Chapter XI: Part 11

+---+-----------------------+-------------------------+-----------+
| | | Chief Place or Seat of | Number of |
| | | Government. | inhabited |
| | Name of District. +---------------+---------+ Villages |
| | | Name. | Popula- | in |
| | | | tion. | District. |
+---+-----------------------+---------------+---------+-----------+
| 1 | Abadeh Iklid | Abadeh | 4,000 | 33 |
| 2 | Abadeh-Tashk | Tashk | 600 | 8 |
| 3 | Abarj | Dashtek | 2,000 | 6 |
| 4 | Abbasi | | | |
| | (1) Bander Abbasi[1] | | | |
| | and villages | Bander Abbasi | 10,000 | 14 |
| | (2) Issin and Tazian | Issin | | 6 |
| | (3) Shamil | Shamil | 1,000 | 18 |
| | (4) Moghistan | Ziarat | | 10 |
| | (5) Minab | Minab | 4,000 | 23 |
| 5 | Afzar | Ni-mdeh | | 12 |
| 6 | 'Alemrud | Sabzpushan | 1,000 | 16 |
| 7 | Arb'ah (the four) | | | |
| | (1) Deh Rud | | | |
| | (2) Deh Ram | Deh Ram | 1,500 | 19 |
| | (3) Hengam | | | |
| | (4) Rudbal | | | |
| 8 | Ardakan | Ardakan | 5,000 | 10 |
| 9 | Arsinjan | Arsinjan | 5,000 | 25 |
|10 | Asir | Asir | 500 | 10 |
|11 | Baiza | Baiza | 2,000 | 55 |
|12 | Bi-dshahr and Juvi-m | Bidshahr | 3,000 | 23 |
|13 | Bovanat | Surian | 500 | 23 |
|14 | Darab | Darab | 5,000 | 62 |
|15 | Dashti | | | |
| | (1) Bardistan | Bander Dair | 1,000 | 28 |
| | (2) Buluk | Bushgan | | 18 |
| | (3) Mandistan | Kaki | 1,500 | 40 |
| | (4) Tassuj | Tang Bagh | 500 | 11 |
| | (5) Shumbeh | Shumbeh | | 15 |
|16 | Dashtistan | | | |
| | (1) Angali | Haftjush | | 10 |
| | (2) Ahrom | Ahrom | 1,500 | 5 |
| | (3) Borazjan | Borazjan | 4,000 | 19 |
| | (4) Bushire[1] | Bushire | 25,000 | 20 |
| | (5) Daliki | Daliki | 1,500 | 7 |
| | (6) Gonavah | Gonavah | 1,000 | 12 |
| | (7) Hayat Daud | Bander Rig | 1,000 | 6 |
| | (8) Khurmuj | Khurmuj | 1,000 | 5 |
| | (9) Rud Hillah | Kelat Sukhteh | | 10 |
| | (10) Shaban Kareh | Deh Kohneh | | 27 |
| | (11) Tangistan | Tangistan | 1,000 | 31 |
| | (12) Zengeneh | Samal | 750 | 4 |
| | (13) Zirah | Zirah | | 6 |
|17 | Dizkurd | Cherkes | 500 | 6 |
|18 | Famur | Pagah | 300 | 3 |
|19 | Ferrashband | Ferrashband | 1,000 | 14 |
|20 | Fessa | Fessa | 5,000 | 40 |
|21 | Firuzabad | Firuzabad | 4,000 | 20 |
|22 | Gillehdar | Gillehdar | 1,000 | 43 |
|23 | Humeh of Shiraz | Zerkan | 1,000 | 89 |
|24 | Istahbanat | Istahbanat | 10,000 | 12 |
|25 | Jahrum | Jahrum | 10,000 | 33 |
|26 | Jireh | Ishfayikan | | 23 |
|27 | Kamfiruz | Palangeri | | 34 |
|28 | Kamin | Kalilek | | 11 |
|29 | Kazerun | Kazerun | 8,000 | 46 |
|30 | Kavar | Kavar | | 26 |
|31 | Kir and Karzin | Kir | 1,000 | 23 |
|32 | Khafr | Khafr | 1,000 | 41 |
|33 | Khajeh | Zanjiran | 500 | 15 |
|34 | Khisht | Khisht | 2,500 | 25 |
|35 | Khunj | Khunj | 1,500 | 27 |
|36 | Kongan | Bander Kongan | | 12 |
|37 | Kuh Gilu and Behbahan | Behbahan | 10,000 | 182 |
|38 | Kurbal | Gavkan | 600 | 67 |
|39 | Kuh i Marreh Shikeft | Shikeft | | 41 |
|40 | Kunkuri | Kazian | | 29 |
|41 | Laristan | | | |
| | (1) Lar | Lar | 8,000 | 34 |
| | (2) Bikhah Ihsham | Bairam | | 11 |
| | (3) Bikhah Fal | Ishkenan | | 10 |
| | (4) Jehangiriyeh | Bastak | 4,000 | 30 |
| | (5) Shib Kuh | Bander Charak | | 36 |
| | (6) Fumistan or | | | |
| | Gavbandi | Gavbandi | | 13 |
| | (7) Kauristan | Kauristan | | 4 |
| | (8) Lingah[1] | Bander Lingah | 10,000 | 11 |
| | (9) Mazayijan | Mazayijan | | 6 |
|42 | Mahur Milati | Jemalgird | | 5 |
|43 | Maimand | Maimand | 5,000 | 14 |
|44 | Maliki | Bander Assalu | 1,000 | 25 |
|45 | Mamasenni (Shulistan) | | | |
| | (1) Bekesh \ | | | 8 |
| | (2) Javidi or Javi | | | | 6 |
| | (3) Dushmanziaris | | | | 16 |
| | (4) Rustami >| Kal'ah Safid | | 26 |
| | (5) Fahlian | | | | 7 |
| | (6) Kakan / | | | 5 |
|46 | Mayin | Mayin | | 8 |
|47 | Mervast and Herat | Mervast | | 14 |
|48 | Mervdasht | | | |
| | (1) Upper Khafrek \ | | | 14 |
| | (2) Lower Khafrek >| Fathabad | 1,250 | 16 |
| | (3) Mervdasht / | | | 22 |
|49 | Meshhed Mader Suliman | Murghab | 800 | 6 |
|50 | Niriz | Niriz | 9,000 | 24 |
|51 | Ramjird | Jashian | | 36 |
|52 | Rudan and Ahmedi | Dehbariz | | 21 |
|53 | Sab'ah (the seven) | | | |
| | (1) Bivunj (Bi-vanej)| Durz | | 14 |
| | (2) Hasanabad | Hasanabad | | 7 |
| | (3) Tarom | Tarun | 2,000 | 15 |
| | (4) Faraghan | Faraghan | 1,500 | 13 |
| | (5) Forg | Forg | 3,000 | 18 |
| | (6) Fin and Guhrah | Fin | | 13 |
| | (7) Gileh Gah (aban- | | | |
| | doned) Ziaret | Ziaret | 1,000 | 11 |
|54 | Sarchahan | | | |
|55 | Sarhad Chahar Dungeh | \ | | |
| | (1) Dasht Ujan | | | | |
| | (2) Dasht Khosro va | | | | |
| | Shirin | > Kushk Zard | | 31 |
| | (3) Dasht Khungasht | | | | |
| | (4) Dasht Kushk Zard | / | | |
|56 | Sarhad Shesh Nahiyeh | | | |
| | (1) Padina (foot of | | | |
| | Mount Dina | Khur \ | | |
| | (2) Henna | Henna | | | |
| | (3) Samiram | Samiram | | | |
| | (4) Felard | Felard > | | 24 |
| | (5) Vardasht | Germabad | | | |
| | (6) Vank | Vank / | | |
|57 | Sarvistan | Sarvistan | 4,500 | 23 |
|58 | Shiraz (town) in 1884 | |53,607[2]| |
|59 | Siyakh | Darinjan | | 13 |
|60 | Simkan | Duzeh | | 28 |
+---+-----------------------+---------------+---------+-----------+

