THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME VII SLICE IV
Coquelin to Costume

Articles in This Slice

COQUELIN, BENOÎT CONSTANT (1841-1909), French actor, known as Coquelin aîné, was born at Boulogne on the 23rd of January 1841. He was originally intended to follow his father’s trade of baker (he was once called un boulanger manqué by a hostile critic), but his love of acting led him to the Conservatoire, where he entered Regnier’s class in 1859. He won the first prize for comedy within a year, and made his début on the 7th of December 1860 at the Comédie Française as the comic valet, Gros-René, in Molière’s Dépit amoureux, but his first great success was as Figaro, in the following year. He was made sociétaire in 1864, and during the next twenty-two years he created at the Français the leading parts in forty-four new plays, including Théodore de Banville’s Gringoire (1867), Paul Ferrier’s Tabarin (1871), Émile Augier’s Paul Forestier (1871), L’Étrangère (1876) by the younger Dumas, Charles Lomon’s Jean Dacier (1877), Edward Pailleron’s Le Monde où l’on s’ennuie (1881), Erckmann and Chatrian’s Les Rantzau (1884). In consequence of a dispute with the authorities over the question of his right to make provincial tours in France he resigned in 1886. Three years later, however, the breach was healed; and after a successful series of tours in Europe and the United States he rejoined the Comédie Française as pensionnaire in 1890. It was during this period that he took the part of Labussière, in the production of Sardou’s’ Thermidor, which was interdicted by the government after three performances. In 1892 he broke definitely with the Comédie Française, and toured for some time through the capitals of Europe with a company of his own. In 1895 he joined the Renaissance theatre in Paris, and played there until he became director of the Porte Saint Martin in 1897. Here he won successes in Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac (1897), Émile Bergerat’s Plus que reine (1899), Catulle Mendès’ Scarron (1905), and Alfred Capus and Lucien Descaves’ L’Attentat (1906). In 1900 he toured in America with Sarah Bernhardt, and on their return continued with his old colleague to appear in L’Aiglon, at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt. He was rehearsing for the creation of the leading part in Rostand’s Chantecler, which he was to produce, when he died suddenly in Paris, on the 27th of January 1909. Coquelin was an Officier de l’Instruction Publique and of the Legion of Honour. He published L’Art et le comédien (1880), Molière et le misanthrope (1881), essays on Eugène Manuel (1881) and Sully-Prudhomme (1882), L’Arnolphe de Molière (1882), Les Comédiens (1882), L’Art de dire le monologue (with his brother, 1884), Tartuffe (1884), L’Art du comédien (1894).

His brother, Ernest Alexandre Honoré Coquelin (1848-1909), called Coquelin cadet, was born on the 16th of May 1848 at Boulogne, and entered the Conservatoire in 1864. He graduated with the first prize in comedy and made his début in 1867 at the Odéon. The next year he appeared with his brother at the Théâtre Francais and became a sociétaire in 1879. He played a great many parts, in both the classic and the modern répertoire, and also had much success in reciting monologues of his own composition. He wrote Le Livre des convalescents (1880), Le Monologue moderne (1881), Fairiboles (1882), Le Rire (1887), Pirouettes (1888). He died on the 8th of February 1909.

Jean Coquelin (1865-  ), son of Coquelin aîné, was also an actor, first at the Théâtre Francais (début, 1890), later at the Renaissance, and then at the Porte Saint Martin, where he created the part of Raigoné in Cyrano de Bergerac.

COQUEREL, ATHANASE JOSUÉ (1820-1875), French Protestant divine, son of A. L. C. Coquerel (q.v.), was born at Amsterdam on the 16th of June 1820. He studied theology at Geneva and at Strassburg, and at an early age succeeded his uncle, C. A. Coquerel, as editor of Le Lien, a post which he held till 1870. In 1852 he took part in establishing the Nouvelle Revue de théologie, the first periodical of scientific theology published in France, and in the same year helped to found the “Historical Society of French Protestantism.” Meanwhile he had gained a high reputation as a preacher, and especially as the advocate of religious freedom; but his teaching became more and more offensive to the orthodox party, and on the appearance (1864) of his article on Renan’s Vie de Jésus in the Nouvelle Revue de théologie he was forbidden by the Paris consistory to continue his ministerial functions. He received an address of sympathy from the consistory of Anduze, and a provision was voted for him by the Union Protestante Libérale, to enable him to continue his preaching. He received the cross of the Legion of Honour in 1862. He died at Fismes (Marne), on the 24th of July 1875. His chief works were Jean Calas et sa famille (1858); Des Beaux-Arts en Italie (Eng. trans. 1859); La Saint Barthélemy (1860); Précis de l’église réformée (1862); Le Catholicisme et le protestantisme considérés dans leur origine et leur développement (1864); Libres études, and La Conscience et la foi (1867).

