Eu´gubine Tables, the name given to seven bronze tablets or tables found in 1444 at the town of Gubbio, the ancient Iguvium or Eugubium, now in the Italian province of Perugia, bearing inscriptions in the language of the ancient Umbrians, which seems to have somewhat resembled the ancient Latin as well as the Oscan. They seem to have been inscribed three or four centuries B.C., and refer to sacrificial usages and ritual.
Euhem´erism, a method or system (so named from its founder Euhemerus, a Greek philosopher) of interpreting myths and mythological deities, by which they are regarded as deifications of dead heroes and poetical exaggerations of real histories.
Eulenspiegel (oi´len-spē-gl), Till, a name which has become associated in Germany with all sorts of wild, whimsical frolics, and with many amusing stories. Some such popular hero of tradition and folk-lore seems to have really existed in Germany, probably in the first half of the fourteenth century, and a collection of popular tales of a frolicsome character, originally written in Low German, purports to contain his adventures. The earliest edition of such is a Strasbourg one of the year 1515 in the British Museum. Better known, however, is that of 1519, published also at Strasbourg by Thomas Mürner (under the title Howle-glass). The work was early translated into English and almost all European tongues. A modern English translation appeared in 1890.
Euler (oi´lėr or ü´lėr), Leonard, a distinguished mathematician, born at Basel in 1707, died at St. Petersburg (Petrograd) in 1783. He was educated at the University of Basel under the Bernouillis, through whose influence he procured a place in the Academy of St. Petersburg. In 1741 he accepted an invitation from Frederick the Great to become professor of mathematics in the Berlin Academy, but in 1766 returned to St. Petersburg, where he became director of the mathematical class of the academy. Euler's profound and inventive mind gave a new form to the science. He applied the analytic method to mechanics, and greatly improved the integral and differential calculus. He also wrote on physics, and employed himself in metaphysical and philosophical speculations. Amongst his numerous writings are: the Theoria Motuum Planetarum et Cometarum, Introductio in Analysin Infinitorum, and Opuscula Analytica.
Eu´menes (-nēz), the name of two kings of Pergamus.—1. Eumenes I succeeded his uncle Philetærus 263 B.C. He reigned for twenty-two years, and then died in a fit of drunkenness.—2. Eumenes II succeeded his father Attalus 197 B.C., and, like him, attached himself to the Romans, who, as a reward for his services in the war against Antiochus of Syria, bestowed upon him the Thracian Chersonesus and almost all Asia on this side of the Taurus. He died in 159 B.C.
Eumenides (ū-men´i-dēz). See Furies.
Eumycetes, or Higher Fungi, a common name for those Fungi which possess a septate mycelium. They also have a well-marked type of 'principal' spore—either the ascospore (Ascomycetes) or the basidiospore (Basidiomycetes)—and rarely produce definite sexual organs. Opposed to Phycomycetes.
Eunomians, the followers of Eunomius, Bishop of Cyzicum, in the fourth century A.D., who held that Christ was a created being of a nature unlike that of the Father.
Eu´nuch, an emasculated male. The term is of Greek origin (eunouchos, from eunē, a couch or bed, echein, to hold or guard); but eunuchs became known to the Greeks no doubt from the practice among Eastern nations of having them as guardians of their women's apartments. Eunuchs were employed in somewhat similar duties among the Romans in the luxurious times of the empire, and under the Byzantine monarchs they were common. The Mohammedans still have them about their harems. Emasculation, when effected in early life, produces singular changes in males and assimilates them in some respects to women, causing them in particular to have the voice of a female. Hence it was not uncommon in Italy to castrate boys in order to fit them for soprano singers when adults.