The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 151

CYRIL OF JERUSALEM, ST., patriarch of Jerusalem, elected 351, and a Father of the Greek Church; in the Arian controversy then raging was a Semi-Arian, and was persecuted by the strict Arians; joined the Nicene party at the Council of Constantinople in 381; was an instructor in church doctrine to the common people by his catechisms (315-386).

Festival, March 18.

CYROPaeDIA, a work by Xenophon, being an idealistic account of the "education of Cyrus the Great."

CYRUS, surnamed the GREAT, or the ELDER, the founder of the Persian empire; began his conquests by overthrowing his grandfather Astyages, king of the Medes; subdued Croesus, king of Lydia; laid siege to Babylon and took it, and finished by being master of all Western Asia; was a prince of great energy and generosity, and left the nations he subjected and rendered tributary free in the observances of their religions and the maintenance of their inst.i.tutions; this is the story of the historians, but it has since been considerably modified by study of the ancient monuments (560-529 B.C.).

CYRUS, surnamed the YOUNGER, second son of Darius II.; conspired against his brother Artaxerxes Mnemon, was sentenced to death, pardoned, and restored to his satrapy in Asia Minor; conspired anew, raised a large army, including Greek mercenaries, marched against his brother, and was slain at Cunaxa, of which last enterprise and its fate an account is given in the "Anabasis" of Xenophon; _d_. 401 B.C.

CYTHERA, the ancient name of Cerigo; had a magnificent temple to Venus, who was hence called Cytheraea.

CZARTORYSKI, a Polish prince, born at Warsaw; pa.s.sed his early years in England; studied at Edinburgh University; fought under Kosciusko against the Russians, and was for some time a hostage in Russia; gained favour at the Court there, and even a high post in the State; in 1830 threw himself into the revolutionary movement, and devoted all his energies to the service of his country, becoming head of the government; on the suppression of the revolution his estates were confiscated; he escaped to Paris, and spent his old age there, dying at 90 (1770-1861).

CZECHS, a branch of the Slavonic family that in the later half of the 6th century settled in Bohemia; have a language of their own, spoken also in Moravia and part of Hungary.

CZERNO'WITZ (54), the capital of the Austrian province of Bukowina, on the Pruth.

CZERNY, CHARLES, a musical composer and pianist, born at Vienna; had Liszt and Thalberg for pupils (1791-1857).

CZERNY, GEORGE, leader of the Servians in their insurrection against the Turks; a.s.sisted by Russia carried all before him; when that help was withdrawn the Turks gained the advantage, and he had to flee; returning after the independence of Servia was secured, he was murdered at the instigation of Prince Milosch (1766-1817).

D

DACCA (82), a city 150 m. NE. of Calcutta, on a branch of the Brahmaputra, once the capital of Bengal, and a centre of Mohammedanism; famous at one time for its muslins; the remains of its former grandeur are found scattered up and down the environs and half buried in the jungle; it is also the name of a district (2,420), well watered, both for cultivation and commerce.

DACIA, a Roman province, N. of the Danube and S. of the Carpathians.

DACIER, ANDRe, a French scholar and critic, born at Castres, in Languedoc; a.s.sisted by his wife, executed translations of various cla.s.sics, and produced an edition of them known as the "Delphin Edition"

(1651-1722).

DACIER, MADAME, distinguished h.e.l.lenist and Latinist, wife of the preceding, born in Saumur (1651-1720).

DACOITS, gangs of semi-savage Indian brigands and robbers, often 40 or 50 in a gang.

DA COSTA, ISAAC, a Dutch poet, born at Amsterdam, of Jewish parents; turned Christian, and after the death of Bilderdijk was chief poet of Holland (1798-1860).

DaeDALUS, an architect and mechanician in the Greek mythology; inventor and constructor of the Labyrinth of Crete, in which the Minotaur was confined, and in which he was also imprisoned himself by order of Minos, a confinement from which he escaped by means of wings fastened on with wax; was regarded as the inventor of the mechanic arts.

DAGHESTAN (529), a Russian province W. of the Caspian Sea, traversed by spurs of the Caucasus Mountains; chief town Derbend.

DAGO, a marshy Russian island, N. of the Gulf of Riga, near the entrance of the Gulf of Finland.

DAGOBERT I., king of the Franks, son of Clotaire II., reformed the laws of the Franks; was the last of the Merovingian kings who knew how to rule with a firm hand; the sovereign power as it pa.s.sed from his hands was seized by the mayor of the palace; _d_. 638.

DAGON, the national G.o.d of the Philistines, represented as half-man, sometimes half-woman, and half-fish; appears to have been a symbol to his wors.h.i.+ppers of the fertilising power of nature, familiar to them in the fruitfulness of the sea.

DAGUERREOTYPE, a process named after its inventor, Louis Daguerre, a Frenchman, of producing pictures by means of the camera on a surface sensitive to light and shade, and interesting as the first step in photography.

DAHL, a Norwegian landscape-painter, born at Bergen; died professor of Painting at Dresden (1788-1857).

DAHLGREN, JOHN ADOLPH, a U.S. naval officer and commander; invented a small heavy gun named after him; commanded the blockading squadron at Charleston (1809-1870).

DAHLMANN, FRIEDRICH CHRISTOPH, a German historian and politician, born at Wismar; was in favour of const.i.tutional government; wrote a "History of Denmark," "Histories of the French Revolution and of the English Revolution"; left an unfinished "History of Frederick the Great"

(1785-1860).

DAHN, FELIX, a German jurist, historian, novelist, and poet, born in Hamburg; a man of versatile ability and extensive learning; became professor of German jurisprudence at Konigsberg; _b_. 1834.

DAHNA DESERT, the central division of the Arabian Desert.

DAHOMEY (150), a negro kingdom of undefined limits, and under French protectorate, in W. Africa, N. of the Slave Coast; the religious rites of the natives are sanguinary, they offer human victims in sacrifice; is an agricultural country, yields palm-oil and gold dust, and once a great centre of the slave-trade.

DARI, the Mikado's palace or his court, and sometimes the Mikado himself.

DAKO'TA, NORTH and SOUTH (400), three times as large as England, forming two States of the American Union; consist of prairie land, and extend N. from Nebraska as far as Canada, traversed by the Missouri; yield cereals, especially wheat, and raise cattle.