COQUEREL, ATHANASE LAURENT CHARLES (1795-1868), French Protestant divine, was born in Paris on the 17th of August 1795. He received his early education from his aunt, Helen Maria Williams, an Englishwoman, who at the close of the 18th century gained a reputation by various translations and by her Letters from France. He completed his theological studies at the Protestant seminary of Montauban, and in 1816 was ordained minister. In 1817 he was invited to become pastor of the chapel of St Paul at Jersey, but he declined, being unwilling to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. During the following twelve years he resided in Holland, and preached before Calvinistic congregations at Amsterdam, Leiden and Utrecht. In 1830, at the suggestion of Baron Georges de Cuvier, then minister of Protestant worship, Coquerel was called to Paris as pastor of the Reformed Church. In the course of 1833 he was chosen a member of the consistory, and rapidly acquired the reputation of a great pulpit orator, but his liberal views brought him into antagonism with the rigid Calvinists. He took a warm interest in all matters of education, and distinguished himself so much by his defence of the university of Paris against a sharp attack, that in 1835 he was chosen a member of the consistory of the Legion of Honour. In 1841 appeared his Réponse to the Leben Jesu of Strauss. After the revolution of February 1848, Coquerel was elected a member of the National Assembly, where he sat as a moderate republican, subsequently becoming a member of the Legislative Assembly. He supported the first ministry of Louis Napoleon, and gave his vote in favour of the expedition to Rome and the restoration of the temporal power of the pope. After the coup d’état of the 2nd of December 1851, he confined himself to the duties of his pastorate. He was a prolific writer, as well as a popular and eloquent speaker. He died at Paris on the 10th of January 1868. A large collection of his sermons was published in 8 vols. between 1819 and 1852. Other works were Biographie sacrée (1825-1826); Histoire sainte et analyse de la Bible (1839); Orthodoxie moderne (1842); Christologie (1858), &c.

His brother, Charles Augustin Coquerel (1797-1851), was the author of a work on English literature (1828), an Essai sur l’histoire générale du christianisme (1828) and a Histoire des églises du désert, depuis la revocation de l’édit de Nantes (1841). A liberal in his views, he was the founder and editor of the Annales protestantes, Le Lien, and the Revue protestante.

COQUES (or Cocx), GONZALEZ (1614-1684), Flemish painter, son of Pieter Willemsen Cocx, a respectable Flemish citizen, and not, as his name might imply, a Spaniard, was born at Antwerp. At the age of twelve he entered the house of Pieter, the son of “Hell” Breughel, an obscure portrait painter, and at the expiration of his time as an apprentice became a journeyman in the workshop of David Ryckaert the second, under whom he made accurate studies of still life. At twenty-six he matriculated in the gild of St Luke; he then married Ryckaert’s daughter, and in 1653 joined the literary and dramatic club known as the “Retorijkerkamer.” After having been made president of his gild in 1665, and in 1671 painter in ordinary to Count Monterey, governor-general of the Low Countries, he married again in 1674, and died full of honours in his native place. One of his canvases in the gallery at the Hague represents a suite of rooms hung with pictures, in which the artist himself may be seen at a table with his wife and two children, surrounded by masterpieces composed and signed by several contemporaries. Partnership in painting was common amongst the small masters of the Antwerp school; and it has been truly said of Coques that he employed Jacob von Arthois for landscapes, Ghering and van Ehrenberg for architectural backgrounds, Steenwijck the younger for rooms, and Pieter Gysels for still life and flowers; but the model upon which Coques formed himself was Van Dyck, whose sparkling touch and refined manner he imitated with great success. He never ventured beyond the “cabinet,” but in this limited field the family groups of his middle time are full of life, brilliant from the sheen of costly dress and sparkling play of light and shade, combined with finished execution and enamelled surface.

COQUET (pronounced Cócket), a river of Northumberland, draining a beautiful valley about 40 m. in length. It rises in the Cheviot Hills. Following a course generally easterly, but greatly winding, it passes Harbottle, near which relics of the Stone Age are seen, and Holystone, where it is recorded that Bishop Paulinus baptized a great body of Northumbrians in the year 627. Several earthworks crown hills above this part of the valley, and at Cartington, Fosson and Whitton are relics of medieval border fortifications. The small town of Rothbury is beautifully situated beneath the ragged Simonside Hills. The river dashes through a narrow gully called the Thrum, and then passes Brinkburn priory, of which the fine Transitional Norman church was restored to use in 1858, while there are fragments of the monastic buildings. This was an Augustinian foundation of the time of Henry I. The dale continues well wooded and very beautiful until Warkworth is reached, with its fine castle and remarkable hermitage. A short distance below this the Coquet has its mouth in Alnwick Bay (North Sea), with the small port of Amble on the south bank, and Coquet Island a mile out to sea. The river is frequented by sportsmen for salmon and trout fishing. No important tributary is received, and the drainage area does not exceed 240 sq. m.

COQUET (pronounced co-kétte), to simulate the arts of love-making, generally from motives of personal vanity, to flirt; in a figurative sense, to trifle or dilly-dally with anything. The word is derived from the French coqueter, which originally means, “to strut about like a cock-bird,” i.e. when it desires to attract the hens. The French substantive coquet, in the sense of “beau” or “lady-killer,” was formerly commonly used in English; but the feminine form, coquette, now practically alone survives, in the sense of a woman who gratifies her vanity by using her powers of attraction in a frivolous or inconstant fashion. Hence “to coquet,” the original and more correct form, has come frequently to be written “to coquette.” Coquetry (Fr. coquetterie), primarily the art of the coquette, is used figuratively of any dilly-dallying or “coquetting” and, by transference of idea, of any superficial qualities of attraction in persons or things. “Coquet” is still also occasionally used adjectivally, but the more usual form is “coquettish”; e.g. we speak of a “coquettish manner,” or a “coquettish hat.” The crested humming-birds of the genus Lophornis are known as coquettes (Fr. coquets).

