GNATHOPODA, a term in zoological classification, suggested as an alternative name for the group Arthropoda (q.v.). The word, which means “jaw-footed,” refers to the fact that in the members of the group, some of the lateral appendages or “feet” in the region of the mouth act as jaws.
GNATIA (also Egnatia or Ignatia, mod. Anazzo, near Fasano), an ancient city of the Peucetii, and their frontier town towards the Sallentini (i.e. of Apulia towards Calabria), in Roman times of importance for its trade, lying as it did on the sea, at the point where the Via Traiana joined the coast road,[1] 38 m. S.E. of Barium. The ancient city walls have been almost entirely destroyed in recent times to provide building material,[2] and the place is famous for the discoveries made in its tombs. A considerable collection of antiquities from Gnatia is preserved at Fasano, though the best are in the museum at Bari. Gnatia was the scene of the prodigy at which Horace mocks (Sat. i. 5. 97). Near Fasano are two small subterranean chapels with paintings of the 11th century A.D. (E. Bertaux, L’Art dans l’Italie méridionale, Paris, 1904, 135).
(T. As.)
[1] There is no authority for calling the latter Via Egnatia.
[2] H. Swinburne, Travels in the Two Sicilies (London, 1790), ii. 15, mentions the walls as being 8 yds. thick and 16 courses high.
GNEISENAU, AUGUST WILHELM ANTON, Count Neithardt von (1760-1831), Prussian field marshal, was the son of a Saxon officer named Neithardt. Born in 1760 at Schildau, near Torgau, he was brought up in great poverty there, and subsequently at Würzburg and Erfurt. In 1777 he entered Erfurt university; but two years later joined an Austrian regiment there quartered. In 1782 taking the additional name of Gneisenau from some lost estates of his family in Austria, he entered as an officer the service of the margrave of Baireuth-Anspach. With one of that prince’s mercenary regiments in English pay he saw active service and gained valuable experience in the War of American Independence, and returning in 1786, applied for Prussian service. Frederick the Great gave him a commission as first lieutenant in the infantry. Made Stabskapitän in 1790, Gneisenau served in Poland, 1793-1794, and, subsequently to this, ten years of quiet garrison life in Jauer enabled him to undertake a wide range of military studies. In 1796 he married Caroline von Kottwitz. In 1806 he was one of Hohenlohe’s staff-officers, fought at Jena, and a little later commanded a provisional infantry brigade which fought under Lestocq in the Lithuanian campaign. Early in 1807 Major von Gneisenau was sent as commandant to Colberg, which, small and ill-protected as it was, succeeded in holding out until the peace of Tilsit. The commandant received the much-prized order “pour le mérite,” and was promoted lieutenant-colonel.