The above sixty districts are grouped into eighteen sub-provinces under governors appointed by the governor-general of Fars, but the towns of Bushire, Lingah and Bander Abbasi, together with the villages in their immediate neighbourhood, form a separate government known as that of the "Persian Gulf Ports" (Benadir i Khalij i Fars), under a governor appointed from Teheran. The population of the province has been estimated at 750,000 and the yearly revenue it pays to the state amounts to about L150,000. Many districts are fertile, but some, particularly those in the south-eastern part of the province, do not produce sufficient grain for the requirements of the sparse population. In consequence of droughts, ravages of locusts and misgovernment by local governors the province has been much impoverished and hundreds of villages are in ruins and deserted. About a third of the population is composed of turbulent and lawless nomads who, when on the march between their winter and summer camping grounds, frequently render the roads insecure and occasionally plunder whole districts, leaving the inhabitants without means of subsistence.

The province produces much wheat, barley, rice, millet, cotton, but the authorities every now and then prohibiting the export of cereals, the people generally sow just as much as they think will suffice for their own wants. Much tobacco of excellent quality, principally for consumption in Persia, is also grown (especially in Fessa, Darab and Jahrom) and a considerable quantity of opium, much of it for export to China, is produced. Salt, lime and gypsum are abundant. There are also some oil wells at Daliki, near Bushire, but several attempts to tap the oil have been unsuccessful. There are no valuable oyster-banks in Persian waters, and all the Persian Gulf pearls are obtained from banks on the coast of Arabia and near Bahrein. (A. H.-S.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Are forming separate administrative division of "Persian Gulf
Ports."

[2] Persian census in 1884; 25,284 males, 28,323 females.

FARTHING (A.S. _feortha_, fourth, +_ing_, diminutive), the smallest English coin, equal to the fourth of a penny. It became a regular part of the coinage from the reign of Edward I., and was, up to the reign of Mary, a silver coin. No farthing was struck in the reign of Elizabeth, but a silver three-farthing piece was issued in that reign, with a profile bust of the queen crowned, with a rose behind her head, and inscribed "E.D.G. Rosa sine spina." The copper farthing was first introduced in the reign of James I., a patent being given to Lord Harington of Exton in 1613 for the issue of copper tokens of this denomination. It was nominally of six grains' weight, but was usually heavier. Properly, however, the copper farthing dates from the reign of Charles II., in whose reign also was issued a tin farthing, with a small copper plug in the centre, and an inscription on the edge, "Nummorum famulus 1684." No farthings were actually issued in the reign of Queen Anne, though a number of patterns were prepared (see NUMISMATICS: _MEDIEVAL SECTION, ENGLAND_). In 1860 the copper farthing was superseded by one struck in bronze. In 1842 a proclamation was issued giving currency to half-farthings, and there were several issues, but they were demonetized in 1869. In 1897 the practice was adopted of darkening farthings before issue, to prevent their being mistaken for half-sovereigns.