COQUIMBO, an important city and port of the province and department of Coquimbo, Chile, in 29° 57′ 4″ S., 71° 21′ 12″ W. Pop. (1895) 7322. The railway connexions are with Ovalle to the S., and Vicuña (or Elqui) to the E., but the proposed extension northward of Chile’s longitudinal system would bring Coquimbo into direct communication with Santiago. The city has a good well-sheltered harbour, reputed the best in northern Chile, and is the port of La Serena, the provincial capital, 9 m. distant, with which it is connected by rail. There are large copper-smelting establishments in the city, which exports a very large amount of copper, some gold and silver, and cattle and hay to the more northern provinces.

The province of Coquimbo, which lies between those of Aconcagua and Atacama and extends from the Pacific inland to the Argentine frontier, has an area of 13,461 sq. m. (official estimate) and a population (1895) of 160,898. It is less arid than the province of Atacama, the surface near the coast being broken by well-watered river valleys, which produce alfalfa, and pasture cattle for export. Near the mountains grapes are grown, from which wine of a good quality is made. The mineral resources include extensive deposits of copper, and some less important mines of gold and silver. The climate is dry and healthy, and there are occasional rains. Several rivers, the largest of which is the Coquimbo (or Elqui) with a length of 125 m., cross the province from the mountains. The capital is La Serena, and the principal cities are Coquimbo, Ovalle (pop. 5565), and Illapel (3170).

CORACLE (Welsh corwg-l, from corwg, cf. Irish and mod. Gaelic curach, boat), a species of ancient British fishing-boat which is still extensively used on the Severn and other rivers of Wales, notably on the Towy and Teifi. It is a light boat, oval in shape, and formed of canvas stretched on a framework of split and interwoven rods, and well-coated with tar and pitch to render it water-tight. According to early writers the framework was covered with horse or bullock hide (corium). So light and portable are these boats that they can easily be carried on the fisherman’s shoulders when proceeding to and from his work. Coracle-fishing is performed by two men, each seated in his coracle and with one hand holding the net while with the other he plies his paddle. When a fish is caught, each hauls up his end of the net until the two coracles are brought to touch and the fish is then secured. The coracle forms a unique link between the modern life of Wales and its remote past; for this primitive type of boat was in existence amongst the Britons at the time of the invasion of Julius Caesar, who has left a description of it, and even employed it in his Spanish campaign.

CORAËS (Koraïs), ADAMANTIOS [in French, Diamant Coray] (1748-1833), Greek scholar and patriot, was born at Smyrna, the son of a merchant. As a schoolboy he distinguished himself in the study of ancient Greek, but from 1772 to 1779 he was occupied with the management of his father’s business affairs in Amsterdam. In 1782, on the collapse of his father’s business, he went to Montpellier, where for six years he studied medicine, supporting himself by translating German and English medical works into French. He then settled in Paris, where he lived until his death on the 10th of April 1833. Inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution, he devoted himself to furthering the cause of Greek independence both among the Greeks themselves and by awakening the interest of the chief European Powers against the Turkish rule. His great object was to rouse the enthusiasm of the Greeks for the idea that they were the true descendants of the ancient Hellenes by teaching them to regard as their own inheritance the great works of antiquity. He sought to purify the ordinary written language by eliminating the more obvious barbarisms, and by enriching it with classical words and others invented in strict accordance with classical tradition (see further [Greek Language]: modern). Under his influence, though the common patois was practically untouched, the language of literature and intellectual intercourse was made to approximate to the pure Attic of the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. His chief works are his editions of Greek authors contained in his Έλληνικὴ Βιβλιοθήκη and his Πάρεργα; his editions of the Characters of Theophrastus, of the De aëre, aquis, et locis of Hippocrates, and of the Aethiopica of Heliodorus, elaborately annotated.

His literary remains have been edited by Mamoukas and Damalas (1881-1887); collections of letters written from Paris at the time of the French Revolution have been published (in English, by P. Ralli, 1898; in French, by the Marquis de Queux de Saint-Hilaire, 1880). His autobiography appeared at Paris (1829; Athens, 1891), and his life has been written by D. Thereianos (1889-1890); see also A. R. Rhangabé, Histoire littéraire de la Grèce moderne (1877).

CORAL, the hard skeletons of various marine organisms. It is chiefly carbonate of lime, and is secreted from sea-water and deposited in the tissues of Anthozoan polyps, the principal source of the coral-reefs of the world (see [Anthozoa]), of Hydroids (see [Hydromedusae]), less important in modern reef-building, but extremely abundant in Palaeozoic times, and of certain Algae. The skeletons of many other organisms, such as Polyzoa and Mollusca, contribute to coral masses but cannot be included in the term “coral.” The structure of coral animals (sometimes erroneously termed “coral insects”) is dealt within the articles cited above; for the distribution and formation of reefs see [Coral-reefs].

Beyond their general utility and value as sources of lime, few of the corals present any special feature of industrial importance, excepting the red or precious coral (Corallium rubrum) of the Mediterranean Sea. It, however, is and has been from remote times very highly prized for jewelry, personal ornamentation and decorative purposes generally. About the beginning of the Christian era a great trade was carried on in coral between the Mediterranean and India, where it was highly esteemed as a substance endowed with mysterious sacred properties. It is remarked by Pliny that, previous to the existence of the Indian demand, the Gauls were in the habit of using it for the ornamentation of their weapons of war and helmets; but in his day, so great was the Eastern demand, that it was very rarely seen even in the regions which produced it. Among the Romans branches of coral were hung around children’s necks to preserve them from danger, and the substance had many medicinal virtues attributed to it. A belief in its potency as a charm continued to be entertained throughout medieval times; and even to the present day in Italy it is worn as a preservative from the evil eye, and by females as a cure for sterility.

