia and
Vienna.

Rivers.