CERDONIANS, a Gnostic sect, founded by Cerdo, a Syrian, who came to Rome about 137, but concerning whose history little is known. They held that there are two first causes—the perfectly good and the perfectly evil. The latter is also the creator of the world, the god of the Jews, and the author of the Old Testament. Jesus Christ is the son of the good deity; he was sent into the world to oppose the evil; but his incarnation, and therefore his sufferings, were a mere appearance. Regarding the body as the work of the evil deity, the Cerdonians formed a moral system of great severity, prohibiting marriage, wine and the eating of flesh, and advocating fasting and other austerities. Most of what the Fathers narrate of Cerdo’s tenets has probably been transferred to him from his famous pupil Marcion, like whom he is said to have rejected the Old Testament and the New, except part of Luke’s Gospel and of Paul’s Epistles. (See [Marcion], and [Gnosticism].)
CEREALIS (Cerialis), PETILLIUS (1st century A.D.), Roman general, a near relative of the emperor Vespasian. He is first heard of during the reign of Nero in Britain, where he was completely defeated (A.D. 61) by Boadicea. Eight years later he played an important part in the capture of Rome by the supporters of Vespasian. In 70 he put down the revolt of Civilis (q.v.). In 71, as governor of Britain, where he had as a subordinate the famous Agricola, he inflicted severe defeats upon the Brigantes, the most powerful of the tribes of Britain. Tacitus says that he was a bold soldier rather than a careful general, and preferred to stake everything on the issue of a single engagement. He possessed natural eloquence of a kind that readily appealed to his soldiers. His loyalty towards his superiors was unshakable.
Tacitus, Annals, xiv. 32; Histories, iii. 59, 78, iv. 71, 75, 86, v. 21; Agricola, 8, 17.
CERES, an old Italian goddess of agriculture. The name probably means the “creator” or “created,” connected with crescere and creare. But when Greek deities were introduced into Rome on the advice of the Sibylline books (in 495 B.C., on the occasion of a severe drought), Demeter, the Greek goddess of seed and harvest, whose worship was already common in Sicily and Lower Italy, usurped the place of Ceres in Rome, or rather, to Ceres were added the religious rites which the Greeks paid to Demeter, and the mythological incidents which originated with her. At the same time the cult of Dionysus and Persephone (see [Liber and Libera]) was introduced. The rites of Ceres were Greek in language and form. Her priestesses were Italian Greeks and her temple was Greek in its architecture and built by Greek artists. She was worshipped almost exclusively by plebeians, and her temple near the Circus Maximus was under the care of the plebeian aediles, one of whose duties was the superintendence of the corn-market. Her chief festivals were the ludi Cereris or Cerealia (more correctly, Cerialia), games held annually from April 12-19 (Ovid, Fasti, iv. 392 ff.); a second festival, in August, to celebrate the reunion of Ceres and Proserpine, in which women, dressed in white, after a fast of nine days offered the goddess the first-fruits of the harvest (Livy xxii. 56); and the Jejunium Cereris, a fast also introduced (191 B.C.) by command of the Sibylline books (Livy xxvi. 37), at first held only every four years, then annually on the 4th of October. In later times Ceres was confused with Tellus. (See also [Demeter].)
CERIGNOLA, a town of Apulia, Italy, in the province of Foggia, 26 m. S.E. by rail from the town of Foggia. Pop. (1901) 34,195. It was rebuilt after a great earthquake in 1731, and has a considerable agricultural trade. In 1503 the Spaniards under Gonzalo de Cordoba defeated the French under the duc de Nemours below the town—a victory which made the kingdom of Naples into a Spanish province in Italy. Cerignola occupies the site of Furfane, a station on the Via Traiana between Canusium and Herdoniae.
CERIGOTTO, called locally Lius (anc. Aegilia or Ogylos; mod. Gr. officially Antikythera), an island of Greece, belonging to the Ionian group, and situated between Cythera (Cerigo) and Crete, about 20 m. from each. Some raised beaches testify to an upheaval in comparatively recent times. With an area of about 10 sq. m. it supports a population of about 300, who are mainly Cretan refugees, and in favourable seasons exports a quantity of good wheat. It was long a favourite resort of Greek pirates. It is famous for the discovery in 1900, close to its coast, of the wreck of an ancient ship with a cargo of bronze and marble statues.