The precious coral is found widespread on the borders and around the islands of the Mediterranean Sea. It ranges in depth from shallow water (25 to 50 ft.) to water over 1000 ft., but the most abundant beds are in the shallower areas. The most important fisheries extend along the coasts of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco; but red coral is also obtained in the vicinity of Naples, near Leghorn and Genoa, and on the coasts of Sardinia, Corsica, Catalonia and Provence. It occurs also in the Atlantic off the north-west of Africa, and recently it has been dredged in deep water off the west of Ireland. Allied species of small commercial value have been obtained off Mauritius and near Japan. The black coral (Antipathes abies), formerly abundant in the Persian Gulf, and for which India is the chief market, has a wide distribution and grows to a considerable height and thickness in the tropical waters of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia.

From the middle ages downwards the securing of the right to the coral fisheries on the African coasts was an object of considerable rivalry among the Mediterranean communities of Europe. Previous to the 16th century they were controlled by the Italian republics. For a short period the Tunisian fisheries were secured by Charles V. to Spain; but the monopoly soon fell into the hands of the French, who held the right till the Revolutionary government in 1793 threw the trade open. For a short period (about 1806) the British government controlled the fisheries, and now they are again in the hands of the French authorities. Previous to the French Revolution much of the coral trade centred in Marseilles; but since that period, both the procuring of the raw material and the working of it up into the various forms in which it is used have become peculiarly Italian industries, centring largely in Naples, Rome and Genoa. On the Algerian coast, however, boats not flying the French flag have to pay heavy dues for the right to fish, and in the early years of the 20th century the once flourishing fisheries at La Calle were almost entirely neglected. Two classes of boats engage in the pursuit—a large size of from 12 to 14 tons, manned by ten or twelve hands, and a small size of 3 or 4 tons, with a crew of five or six. The large boats, dredging from March to October, collect from 650 to 850 ℔ of coral, and the small, working throughout the year, collect from 390 to 500 ℔. The Algerian reefs are divided into ten portions, of which only one is fished annually—ten years being considered sufficient for the proper growth of the coral.

The range of value of the various qualities of coral, according to colour and size, is exceedingly wide, and notwithstanding the steady Oriental demand its price is considerably affected by the fluctuations of fashion. While the price of the finest tints of rose pink may range from £80 to £120 per oz., ordinary red-coloured small pieces sell for about £2 per oz., and the small fragments called collette, used for children’s necklaces, cost about 5s. per oz. In China large spheres of good coloured coral command high prices, being in great requisition for the button of office worn by the mandarins. It also finds a ready market throughout India and in Central Asia; and with the negroes of Central Africa and of America it is a favourite ornamental substance.

CORALLIAN (Fr. Corallien), in geology, the name of one of the divisions of the Jurassic rocks. The rocks forming this division are mainly calcareous grits with oolites, and rubbly coral rock—often called “Coral Rag”; ferruginous beds are fairly common, and occasionally there are beds of clay. In England the Corallian strata are usually divided into an upper series, characterized by the ammonite Perisphinctes plicatilis, and a lower series with Aspidoceras perarmatus as the zonal fossil. When well developed these beds are seen to lie above the Oxford Clay and below the Kimeridge Clay; but it will save a good deal of confusion if it is recognized that the Corallian rocks of England are nothing more than a variable, local lithological phase of the two clays which come respectively above and below them. This caution is particularly necessary when any attempt is being made to co-ordinate the English with the continental Corallian.

The Corallian rocks are nowhere better displayed than in the cliffs at Weymouth. Here Messrs Blake and Huddleston recognized the following beds:—

In Dorsetshire the Corallian rocks are 200 ft. thick, in Wiltshire 100 ft., but N.E. of Oxford they are represented mainly by clays, and the series is much thinner. (At Upware, the “Upware limestone” is the only known occurrence of beds that correspond in character with the Coralline oolite between Wiltshire and Yorkshire). In Yorkshire, however, the hard rocky beds come on again in full force. They appear once more at Brora in Sutherlandshire. Corallian strata have been proved by boring in Sussex (241 ft.). In Huntingdon, Bedfordshire, parts of Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire the Corallian series is represented by the “Ampthill Clay,” which has also been called “Bluntesham” or “Tetworth” Clay. Here and there in this district hard calcareous inconstant beds appear, such as the Elsworth rock, St Ives rock and Boxworth rock.

In Yorkshire the Corallian rocks differ in many respects from their southern equivalents. They are subdivided as follows:—

These rocks play an important part in the formation of the Vale of Pickering, and the Hambleton and Howardian Hills; they are well exposed in Gristhorpe Bay.

The passage beds, highly siliceous, flaggy limestones, are known locally as “Greystone” or “Wall stones”; some portions of these beds have resisted the weathering agencies and stand up prominently on the moors—such are the “Bridestones.” Cement stone beds occur in the upper calcareous grit at North Grimstone; and in the middle and lower calcareous grits good building stones are found.

Among the fossils in the English Corallian rocks corals play an important part, frequently forming large calcareous masses or “doggers”; Thamnastrea, Thecosmilia and Isastrea are prominent genera. Ammonites and belemnites are abundant and gasteropods are very common (Nerinea, Chemnitzia, Bourgetia, &c.). Trigonias are very numerous in certain beds (T. perlata and T. mariani). Astarte ovata, Lucina aliena and other pelecypods are also abundant. The echinoderms Echinobrissus scutatus and Cidaris florigemma are characteristic of these beds.