FARTHINGALE (from the O. Fr. _verdagalle_, or _vertugalle_, a corruption of the Spanish name of the article, _verdagado_, from _verdago_, a rod or stick), a case or hoop, originally of bent rods, but afterwards made of whalebone, upon which were hung the voluminous skirts of a woman's dress. The fashion was introduced into England from Spain in the 16th century. In its most exaggerated shape, at the beginning of the 17th century, the top of the farthingale formed a flat circular surface projecting at right angles to the bodice (see COSTUME).

FARUKHABAD, FARRAKHABAD, or FURRUCKABAD, a city and district of British India in the Agra division of the United Provinces. The city is near the right bank of the Ganges, 87 m. by rail from Cawnpore. It forms a joint municipality with Fatehgarh, the civil headquarters of the district with a military cantonment. Pop. (1901) 67,338. At Fatehgarh is the government gun-carriage factory; and other industries include cotton-printing and the manufacture of gold lace, metal vessels and tents.

The DISTRICT OF FARUKHABAD has an area of 1685 sq. m. It is a flat alluvial plain in the middle Doab. The principal rivers are: the Ganges, which has a course of 87 m. either bordering on or passing through the district, but is not at all times navigable by large boats throughout its entire course; the Kali-nadi (84 m.) and the Isan-nadi (42 m.), both tributaries of the Ganges; and the Arind-nadi, which, after a course of 20 m. in the south of the district, passes into Cawnpore. The principal products are rice, wheat, barley, millets, pulses, cotton, sugar-cane, potatoes, &c. The grain crops, however, are insufficient for local wants, and grain is largely imported from Oudh and Rohilkhand. The district is, therefore, liable to famine, and it was severely visited by this calamity six times during the 19th century--in 1803-1804, 1815-1816, 1825-1826, 1837-1838, 1868-1869 and 1899-1900. Farukhabad is one of the healthiest districts in the Doab, but fevers are prevalent during August and September. The average annual mean temperature is almost 80 deg. F.; the average annual rainfall, 29.4 in.

In the early part of the 18th century, when the Mogul empire was breaking up, Mahommed Khan, a Bangash Afghan from a village near Kaimganj, governor of Allahabad and later of Malwa, established a considerable state of which the present district of Farukhabad was the nucleus, founding the city of Farukhabad in 1714. After his death in 1743, his son and successor Kaim Khan was embroiled by Safdar Jang, the nawab wazir of Oudh, with the Rohillas, in battle with whom he lost his life in 1749. In 1750 his brother, Ahmad Khan, recovered the Farukhabad territories; but Safdar Jang called in the Mahrattas, and a struggle for the possession of the country began, which ended in 1771, on the death of Ahmad Khan, by its becoming tributary to Oudh. In 1801 the nawab wazir ceded to the British his lands in this district, with the tribute due from the nawab of Farukhabad, who gave up his sovereign rights in 1802. In 1804 the Mahrattas, under Holkar, ravaged this tract, but were utterly routed by Lord Lake at the town of Farukhabad. During the mutiny Farukhabad shared the fate of other districts, and passed entirely out of British hands for a time. The native troops, who had for some time previously evinced a seditious spirit, finally broke into rebellion on the 18th of June 1857, and placed the titular nawab of Farukhabad on the throne. The English military residents took shelter in the fort, which they held until the 4th of July, when, the fort being undermined, they endeavoured to escape by the river. One boat succeeded in reaching Cawnpore, but only to fall into the hands of Nana. Its occupants were made prisoners, and perished in the massacre of the 10th of July. The other boat was stopped on its progress down the river, and all those in it were captured or killed, except four who escaped. The prisoners were conveyed back to Fatehgarh, and murdered there by the nawab on the 19th of July. The rebels were defeated in several engagements, and on the 3rd of January 1858 the English troops recaptured Fatehgarh fort; but it was not till May that order was thoroughly re-established. In 1901 the population was 925,812, showing an increase of 8% in one decade. Part of the district is watered by distributaries of the Ganges canal; it is traversed throughout its length by the Agra-Cawnpore line of the Rajputana railway, and is also served by a branch of the East Indian system. Tobacco, opium, potatoes and fruit, cotton-prints, scent and saltpetre are among the principal exports.

FASCES, in Roman antiquities, bundles of elm or birch rods from which the head of an axe projected, fastened together by a red strap. Nothing is known of their origin, the tradition that represents them as borrowed by one of the kings from Etruria resting on insufficient grounds. As the emblem of official authority, they were carried by the lictors, in the left hand and on the left shoulder, before the higher Roman magistrates; at the funeral of a deceased magistrate they were carried behind the bier. The lictors and the fasces were so inseparably connected that they came to be used as synonymous terms. The fasces originally represented the power over life and limb possessed by the kings, and after the abolition of the monarchy, the consuls, like the kings, were preceded by twelve fasces. Within the precincts of the city the axe was removed, in recognition of the right of appeal (_provocat-io_) to the people in a matter of life and death; outside Rome, however, each consul retained the axe, and was preceded by his own lictors, not merely by a single _accensus_ (supernumerary), as was originally the case within the city when he was not officiating. Later, the lictors preceded the officiating consul, and walked behind the other. Valerius Publicola, the champion of popular rights, further established the custom that the fasces should be lowered before the people, as the real representatives of sovereignty (Livy ii. 7; Florus i. 9; Plutarch, _Publicola_, 10); lowering the fasces was also the manner in which an inferior saluted a superior magistrate. A dictator, as taking the place of the two consuls, had 24 fasces (including the axe even within the city); most of the other magistrates had fasces varying in number, with the exception of the censors, who, as possessing no executive authority, had none. Fasces were given to the Flamen Dialis and (after 42 B.C.) even to the Vestals. During the times of the republic, a victorious general, who had been saluted by the title of imperator by his soldiers, had his fasces crowned with laurel (Cicero, _Pro Ligario_, 3). Later, under the empire, when the emperor received the title for life on his accession, it became restricted to him, and the laurel was regarded as distinctive of the imperial fasces (see Mommsen, _Romisches Staatsrecht_, i., 1887, p. 373).

