When it became evident that, under present conditions at least, the navigation of the middle Euphrates was impracticable, attention was turned, owing to the peculiarly advantageous geographical position of its valley, to schemes for connecting the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf by railway as an alternative means of communication with India, and various surveys were made for this purpose and various routes laid out. All these schemes, however, fell through either on the financial question, or on the unwillingness of the Turkish government to sanction any line not connected directly with Constantinople. With the acquisition of the Suez Canal, moreover, the value of this route from the British standpoint was so greatly diminished that the scheme, so far as England was concerned, was quite abandoned. (For further notice of the railway question see [Bagdad].)
Bibliography.—Gen. F.R. Chesney, Euphrates Expedition (1850); W.F. Ainsworth, Researches in Assyria and Babylonia (1838), and Personal Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition (1888); A.H. Layard, Nineveh and Babylon (1853); W.K. Loftus, Chaldaea and Susiana (1857); Geo. Rawlinson, Herodotus, bk. 1, essay ix. (1862); A. Blunt, Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates (1873); Josef Černik, Studien-Expedition (1873); H. Kiepert, Ruinenfelder Babyloniens (1883); Ed. Sachau, Reise in Syrien u. Mesopotamien (1883), and Am Euphrat u. Tigris (1900); Guy Le Strange, “Description of Mesopotamia,” in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1895), and Baghdad under the Abbasid Caliphate (1901); J.P. Peters, Nippur (1897); M. v. Oppenheim, Vom Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf (1900); H.V. Geere, By Nile and Euphrates (1904); Baedeker, Palestine and Syria (1906); Murray, Handbook to Asia Minor, &c., section iii.
(H. C. R.; C. W. W.; J. P. Pe.)
[1] The confluence for about 500 years was at Korna, over 30 m. higher up. Sir W. Willcocks discovered (1909) that from Suk-esh-Sheiukh the Euphrates had formed a new channel through the marshes. (See Geog. Journal, Jan. 1910).
EUPHRONIUS, the most noted of the group of great vase-painters, who lived in Athens in the time of the Persian wars, and worked upon red-figured vases (see [Greek Art] and [Ceramics]). There is a monograph by W. Klein dealing with the artist. As all the great paintings of Greece have disappeared, we are obliged to trust to the designs on vases for our knowledge of Greek drawing and composition. Euphronius is stiff and archaic in style, but his subjects are varied, his groupings original and striking, and his mastery of the line decided. In their way, the vases which he painted will hold their own in comparison with those of any nation; for simplicity, truthfulness and charm they can scarcely be matched.
EUPHROSYNE, the name of two Byzantine empresses.
1. Euphrosyne, a daughter of Constantine VI. Although she had taken a monastic vow she became the second wife of Michael II. (q.v.), a marriage which was practically forced upon her by Michael, who was anxious to strengthen his claims to the throne by an alliance with the last representative of the Isaurian dynasty, and secured the compliance of senate and patriarch with his desire. No issue was born of this union, and after the death of her husband and accession of her stepson Theophilus Euphrosyne again retired into a convent.