CENTURION (Lat. centurio), in the ancient Roman army, an officer in command of a centuria, originally a body of a hundred infantry, later the sixtieth part of the normal legion. There were therefore in the legion sixty centurions, who, though theoretically subordinate to the six military tribunes, were the actual working officers of the legion. For the most part the centurions were promoted from the ranks: they were arranged in a complicated order of seniority; the senior centurion of the legion (primus pilus) was an officer of very high importance. Besides commanding the centuries of the legion, centurions were “seconded” for various kinds of special service, e.g. for staff employment, the command of auxiliaries. See further [Roman Army].
CENTURIPE (formerly Centorbi, anc. Κεντόριπα or Centuripae), a town of Sicily, in the province of Catania, situated 2380 ft. above sea-level in a commanding situation, 7 m. N. of the railway station of Catenanuova-Centuripe, which is 28 m. W. from Catania. Pop. (1901) 11,311. Thucydides mentions it as a city of the Sicels. It became an ally of the Athenians at the time of their expedition against Syracuse, and maintained its independence almost uninterruptedly (though it fell under the power of Agathocles) until the First Punic War. Cicero describes it, perhaps with some exaggeration, as being far the largest and richest city of Sicily, and as having a population of 10,000, engaged in the cultivation of an extensive territory. It was granted Latin rights before the rest of Sicily. It appears to have suffered much in the war against Sextus Pompeius, and not to have regained its former prosperity under the empire. Frederick II. entirely destroyed it in 1233, but it was soon rebuilt. Considerable remains of the ancient city walls and of buildings, mostly of the Roman period, still exist, and numerous antiquities, including some fine Hellenistic terra-cottas, have been discovered in casual excavations.
See F. Ansaldi, I Monumenti dell’ antica Centuripi (Catania, 1851); P. Orsi in Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche (Rome, 1904), v. 177.
(T. As.)
CENTURY (from Lat. centuria, a division of a hundred men), the name for a unit in the Roman army, originally amounting to one hundred men, and for one of the divisions into which the Roman people was separated for voting purposes (see [Comitia]). The word is applied to any group of one hundred, and more particularly to a period of a hundred years, and to the successive periods of a hundred years, dating before or after the birth of Christ. The “Century-plant” is a name given to the Agave (q.v.), or American aloe, from the supposition that it flowered once only in every hundred years.
CEOS (Gr. Κέως, mod. Zea or Tzia), an island in the Aegean Sea, belonging to the group of the Cyclades and the eparchy of Syra, 14 m. off the coast of Attica. Its greatest length is about 15 m. and its breadth about 8 m. It rises gradually towards the centre, where it culminates in Mount Elias, 1864 ft. high. Among its natural productions are lemons, citrons, olives, wine and honey; it also exports a considerable quantity of valonia. There were formerly four towns of some importance in the island:—Iulis, about 3 m. from the north-west shore; Coressia, the harbour of Iulis, with a temple of Apollo Smintheus in the neighbourhood; Carthaea, in the south-east, with a temple of Apollo; and Poieëssa, in the south-west. Of these Iulis is represented by the town of Zea, and Carthaea by the village of ’S tais Polais; traces of the other two can still be made out. Iulis was the birthplace of the lyric poets Simonides and Bacchylides, the philosophers Prodicus and Ariston, and the physician Erasistratus; the excellence of its laws was so generally recognized that the title of Cean Laws passed into a proverb. One of them forbade a citizen to protract his life beyond sixty years. The people of Ceos fought on the Greek side at Artemisium and Salamis; they joined the Delian League and also the later Athenian alliance in 377 b.c. They revolted in 363-362, but were reduced again, and the Athenians established a monopoly of the ruddle, or red earth, which was one of the most valuable products of the island. In a.d. 1207 it was divided between four Italian adventurers; after forming part of the duchy of Naxos in 1537, it passed under Turkish rule in 1566. Silver coins of Carthaea and Coressia have been found dating from the 6th century b.c. (see [Numismatics]: Greek, “Cyclades and Sporades”). The present population of the island is about 4000, of which the capital has about 2000.
See Pridik, De Cei Insulae rebus (1892).