FASCIA (Latin for a bandage or fillet), a term used for many objects which resemble a band in shape; thus in anatomy it is applied to the layers of fibrous connective tissue which sheathe the muscles or cover various parts or organs in the body, and in zoology, and particularly in ornithology, to bands or stripes of colour. In architecture the word is used of the bands into which the architrave of the Ionic and Corinthian orders is subdivided; their origin would seem to have been derived from the superimposing of two or more beams of timber to span the opening between columns and to support a superincumbent weight; the upper beam projected slightly in front of the lower, and similar projections were continued in the stone or marble beam though in one block. In the Roman Corinthian order the fasciae, still projecting one in front of the other, were subdivided by small mouldings sometimes carved. The several bands are known as the first or upper fascia, the second or middle fascia and the third or lower fascia. The term is sometimes applied to flat projecting bands in Renaissance architecture when employed as string courses. It is also used, though more commonly in the form "facia," of the band or plate over a shop-front, on which the name and occupation of the tradesman is written.

FASCINATION (from Lat. _fascinare_, to bewitch, probably connected with the Gr. [Greek: baskainein], to speak ill of, to bewitch), the art of enchanting or bewitching, especially through the influence of the "evil eye," and so properly of the exercise of an evil influence over the reason or will. The word is thus used of the supposed paralysing attraction exercised by some reptiles on their victims. It is also applied to a particular hypnotic condition, marked by muscular contraction, but with consciousness and power of remembrance left. In a quite general sense, fascination means the exercise of any charm or strong attraction.

FASCINE (from the Lat. _fascina_, _fascis_, a bundle of sticks), a large faggot of brushwood used in the revetments of earthworks and for other purposes of military engineering. The British service pattern of fascine is 18 ft. long; it is tied as tightly as possible at short intervals, and the usual diameter is 9 in. Similar bundles of wood formed part of the foundations of the early lake-dwellings, and in modern engineering fascines are used in making rough roads over marshy ground and in building river and sea walls and breakwaters.

FASHION (adapted from Fr. _facon_, Lat. _factio_, making, _facere_, to do or make), the action of making, hence the shape or form which anything takes in the process of making. It is thus used in the sense of the pattern, kind, sort, manner or mode in which a thing is done. It is particularly used of the common or customary way in which a thing is done, and so is applied to the manner or custom prevalent at or characteristic of a particular period, especially of the manner of dress, &c., current at a particular period in any rank of society, for which the French term is _modes_ (see COSTUME).

FASHODA (renamed, 1904, KODOK), a post on the west bank of the Upper Nile, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, in 9 deg. 53' N., 32 deg. 8' E., 459 m. S., by river, of Khartum. It is the headquarters of the mudiria (province) of the Upper Nile. The station is built on a flat peninsula connected by a narrow strip of land with a ridge which runs parallel with the river. The surrounding country is mostly deep swamp and the station is most unhealthy; mosquitoes are present in millions. The climate is always damp and the temperature rarely below 98 deg. in the shade. The government offices are well-built brick structures. In front of the station is a long low island, and when the Nile is at its lowest this channel becomes dry. Several roads from Kordofan converge on the Nile at this point, and near the station is the residence of the _mek_, or king, of the Shilluk tribe, whose designation of the post was adopted when it was decided to abandon the use of Fashoda. At Lul, 18 m. farther up stream, is an Austrian Roman Catholic mission station.

An Egyptian military post was established at Fashoda in 1865. It was then a trading station of some importance, slaves being the chief commodity dealt in. In 1883-1884 the place fell into the hands of the Mahdists. On the 10th of July 1898 it was occupied by a French force from the Congo under Commandant J.B. Marchand, a circumstance which gave rise to a state of great tension between Great Britain and France. On the 11th of December following the French force withdrew, returning home via Abyssinia (see AFRICA, S 5, and EGYPT: _History_, and _Military Operations_).

FAST AND LOOSE, a cheating game played at fairs by sharpers. A strap, usually in the form of a belt, is rolled or doubled up with a loop in the centre, and laid edgewise on a table. The swindler then bets that the loop cannot be caught with a stick or skewer as he unrolls the belt. As this looks to be easy to do the bet is often taken, but the sharper unrolls the belt in such a manner as to make the catching of the loop practically impossible. Centuries ago it was much practised by gipsies, a circumstance alluded to by Shakespeare in _Anthony and Cleopatra_ (iv. 12):

"Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose,
Beguiled me to the very heart of loss."

From this game is taken the colloquial expression "to play fast and loose." At the present day it is called "prick the garter" or "prick the loop."

