BASSUS, CASSIANUS, called Scholasticus (lawyer), one of the geoponici or writers on agricultural subjects. He lived at the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 7th century A.D. He compiled from earlier writers a collection of agricultural literature (Geoponica) which was afterwards revised by an unknown editor and published about the year 950, in the reign of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, to whom the work itself has been ascribed. It contains a full list of the authorities drawn upon, and the subjects treated include agriculture, birds, bees, horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, fishes and the like.
Complete Editions.—Needham (1704), Niclas (1781), Beckh (1895); see also Gemoll in Berliner Studien, i. (1884); Oder in Rheinisches Museum, xlv. (1890), xlviii. (1893), and De Raynal in Annuaire de l’Assoc. pour l’Encouragement des Études Grecques, viii. (1874).
BASSUS, SALEIUS, Roman epic poet, a contemporary of Valerius Flaccus, in the reign of Vespasian. Quintilian credits him with a vigorous and poetical genius (Instit, x. 1. 90) and Julius Secundus, one of the speakers in Tacitus Dialogus de Oratoribus (5; see also 9) styles him a perfect poet and most illustrious bard. He was apparently overtaken by poverty, but was generously treated by Vespasian, who made him a present of 500,000 sesterces. Nothing from his works has been preserved; the Laus Pisonis, which has been attributed to him, is probably by Titus Calpurnius Siculus (J. Held, De Saleio Basso. 1834).
BASSVILLE, or Basseville, NICOLAS JEAN HUGON DE (d. 1793), French journalist and diplomatist, was born at Abbeville on the 7th of February 1753. He was trained for the priesthood, taught theology in a provincial seminary and then went to Paris. Here in 1784 he published Éléments de mythologie and some poems, which brought him into notice. On the recommendation of the prince of Condé he became tutor to two young Americans travelling in Europe. With them he visited Berlin, made the acquaintance there of Mirabeau, and became a member of the Berlin Academy Royal. At the outbreak of the Revolution he turned to journalism, becoming editor of the Mercure international. Then, through the Girondist minister Lebrun-Tondu, he entered the diplomatic service, went in May, 1792, as secretary of legation to Naples and was shortly afterwards sent, without official status, to Rome. Here his conduct was anything but diplomatic. He at once announced himself as the protector of the extreme Jacobins in Rome, demanded the expulsion of the French émigrés who had taken refuge there, including the “demoiselles Capet,” and ordered the fleur-de-lys on the escutcheon of the French embassy to be replaced by a picture of Liberty painted by a French art student. He talked at large of the “purple geese of the Capitol” and met the remonstrances of Cardinal Zelada, the papal secretary of state, with insults. This enraged the Roman populace; a riot broke out on the 13th of January 1793, and Bassville, who was driving with his family to the Corso, was dragged from his carriage and so roughly handled that he died. The affair was magnified in the Convention into a deliberate murder of the “representative of the Republic” by the pope’s orders. In 1797 by an article of the treaty of Tolentino the papal government agreed to pay compensation to Bassville’s family. Among his writings we may also mention Mémoires historiques, critiques el politiques sur la Révolution de France (Paris 1790; English trans. London, 1790).
See F. Masson, Les Diplomates de la Révolution (Paris, 1882); Silvagni, La Carte e la Società romana nei secoli XVIII. e XIX. (Florence, 1881).
BASTAR, a feudatory state of British India, in the Chattisgarh division of the Central Provinces; area, 13,062 sq. m. In 1901 the population was 306,501, showing a decrease of 1% compared with an apparent increase of 58% in the preceding decade. Estimated revenue £22,000; tribute £1100. The eastern part of Bastar is a flat elevated plateau, from 1800 to 2000 ft. above the level of the sea, the centre and N.W. portions are very mountainous, and the southern parts consist of hills and plains. On the plateau there are but few hills; the streams run slowly and the country is a mixture of plain and undulating ground covered by dense sál forests. Principal mountains of the district: (1) a lofty range which separates it from the Sironcha district; (2) a range of equal height called the Bela Dila lying in the centre of the district; (3) a range running N. and S. near Narayanpur; (4) Tangri Dongri range, running E. and W.; (5) Tulsi Dongri, bordering on the Sabari river and the Jaipur state. There is also a small range running from the river Indravati to the Godavari. The Indravati, the Sabari and the Tal or Talper, are the chief rivers of the district; all of them affluents of the Godavari. The soil throughout the greater portion of Bastar consists of light clay, with an admixture of sand, suited for raising rice and wet crops. In the jungles the Marias, who are among the aboriginal tribes of Gond origin, raise kosra (Panicum italicum) and other inferior grains. Aboriginal races generally follow the migratory system of tillage, clearing the jungle on selected patches, and after taking crops for two or three years abandoning them for new ground. They do not use the plough; nor do they possess buffaloes, bullocks or cows; their only agricultural implement is a long-handled iron hoe. They are a timid, quiet, docile race, and although addicted to drinking not quarrelsome. They inhabit the densest jungles and are very shy, avoiding contact with strangers, and flying to the hills on the least alarm; but they bear a good character for honesty and truthfulness. They are very scantily dressed, wear a variety of trinkets, with a knife, hatchet, spear, bow and arrows, the only weapons they use. Their hair is generally shaved, excepting a topknot; and when not shaved it gets into a matted, tangled mass, gathered into a knot behind or on the crown. The Marias and the Jhurias are supposed to be a subdivision of the true Gond family. All the aboriginal tribes of Bastar worship the deities of the Hindu pantheon along with their own national goddess Danteswari.
Bastar is divided into two portions—that held by the Raja or chief himself, and that possessed by feudatory chiefs under him. The climate is unhealthy—fever, smallpox, dysentery and rheumatism being the prevailing diseases. Jagdalpur, Bijapur, Madder and Bhupalpatnam are the only places of any note in the dependency, the first (on the Indravati river) being the residence of the raja and the chief people of the state. The principal products are rice, oil-seeds, lac, tussur silk, horns, hides, wax and a little iron. Teak timber is floated down the rivers to the Madras coast. A good road has brought Jagdalpur into connexion with the railway at Raipur.