Rocks of the same age as the English Corallian are widely spread over Europe, but owing to the absence of clearly-marked stratigraphical and palaeontological boundaries, the nomenclature has become greatly involved, and there is now a tendency amongst continental geologists to omit the term Corallian altogether. According to A. de Lapparent’s classification the English Corallian rocks are represented by the Séquanien stage, with two substages, an upper Astartien and lower Rauracien; but this does not include the whole Corallian stage as defined above, the lower part being placed by the French author in his Oxfordien stage. For the table showing the relative position of these stages see the article [Jurassic].

See also “The Jurassic Rocks of Great Britain,” vol. i. (1892) and vol. v. (1895) (Memoirs of the Geological Survey); Blake and Huddleston, “On the Corallian Rocks of England,” Q.J.G.S. vol. xxxiii. (1877).

(J. A. H.)

CORAL-REEFS. Many species of coral (q.v.) are widely distributed, and are found at all depths both in warmer and colder seas. Lophohelia prolifera and Dendrophyllia ramea form dense beds at a depth of from 100 to 200 fathoms off the coasts of Norway, Scotland and Portugal, and the “Challenger” and other deep-sea dredging expeditions have brought up corals from great depths in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. But the larger number of species, particularly the more massive kinds, occur only in tropical seas in shallow waters, whose mean temperature does not fall below 68° Fahr., and they do not flourish unless the temperature is considerably higher. These conditions of temperature are found in a belt of ocean which may roughly be indicated as lying between the 28th N. and S. parallels. Within these limits there are numerous reefs and islands formed of coral intermixed with the calcareous skeletons of other animals, and their formation has long been a matter of dispute among naturalists and geologists.

Coral formations may be classed as fringing or shore reefs, barrier reefs and atolls. Fringing reefs are platforms of coral rock extending no great distance from the shores of a continent or island. The seaward edge of the platform is usually somewhat higher than the inner part, and is often awash at low water. It is intersected by numerous creeks and channels, especially opposite those places where streams of fresh water flow down from the land, and there is usually a channel deep enough to be navigable by small boats between the edge of the reef and the land. The outer wall of the reef is rather steep, but descends into a comparatively shallow sea. Since corals are killed by fresh water or by deposition of mud or sand, it is obvious that the outer edge of the reef is the region of most active coral growth, and the boat channel and the passages leading into it from the open sea have been formed by the suppression of coral growth by one of the above-mentioned causes, assisted by the scour of the tides and the solvent action of sea-water. Barrier reefs may be regarded as fringing reefs on a large scale. The great Australian barrier reef extends for no less a distance than 1250 m. from Torres Strait in 9.5° S. lat. to Lady Elliot island in 24° S. lat. The outer edge of a barrier reef is much farther from the shore than that of a fringing reef, and the channel between it and the land is much deeper. Opposite Cape York the seaward edge of the great Australian barrier reef is nearly 90 m. distant from the coast, and the maximum depth of the channel at this point is nearly 20 fathoms. As is the case in a fringing reef, the outer edge of a barrier reef is in many places awash at low tides, and masses of dead coral and sand may be piled up on it by the action of the waves, so that islets are formed which in time are covered with vegetation. These islets may coalesce and form a strip of dry land lying some hundred yards or less from the extreme outer edge of the reef, and separated by a wide channel from the mainland. Where the barrier reef is not far from the land there are always gaps in it opposite the mouths of rivers or considerable streams. The outer wall of a barrier reef is steep, and frequently, though not always, descends abruptly into great depths. In many cases in the Pacific Ocean a barrier reef surrounds one or more island peaks, and the strips of land on the edge of the reef may encircle the peaks with a nearly complete ring. An atoll is a ring-shaped reef, either awash at low tide or surmounted by several islets, or more rarely by a complete strip of dry land surrounding a central lagoon. The outer wall of an atoll generally descends with a very steep but irregular slope to a depth of 500 fathoms or more, but the lagoon is seldom more than 20 fathoms deep, and may be much less. Frequently, especially to the leeward side of an atoll, there may be one or more navigable passages leading from the lagoon to the open sea.

Though corals flourish everywhere under suitable conditions in tropical seas, coral reefs and atolls are by no means universal in the torrid zone. The Atlantic Ocean is remarkably free from coral formations, though there are numerous reefs in the West Indian islands, off the south coast of Florida, and on the coast of Brazil. The Bermudas also are coral formations, their high land being formed by sand accumulated by the wind and cemented into rock, and are remarkable for being the farthest removed from the equator of any recent reefs, being situated in 32° N. lat. In the Pacific Ocean there is a vast area thickly dotted with coral formations, extending from 5° N. lat. to 25° S. lat., and from 130° E. long, to 145° W. long. There are also extensive reefs in the westernmost islands of the Hawaiian group in about 25° N. lat. In the Indian Ocean, the Laccadive and Maldive islands are large groups of atolls off the west and south-west of India. Still farther south is the Chagos group of atolls, and there are numerous reefs off the north coast of Madagascar, at Mauritius, Bourbon and the Seychelles. The Cocos-Keeling Islands, in 12° S. lat. and 96° E. long., are typical atolls in the eastern part of the Indian Ocean.

Diagram showing the formation of an atoll during subsidence. (After C. Darwin.) The lower part of the figure represents a barrier reef surrounding a central peak.

A, A, outer edges of the barrier reef at the sea-level; the coco-nut trees indicate dry land formed on the edges of the reef.

L, L, lagoon channel.

A’, A’, outer edges of the atoll formed by upgrowth of the coral during the subsidence of the peak.

L’, lagoon of the atoll.