FASTI, in Roman antiquities, plural of the Latin adjective _fastus_, but more commonly used as a substantive, derived from _fas_, meaning what is binding, or allowable, by divine law, as opposed to _jus_, or human law. _Fasti dies_ thus came to mean the days on which law business might be transacted without impiety, corresponding to our own "lawful days"; the opposite of the _dies fasti_ were the _dies nefasti_, on which, on various religious grounds, the courts could not sit. The word _fasti_ itself then came to be used to denote lists or registers of various kinds, which may be divided into two great classes.

1. _Fasti Diurni_, divided into _urbani_ and _rustici_, a kind of official year-book, with dates and directions for religious ceremonies, court-days, market-days, divisions of the month, and the like. Until 304 B.C. the lore of the _calendaria_ remained the exclusive and lucrative monopoly of the priesthood; but in that year Gnaeus Flavius, a pontifical secretary, introduced the custom of publishing in the forum tables containing the requisite information, besides brief references to victories, triumphs, prodigies, &c. This list was the origin of the public Roman calendar, in which the days were divided into weeks of eight days each, and indicated by the letters A-H. Each day was marked by a certain letter to show its nature; thus the letters F., N., N.P., F.P., Q. Rex C.F., C., EN., stood for _fastus_, _nefastus_, _nefastus_ in some unexplained sense, _fastus priore_, _quando rex_ (_sacrorum_) _comitiavit fastus_, _comitialis_ and _intercisus_. The _dies intercisi_ were partly _fasti_ and partly _nefasti_. Ovid's _Fasti_ is a poetical description of the Roman festivals of the first six months, written to illustrate the Fasti published by Julius Caesar after he remodelled the Roman year. Upon the cultivators fewer feasts, sacrifices, ceremonies and holidays were enjoined than on the inhabitants of cities; and the rustic fasti contained little more than the ceremonies of the calends, nones and ides, the fairs, signs of zodiac, increase and decrease of the days, the tutelary gods of each month, and certain directions for rustic labours to be performed each month.

2. _Fasti Magistrales_, _Annales_ or _Historici_, were concerned with the several feasts, and everything relating to the gods, religion and the magistrates; to the emperors, their birthdays, offices, days consecrated to them, with feasts and ceremonies established in their honour or for their prosperity. They came to be denominated _magni_, by way of distinction from the bare calendar, or _fasti diurni_. Of this class, the _fasti consulares_, for example, were a chronicle or register of time, in which the several years were denoted by the respective consuls, with the principal events which happened during their consulates. The _fasti triumphales_ and _sacerdotales_ contained a list in chronological order of persons who had obtained a triumph, together with the name of the conquered people, and of the priests. The word _fasti_ thus came to be used in the general sense of "annals" or "historical records." A famous specimen of the same class are the _fasti Capitolini_, so called because they were deposited in the Capitol by Alexander Farnese, after their excavation from the Roman forum in 1547. They are chiefly a nominal list of statesmen, victories, triumphs, &c., from the expulsion of the kings to the death of Augustus. A considerable number of fasti of the first class have also been discovered; but none of them appear to be older than the time of Augustus. The Praenestine calendar, discovered in 1770, arranged by the famous grammarian Verrius Flaccus, contains the months of January, March, April and December, and a portion of February. The tablets give an account of festivals, as also of the triumphs of Augustus and Tiberius. There are still two complete calendars in existence, an official list by Furius Dionysius Philocalus (A.D. 354), and a Christian version of the official calendar, made by Polemius Silvius (A.D. 448). But some kinds of fasti included under the second general head were, from the very beginning, written for publication. The _Annales Pontificum_--different from the _calendaria_ properly so called--were "annually exhibited in public on a white table, on which the memorable events of the year, with special mention of the prodigies, were set down in the briefest possible manner." Any one was allowed to copy them. Like the pontifices, the augurs also had their books, _libri augurales_. In fact, all the state offices had their fasti corresponding in character to the consular fasti named above.

For the best text and account of the fragments of the Fasti see
_Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, i. (2nd ed.); on the subject
generally, Teuffel-Schwabe, _Hist. of Roman Literature_, SS 74, 75,
and article by Bouche-Leclercq in Daremberg and Saglio, _Dictionnaire
des antiquites_.

FASTING (from "fast," derived from old Teutonic _fastejan_; synonyms being the Gr. [Greek: nesteuein], late Lat. _jejunare_), an act which is most accurately defined as an abstention from meat, drink and all natural food for a determined period. So it is defined by the Church of England, in the 16th homily, on the authority of the Council of Chalcedon[1] and of the primitive church generally. In a looser sense the word is employed to denote abstinence from certain kinds of food merely; and this meaning, which in ordinary usage is probably the more prevalent, seems also to be at least tolerated by the Church of England when it speaks of "fast or abstinence days," as if fasting and abstinence were synonymous.[2] More vaguely still, the word is occasionally used as an equivalent for moral self-restraint generally. This secondary and metaphorical sense ([Greek: nesteuein kakotetos]) occurs in one of the fragments of Empedocles. For the physiology of fasting, see DIETETICS; NUTRITION; also CORPULENCE.

