[Tables, The Twelve], the tables of the Roman laws engraven on brass brought from Athens to Rome by the decemvirs.
[Tablets], name given to thin boards coated with wax and included in a frame for writing on with a stylus.
[Table-turning], movement of a table ascribed to the agency of spirits or some recondite spiritual force acting through the media of a circle of people standing round the edge touching it with their finger-tips in contact with those of the rest.
[Taboo] or Tabu, a solemn prohibition or interdict among the Polynesians under which a particular person or thing is pronounced inviolable, and so sacred, the violation of which entails malediction at the hands of the supernatural powers.
[Tabor, Mount], an isolated cone-shaped hill, 1000 ft. in height and clothed with olive-trees, on the NE. borders of [Esdraëlon] (q. v.), 7 m. E. of Nazareth. A tradition of the 2nd century identifies it as the scene of the Tranfiguration, and ruins of a church, built by the Crusaders to commemorate the event, crown the summit.
[Tabriz] (170), an ancient and still important commercial city of Persia, 320 m. SE. of Tiflis, 4500 ft. above sea-level; occupies an elevated site on the Aji, 40 m. E. of its entrance into Lake Urumiah; carries on a flourishing transit trade and has notable manufactures of leather, silk, and gold and silver ware; has been on several occasions visited by severe earthquakes.
[Tacitus, Cornelius], Roman historian, born presumably at Rome, of equestrian rank, early famous as an orator; married a daughter of Agricola, held office under the Emperors Vespasian, Domitian, and Nerva, and conducted along with the younger Pliny the prosecution of Marius Priscus; he is best known and most celebrated as a historian, and of writings extant the chief are his "Life of Agricola," his "Germania," his "Histories" and his "Annals"; his "Agricola" is admired as a model biography, while his "Histories" and "Annales" are distinguished for "their conciseness, their vigour, and the pregnancy of meaning; a single word sometimes gives effect to a whole sentence, and if the meaning of the word is missed, the sense of the writer is not reached"; his great power lies in his insight into character and the construing of motives, but the picture he draws of imperial Rome is revolting; b. about A.D. 54.
[Tacna] (14), capital of a province (32) in North Chile, 38 m. N. of Arica, with which it is connected by rail; trades in wool and minerals; taken from Peru in 1883.
[Tacoma] (38), a flourishing manufacturing town and port of Washington State, on Puget Sound; has practically sprung into existence within the last 15 years, and is the outlet for the produce of a rich agricultural and mining district.
[Tadmor]. See [Palmyra.]