The vertical scale is considerably exaggerated as compared with the horizontal scale.

The remarkable characters of barrier reefs and atolls, their isolated position in the midst of the great oceans the seemingly unfathomable depths from which they rise their peaceful and shallow lagoons and inner channels, their narrow strips of land covered with coco-nut palms and other vegetation, and rising but a few feet above the level of the ocean, naturally attracted the attention of the earlier navigators, who formed sundry speculations as to their origin. The poet-naturalist, A. von Chamisso, was the first to propound a definite theory of the origin of atolls and encircling reefs, attributing their peculiar features to the natural growth of corals and the action of the waves. He pointed out that the larger and more massive species of corals flourish best on the outer sides of a reef, whilst the more interior corals are killed or stunted in growth by the accumulation of coral and other debris. Thus the outer edge of a submerged reef is the first to reach the surface, and a ring of land being formed by materials piled up by the waves, an atoll with a central lagoon is produced. Chamisso’s theory necessarily assumed the existence of a great number of submerged banks reaching nearly, but not quite, to the surface of the sea in the Pacific and Indian oceans, and the difficulty of accounting for the existence of so many of these led C. Darwin to reject his views and bring forward an explanation which may be called the theory of subsidence. Starting from the well-known premise that reef-building species of corals do not flourish in a greater depth of water than 20 fathoms, Darwin argued that all coral islands must have a rocky base, and that it was inconceivable that, in such large tracts of sea as occur in the Pacific and Indian oceans, there should be a vast number of submarine peaks or banks all rising to within 20 or 30 fathoms of the surface and none emerging above it. But on the supposition that the atolls and encircling reefs were formed round land which was undergoing a slow movement of subsidence, their structure could easily be explained. Take the case of an island consisting of a single high peak. At first the coral growth would form a fringing reef clinging to its shores. As the island slowly subsided into the ocean the upward growth of coral would keep the outer rim of the reef level with or within a few fathoms of the surface, so that, as subsidence proceeded, the distance between the outer rim of the reef and the sinking land would continually increase, with the result that a barrier-reef would be formed separated by a wide channel from the central peak. As corals and other organisms with calcareous skeletons live in the channel, their remains, as well as the accumulation of coral and other debris thrown over the outer edge of the reef, would maintain the channel at a shallower depth than that of the ocean outside. Finally, if the subsidence continued, the central peak would disappear beneath the surface, and an atoll would be left consisting of a raised margin of reef surrounding a central lagoon, and any pause during the movement of subsidence would result in the formation of raised islets or a strip of dry land along the margin of the reef. Darwin’s theory was published in 1842, and found almost universal acceptance, both because of its simplicity and its applicability to every known type of coral-reef formation, including such difficult cases as the Great Chagos Bank, a huge submerged atoll in the Indian Ocean.

Darwin’s theory was adopted and strengthened by J. D. Dana, who had made extensive observations among the Pacific coral reefs between 1838 and 1842, but it was not long before it was attacked by other observers. In 1851 Louis Agassiz produced evidence to show that the reefs off the south coast of Florida were not formed during subsidence, and in 1863 Karl Semper showed that in the Pelew islands there is abundant evidence of recent upheaval in a region where both atolls and barrier-reefs exist. Latterly, many instances of recently upraised coral formations have been described by H. B. Guppy, J. S. Gardiner and others, and Alexander Agassiz and Sir J. Murray have brought forward a mass of evidence tending to shake the subsidence theory to its foundations. Murray has pointed out that the deep-sea soundings of the “Tuscarora” and “Challenger” have proved the existence of a large number of submarine elevations rising out of a depth of 2000 fathoms or more to within a few hundred fathoms of the surface. The existence of such banks was unknown to Darwin, and removes his objections to Chamisso’s theory. For although they may at first be too far below the surface for reef-building corals, they afford a habitat for numerous echinoderms, molluscs, crustacea and deep-sea corals, whose skeletons accumulate on their summits, and they further receive a constant rain of the calcareous and silicious skeletons of minute organisms which teem in the waters above. By these agencies the banks are gradually raised to the lowest depth at which reef-building corals can flourish, and once these establish themselves they will grow more rapidly on the periphery of the bank, because they are more favourably situated as regards food-supply. Thus the reef will rise to the surface as an atoll, and the nearer it approaches the surface the more will the corals on the exterior faces be favoured, and the more will those in the centre of the reef decrease, for experiment has shown that the minute pelagic organisms on which corals feed are far less abundant in a lagoon than in the sea outside. Eventually, as the margin of the reef rises to the surface and material is accumulated upon it to form islets or continuous land, the coral growth in the lagoon will be feeble, and the solvent action of sea-water and the scour of the tide will tend to deepen the lagoon. Thus the considerable depth of some lagoons, amounting to 40 or 50 fathoms, may be accounted for. The observations of Guppy in the Solomon islands have gone far to confirm Murray’s conclusions, since he found in the islands of Ugi, Santa Anna and Treasury and Stirling islands unmistakable evidences of a nucleus of volcanic rock, covered with soft earthy bedded deposits several hundred feet thick. These deposits are highly fossiliferous in parts, and contain the remains of pteropods, lamellibranchs and echinoderms, embedded in a foraminiferous deposit mixed with volcanic debris, like the deep-sea muds brought up by the “Challenger.” The flanks of these elevated beds are covered with coralline limestone rocks varying from 100 to 16 ft. in thickness. One of the islands, Santa Anna, has the form of an upraised atoll, with a mass of coral limestone 80 ft. in vertical thickness, resting on a friable and sparingly argillaceous rock resembling a deep-sea deposit. A. Agassiz, in a number of important researches on the Florida reefs, the Bahamas, the Bermudas, the Fiji islands and the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, has further shown that many of the peculiar features of these coral formations cannot be explained on the theory of subsidence, but are rather attributable to the natural growth of corals on banks formed by prevailing currents, or on extensive shore platforms or submarine flats formed by the erosion of pre-existing land surfaces.