Starvation itself (see also HUNGER and THIRST) is of the nature of a disease which may be prevented by diet; nevertheless there are connected with it a few peculiarities of scientific and practical interest. "Inedia," as it is called in the nomenclature of diseases by the London College of Physicians, is of two kinds, arising from _want of food_ and from _want of water_. When entirely deprived of nutriment the human body is ordinarily capable of supporting life under ordinary circumstances for little more than a week. In the spring of 1869 this was tried on the person of a "fasting girl" in South Wales. The parents made a show of their child, decking her out like a bride on a bed, and asserting that she had eaten no food for two years. Some reckless enthusiasts for truth set four trustworthy hospital nurses to watch her; the Celtic obstinacy of the parents was roused, and in defence of their imposture they allowed death to take place in eight days. Their trial and conviction for manslaughter may be found in the daily periodicals of the date; but, strange to say, the experimental physiologists and nurses escaped scot-free. There is no doubt that in this instance the unnatural quietude, the grave-like silence, and the dim religious light in which the victim was kept contributed to deter death.

One thing which remarkably prolongs life is a supply of water. Dogs furnished with as much as they wished to drink were found by M. Chossat (_Sur l'inanition_, Paris, 1843) to live three times as long as those who were deprived of solids and liquids at the same time. Even wetting the skin with sea-water has been found useful by shipwrecked sailors. Four men and a boy of fourteen who got shut in the Tynewydd mine near Porth, in South Wales, in the winter of 1876-1877 for ten days without food, were not only alive when released, but several of them were able to walk, and all subsequently recovered. The thorough saturation of the narrow space with aqueous vapour, and the presence of drain water in the cutting, were probably their chief preservatives--assisted by the high even temperature always found in the deeper headings of coal mines, and by the enormous compression of the confined air. This doubtless prevented evaporation, and retarded vital processes dependent upon oxidation. The accumulation of carbonic acid in the breathed air would also have a similar arrestive power over destructive assimilation. These prisoners do not seem to have felt any of the severer pangs of hunger, for they were not tempted to eat their candles. With the instinctive feeling that darkness adds a horror to death, they preferred to use them for light. At the wreck of the "Medusa" frigate in 1816, fifteen people survived on a raft for thirteen days without food.

It is a paradoxical fact, that the supply of the stomach even from the substance of the starving individual's body should tend to prolong life. In April 1874 a case was recorded of exposure in an open boat for 32 days of three men and two boys, with only ten days' provisions, exclusive of old boots and jelly-fish. They had a fight in their delirium, and one was severely wounded. As the blood gushed out he lapped it up; and instead of suffering the fatal weakness which might have been expected from the haemorrhage, he seems to have done well. Experiments were performed by a French physiologist, M. Anselmier (_Archives gen. de medecine_, 1860, vol. i. p. 169), with the object of trying to preserve the lives of dogs by what he calls "artificial autophagy." He fed them on the blood taken from their own veins daily, depriving them of all other food, and he found that the fatal cooling incident to starvation was thus postponed, and existence prolonged. Life lasted till the emaciation had proceeded to six-tenths of the animal's weight, as in Chossat's experiments, extending to the fourteenth day, instead of ending on the tenth day, as was the case with other dogs which were not bled.

Various people have tried, generally for exhibition purposes, how long they could fast from food with the aid merely of water or some medicinal preparation; but these exhibitions cannot be held to have proved anything of importance. A man named Jacques in this way fasted at Edinburgh for thirty days in 1888, and in London for forty-two days in 1890, and for fifty days in 1891; and an Italian named Succi fasted for forty days in 1890.

_Religious Fasts._--Fasting is of special interest when considered as a discipline voluntarily submitted to for moral and religious ends. As such it is very widely diffused. Its modes and motives vary considerably according to climate, race, civilization and other circumstances; but it would be difficult to name any religious system of any description in which it is wholly unrecognized.[3] The origin of the practice is very obscure.[4] In his _Principles of Sociology_ Herbert Spencer collected, from the accounts we have of various savage tribes in widely separated parts of the globe, a considerable body of evidence, from which he suggested that it may have arisen out of the custom of providing refreshments for the dead, either by actually feeding the corpse, or by leaving eatables and drinkables for its use. It is suggested that the fasting which was at first the natural and inevitable result of such sacrifice on behalf of the dead may eventually have come to be regarded as an indispensable concomitant of all sacrifice, and so have survived as a well-established usage long after the original cause had ceased to operate.[5] But this theory is repudiated by the best authorities; indeed its extreme precariousness at once becomes evident when it is remembered that, now at least, it is usual for religious fasts to precede rather than to follow sacrificial and funeral feasts, if observed at all in connexion with these. Spencer himself (p. 284) admits that "probably the practice arises in more ways than one," and proceeds to supplement the theory already given by another--that adopted by E.B. Tylor--to the effect that it originated in the desire of the primitive man to bring on at will certain abnormal nervous conditions favourable to the seeing of those visions and the dreaming of those dreams which are supposed to give the soul direct access to the objective realities of the spiritual world.[6] Probably, if we leave out of sight the very numerous and obvious cases in which fasting, originally the natural reflex result of grief, fear or other strong emotion, has come to be the usual conventional symbol of these, we shall find that the practice is generally resorted to, either as a means of somehow exalting the higher faculties at the expense of the lower, or as an act of homage to some object of worship. The axiom of the Amazulu, that "the continually stuffed body cannot see secret things," meets even now with pretty general acceptance; and if the notion that it is precisely the food which the worshipper foregoes that makes the deity more vigorous to do battle for his human friend be confined only to a few scattered tribes of savages, the general proposition that "fasting is a work of reverence toward God" may be said to be an article of the Catholic faith.[7]

Although fasting as a religious rite is to be met with almost everywhere, there are comparatively few religions, and those only of the more developed kind, which appoint definite public fasts, and make them binding at fixed seasons upon all the faithful. Brahmanism, for example, does not appear to enforce any stated fast upon the laity.[8] Among the ancient Egyptians fasting seems to have been associated with many religious festivals, notably with that of Isis (Herod. ii. 40), but it does not appear that, so far as the common people were concerned, the observance of these festivals (which were purely local) was compulsory. The [Greek: nesteia] on the third day of the Thesmophoria at Athens was observed only by the women attending the festival (who were permitted to eat cakes made of sesame and honey). It is doubtful whether the fast mentioned by Livy (xxxvi. 37) was intended to be general or sacerdotal merely.

_Jewish Fasts._--While remarkable for the cheerful, non-ascetic character of their worship, the Jews were no less distinguished from all the nations of antiquity by their annual solemn fast appointed to be observed on the 10th day of the 7th month (Tisri), the penalty of disobedience being death. The rules, as laid down in Lev. xvi. 29-34, xxiii. 27-32 and Numb. xxix. 7-11, include a special injunction of strict abstinence ("ye shall afflict your souls"[9]) from evening to evening. This fast was intimately associated with the chief feast of the year. Before that feast could be entered upon, the sins of the people had to be confessed and (sacramentally) expiated. The fast was a suitable concomitant of that contrition which befitted the occasion. The practice of stated fasting was not in any other case enjoined by the law; and it is generally understood to have been forbidden on Sabbath.[10] At the same time, private and occasional fasting, being regarded as a natural and legitimate instinct, was regulated rather than repressed. The only other provision about fasting in the Pentateuch is of a regulative nature, Numb. xxx. 14 (13), to the effect that a vow made by a woman "to afflict the soul" may in certain circumstances be cancelled by her husband.

The history of Israel from Moses to Ezra furnishes a large number of instances in which the fasting instinct was obeyed both publicly and privately, locally and nationally, under the influence of sorrow, or fear, or passionate desire. See, for example, Judg. xx. 26; 1 Sam. vii. 6 (where the national fast was conjoined with the ceremony of pouring out water before the Lord); Jer. xxxvi. 6, 9; and 2 Sam. xii. 16.[11] Sometimes the observance of such fasts extended over a considerable period of time, during which, of course, the stricter _jejunium_ was conjoined with _abstinentia_ (Dan. x. 2). Sometimes they lasted only for a day. In Jonah iii. 6, 7, we have an illustrative example of the rigour with which a strict fast might be observed; and such passages as Joel ii. and Isa. lviii. 5 enable us to picture with some vividness the outward accompaniments of a Jewish fast day before the exile.

During the exile many occasional fasts were doubtless observed by the scattered communities, in sorrowful commemoration of the various sad events which had issued in the downfall of the kingdom of Judah. Of these, four appear to have passed into general use--the fasts of the 10th, 4th, 5th and 7th months--commemorating the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem, the capture of the city, the destruction of the temple, the assassination of Gedaliah. As time rolled on they became invested with increasing sanctity; and though the prophet Zechariah, when consulted about them at the close of the exile (Zech. viii. 19), had by no means encouraged the observance of them, the rebuilding of the temple does not appear to have been considered an achievement of sufficient importance to warrant their discontinuance. It is worthy of remark that Ezekiel's prophetic legislation contains no reference to any fast day; the book of Esther (ix. 31), on the other hand, records the institution of a new fast on the 13th of the 12th month.

In the post-exile period private fasting was much practised by the pious, and encouraged by the religious sentiment of the time (see Judith viii. 6; Tob. xii. 8, and context; Sirach xxxiv. 26, Luke ii. 37 and xviii. 12). The last reference contains an allusion to the weekly fasts which were observed on the 2nd and 5th days of each week, in commemoration, it was said, of the ascent and descent of Moses at Sinai. The real origin of these fasts and the date of their introduction are alike uncertain; it is manifest, however, that the observance of them was voluntary, and never made a matter of universal obligation. It is probable that the Sadducees, if not also the Essenes, wholly neglected them. The second book (_Seder Moed_) of the Mishna contains two tractates bearing upon the subject of fasting. One (_Yoma_, "the day") deals exclusively with the rites which were to be observed on the great day of expiation or atonement the other (_Taanith_, "fast") is devoted to the other fasts, and deals especially with the manner in which occasional fasting is to be gone about if no rain shall have fallen on or before the 17th day of Marcheschwan. It is enacted that in such a case the rabbis shall begin with a light fast of three days (Monday, Thursday, Monday), i.e. a fast during which it is lawful to work, and also to wash and anoint the person. Then, in the event of a continued drought, fasts of increasing intensity are ordered; and as a last resort the ark is to be brought into the street and sprinkled with ashes, the heads of the Nasi and Ab-beth-din being at the same time similarly sprinkled.[12] In no case was any fast to be allowed to interfere with new-moon or other fixed festival. Another institution treated with considerable fulness in the treatise _Taanith_ is that of the [Hebrew: anshei maamad] (_viri stationis_), who are represented as having been laymen severally representing the twenty-four classes or families into which the whole commonwealth of the laity was divided. They used to attend the temple in rotation, and be present at the sacrifices; and as this duty fell to each in his turn, the men of the class or family which he represented were expected in their several cities and places of abode to engage themselves in religious exercises, and especially in fasting. The suggestion will readily occur that here may be the origin of the Christian _stationes_. But neither Tertullian nor any other of the fathers seems to have been aware of the existence of any such institution among the Jews; and very probably the story about it may have been a comparatively late invention. It ought to be borne in mind that the Aramaic portion of the _Megillath Taanith_ (a document considerably older than the treatises in the Mishna) gives a catalogue only of the days on which fasting was forbidden. The Hebrew part (commented on by Maimonides), in which numerous fasts are recommended, is of considerably later date. See Reland, _Antiq. Hebr._ p. iv. c. 10; Derenbourg, _Hist. de Palestine_, p. 439.