In face of this accumulated evidence, it must be admitted that the subsidence theory of Darwin is inapplicable to a large number of coral reefs and islands, but it is hardly possible to assert, as Murray does, that no atolls or barrier reefs have ever been developed after the manner indicated by Darwin. The most recent research on the structure of coral reefs has also been the most thorough and most convincing. It is obvious that, if Murray’s theory were correct, a bore hole sunk deep into an atoll would pass through some 100 ft. of coral rock, then through a greater or less thickness of argillaceous rock, and finally would penetrate the volcanic rock on which the other materials were deposited. If Darwin’s theory is correct, the boring would pass through a great thickness of coral rock, and finally, if it went deep enough, would pass into the original rock which subsided below the waters. An expedition sent out by the Royal Society of London started in 1896 for the island of Funafuti, a typical atoll of the Ellice group in the Pacific Ocean, with the purpose of making a deep boring to test this question. The first attempt was not successful, for at a depth of 105 ft. the refractory nature of the rock stopped further progress. But a second attempt, under the management of Professor Edgeworth David of Sydney, proved a complete success. With improved apparatus, the boring was carried down to a depth of 697 ft. (116 fathoms), and a third attempt carried it down to 1114 ft. (185 fathoms). The boring proves the existence of a mass of pure limestone of organic origin to the depth of 1114 ft., and there is no trace of any other rock. The organic remains found in the core brought up by the drill consist of corals, foraminifera, calcareous algae and other organisms. A boring was also made from the deck of a ship into the floor of the lagoon, which shows that under 100 ft. of water there exists at the bottom of the lagoon a deposit more than 100 ft. thick, consisting of the remains of a calcareous alga, Halimeda opuntia, mixed with abundant foraminifera. At greater depths, down to 245 ft., the same materials, mixed with the remains of branching madrepores, were met with, and further progress was stopped by the existence of solid masses of coral, fragments of porites, madrepora and heliopora having been brought up in the core. These are shallow-water corals, and their existence at a depth of nearly 46 fathoms, buried beneath a mass of Halimeda and foraminifera, is clear evidence of recent subsidence. Halimeda grows abundantly over the floor of the lagoon of Funafuti, and has been observed in many other lagoons. The writer collected a quantity of it in the lagoon of Diego Garcia in the Chagos group. The boring demonstrates that the lagoon of Funafuti has been filled up to an extent of at least 245 ft. (nearly 41 fathoms), and this fact accords well with Darwin’s theory, but is incompatible with that of Murray. In the present state of our knowledge it seems reasonable to conclude that coral reefs are formed wherever the conditions suitable for growth exist, whether in areas of subsidence, elevation or rest. A considerable number of reefs, at all events, have not been formed in areas of subsidence, and of these the Florida reefs, the Bermudas, the Solomon islands, and possibly the Great Barrier Reef of Australia are examples. Funafuti would appear to have been formed in an area of subsidence, and it is quite probable that the large groups of low-lying islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans have been formed under the same conditions. At the same time, it must be remembered that the atoll or barrier reef shape is not necessarily evidence of formation during subsidence, for the observations of Karl Semper, A. Agassiz, and Guppy are sufficient to prove that these forms of reefs may be produced by the natural growth of coral, modified by the action of waves and currents in regions in which subsidence has certainly not taken place.

See A. Agassiz, many publications in the Mem. Amer. Acad. (1883) and Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. (Harvard, 1889-1899); J. D. Dana, Corals and Coral Islands (1853; 2nd ed., 1872; 3rd ed., 1890); C. Darwin, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs (3rd ed., 1889); H. B. Guppy, “The Recent Calcareous Formations of the Solomon Group,” Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinb. xxxii. (1885); R. Langenbeck, “Die neueren Forschungen über die Korallenriffe,” Hettner geogr. Zeitsch. iii. (1897); J. Murray, “On the Structure and Origin of Coral Reefs and Islands,” Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinb. x. (1879-1880); J. Murray and Irvine, “On Coral Reefs and other Carbonate of Lime Formations in Modern Seas,” Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinb. (1889); W. Savile Kent, The Great Barrier Reef of Australia (London, W. H. Allen & Co., 1893); Karl Semper, Animal Life, “Internat. Sci. Series,” vol. xxxi. (1881); J. S. Gardiner, Nature, lxix. 371.

(G. C. B.)

CORAM, THOMAS (1668-1751), English philanthropist, was born at Lyme Regis, Dorset. He began life as a seaman, and rose to the position of merchant captain. He settled at Taunton, Massachusetts, for several years engaging there in farming and boat-building, and in 1703 returned to England. His acquaintance with the destitute East End of London, and the miserable condition of the children there, inspired him with the idea of providing a refuge for such of them as had no legal protector; and after seventeen years of unwearied exertion, he obtained in 1739 a royal charter authorizing the establishment of his hospital for foundling infants (see [Foundling Hospitals]). It was opened in Hatton Garden, on the 17th of October 1740, with twenty inmates. For fifteen years it was supported by voluntary contributions; but in 1756 it was endowed with a parliamentary grant of £10,000 for the support of all that might be sent to it. Children were brought, however, in such numbers, and so few (not one-third, it is said) survived infancy, that the grant was stopped, and the charity, which had been removed to Guilford Street, was from that time only administered under careful restrictions. Coram’s later years were spent in watching over the interests of the hospital; he was also one of the promoters of the settlement of Georgia and Nova Scotia; and his name is honourably connected with various other charities. In carrying out his philanthropic schemes he spent nearly all his private means; and an annuity of £170 was raised for him by public subscription. He died on the 29th of March 1751.