_Practice of the Early Christian Church._--Jesus Himself did not inculcate asceticism in His teaching, and the absence of that distinctive element from His practice was sometimes a subject of hostile remark (Matt. xi. 19). We read, indeed, that on one occasion He fasted forty days and forty nights; but the expression, which is an obscure one, possibly means nothing more than that He endured the privations ordinarily involved in a stay in the wilderness. While we have no reason to doubt that He observed the one great national fast prescribed in the written law of Moses, we have express notice that neither He nor His disciples were in the habit of observing the other fasts which custom and tradition had established. See Mark ii. 18, where the correct reading appears to be--"The disciples of John, and the Pharisees, were fasting" (some customary fast). He never formally forbade fasting, but neither did He ever enjoin it. He assumed that, in certain circumstances of sorrow and need, the fasting instinct would sometimes be felt by the community and the individual; what He was chiefly concerned about was to warn His followers against the mistaken aims which His contemporaries were so apt to contemplate in their fasting (Matt. vi. 16-18). In one passage, indeed, He has been understood as practically commanding resort to the practice in certain circumstances. It ought to be noted, however, that Matt. xvii. 21 is probably spurious; and that in Mark ix. 29 the words "and fasting" are omitted by Westcott and Hort as well as by Tischendorf on the evidence of the Cod. Sinaiticus (first hand) and Cod. Vaticanus.[13] The reference to "the fast" in Acts xxvii. 9 has generally been held to indicate that the apostles continued to observe the yearly Jewish fast. But this inference is by no means a necessary one. According to Acts xiii. 2, 3, xiv. 23, they conjoined fasting with prayer at ordinations, and doubtless also on some other solemn occasions; but at the same time the liberty of the Christian "in respect of an holiday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath" was strongly insisted on, by one of them at least, who declared that meat whether taken or abstained from commendeth not to God (Col. ii. 16-23; 1 Cor. viii. 8; Rom. xiv. 14-22; 1 Tim. iv. 3-5). The fastings to which the apostle Paul alludes in 2 Cor. vi. 5, xi. 27, were rather of the nature of inevitable hardships cheerfully endured in the discharge of his sacred calling. The words which appear to encourage fasting in 1 Cor. vii. 5 are absent from all the oldest manuscripts and are now omitted by all critics;[14] and on the whole the precept and practice of the New Testament, while recognizing the propriety of occasional and extraordinary fasts, seem to be decidedly hostile to the imposition of any of a stated, obligatory and general kind.

The usage of the Christian church during the earlier centuries was in this, as in so many other matters, influenced by traditional Jewish feeling, and by the force of old habit, quite as much as by any direct apostolic authority or supposed divine command. Habitual temperance was of course in all cases regarded as an absolute duty; and "the bridegroom" being absent, the present life was regarded as being in a sense one continual "fast." Fasting in the stricter sense was not unknown; but it is certain that it did not at first occupy nearly so prominent a place in Christian ritual as that to which it afterwards attained. There are early traces of the customary observance of the Wednesday and Friday fasts--the _dies stationum_ (Clem. Alex. _Strom._ vii. 877), and also of a "quadragesimal" fast before Easter. But the very passage which proves the early origin of "quadragesima," conclusively shows how uncertain it was in its character, and how unlike the Catholic "Lent." Irenaeus, quoted by Eusebius (v. 24), informs us with reference to the customary yearly celebration of the mystery of the resurrection of our Lord, that disputes prevailed not only with respect to the day, but also with respect to the manner of fasting in connexion with it. "For some think that they ought to fast only one day, some two, some more days; some compute their day as consisting of _forty hours_ night and day; and this diversity existing among those that observe it is not a matter that has just sprung up in our times, but long ago among those before us." It was not pretended that the apostles had legislated on the matter, but the general and natural feeling that the anniversaries of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ ought to be celebrated by Christians took expression in a variety of ways according to the differing tastes of individuals. No other stated fasts, besides those already mentioned, can be adduced from the time before Irenaeus; but there was also a tendency--not unnatural in itself, and already sanctioned by Jewish practice--to fast by way of preparation for any season of peculiar privilege. Thus, according to Justin Martyr (_Apol._ ii. 93), catechumens were accustomed to fast before baptism, and the church fasted with them. To the same feeling the quadragesimal fast which (as already stated) preceded the joyful feast of the resurrection, is to be, in part at least, attributed. As early as the time of Tertullian it was also usual for communicants to prepare themselves by fasting for receiving the eucharist. But that Christian fasts had not yet attained to the exaggerated importance which they afterwards assumed is strikingly shown in the well-known _Shepherd of Hermas_ (lib. iii. sim. v.), where it is declared that "with merely outward fasting nothing is done for true virtue"; the believer is exhorted chiefly to abstain from evil and seek to cleanse himself from feelings of covetousness, and impurity, and revenge: "on the day that thou fastest content thyself with bread, vegetables and water, and thank God for these. But reckon up on this day what thy meal would otherwise have cost thee, and give the amount that it comes to to some poor widow or orphan, or to the poor." The right of bishops to ordain special fasts, "ex aliqua sollicitudinis ecclesiasticae causa" (Tertullian), was also recognized.