COR ANGLAIS, or English Horn (Ger. englisches Horn or alt Hoboe; Ital. corno inglese), a wood-wind double-reed instrument of the oboe family, of which it is the tenor. It is not a horn, but bears the same relation to the oboe as the basset horn does to the clarinet. The cor anglais differs slightly in construction from the oboe; the conical bore of the wooden tube is wider and slightly longer, and there is a larger globular bell and a bent metal crook to which the double reed mouthpiece is attached. The fingering and method of producing the sound are so similar in both instruments that the player of the one can in a short time master the other, but as the cor anglais is pitched a fifth lower, the music must be transposed for it into a key a fifth higher than the real sounds produced. The compass of the cor anglais extends over two octaves and a fifth:

The true quality of the cor anglais is penetrating like that of the oboe, but mellower and more melancholy.

The cor anglais is the alto Pommer (q.v.) or haute-contre de hautbois (see [Oboe]), gradually developed, improved and provided with key-work. It is not known exactly when the change took place, but it was probably during the 17th century, after the Schalmey or Shawm had been transformed into the oboe. In a 17th century MS. (Add. 30,342, f. 145) in the British Museum, written in French, giving pen and ink sketches of many instruments, is an “accord de hautbois” which comprises a pédalle (bass oboe or Pommer), a sacquebute (sackbut) as basse-contre, a taille (tenor) with a note that the haute-contre (the cor anglais) est de mesme sinon plus petite. The tubes of all the members of the hautbois family are straight in this drawing. Before 1688 the French hoboy, made in four parts and having two keys, was known in England.[1] It is probable that in France, where the hautbois played such an important part in court music, the cor anglais, under the name of haute-contre de hautbois, was also provided with keys. At the end of the 17th century there were two players of the haute-contre de hautbois among the musicians of the Grande Écurie du Roi.[2]

The origin of the name of the instrument is also a matter of conjecture. Two theories exist—one that cor anglais is a corruption of cor anglé, a name given on account of the angular bend of the early specimens. In that case the name, but not necessarily the instrument, probably originated in France early in the 18th century, for Gluck scored for two cors anglais in his Italian version of Alceste played in Vienna in 1767. When a French version of this opera was given in Paris two years later, the cor anglais, not being known or available there, was replaced by oboes. It was not until 1808 that the cor anglais was heard at the Paris Opera, when it was played by the oboist Vogt in Catel’s Alexandre chez Apelle. This, however, proves only that the name was not familiar in France, where the oboe of the same pitch was called haute-contre de hautbois. The bending of the tube and the development of the cor anglais as solo instrument originated in Germany, unless the oboe da caccia was identical with the cor anglais, in which case Italy would be the country of origin. Thomas Stanesby, junior, made an oboe da caccia in 1740 of straight pattern in four pieces, having a bent metal crook for the insertion of the reed and two saddle keys; but the bell was like the bell of the oboe, not globular like that of the cor anglais, a form to which the veiled quality of its timbre is due. It is interesting in this connexion to recall some experiments in bending the cor anglais, which do not appear to have led to any practical result. A French broadside (c. 1650), “La Musique,” preserved in the British Museum, contains drawings of many musical instruments in use in the 17th century; among them are an oboe with keys in a perforated case, and two other wood wind instruments of the same family, which may be taken to represent attempts to dispose of the inconvenient length of the haute-contre (1) by bending the tube at right angles for about one quarter of its length from the mouthpiece, which contains a large double reed, (2) by bending the tube in the elongated “S” shape of the corno torto or bass Zinke, for which the drawing in question might be mistaken but for the bent crook inserted in the end for the reception of the reed, which, however, is missing. The other hypothesis is that when the cor anglais was given a bend in order to facilitate the handling, the name was adopted to mark its resemblance to a kind of hunting-horn said to be in use in England at the time. This suggestion does not seem to be a happy one; for if the reference be to the crescent-shaped horn, that instrument was in use in all countries at various periods before the 17th century, while if it be to the angular form, then a reproduction of such a horn should be forthcoming to support the statement.

The idea of bending the instrument is attributed to Giovanni or Giuseppe Ferlendis of Bergamo,[3] brothers and virtuosi on the oboe. One of these had settled in Salzburg, and both were equally renowned as performers on the English horn. They visited Venice, Brescia, Trieste, Vienna, London (in 1795) and Lisbon, where Giuseppe died. In this case we might expect the name to have been given in Italian, corno inglese; yet Gluck in his Italian edition used the French name already in 1767, when Giuseppe was but twelve years old. We must await some more conclusive explanation, but we may suppose that the new name was bestowed when the instrument assumed a form entirely new to the family of hautbois or oboes. The cor anglais was well known in England before 1774, for in a quaint book of travels through England, published in that year, we read that Signor Sougelder,[4] “an eminent surgeon of Bristol,” was a performer “on the English horn.”

The experiment of bending the cor anglais did not prove satisfactory, for the tube instead of being bored had to be cut out of two pieces of wood which were then glued together and covered with leather. Even the most skilful craftsman did not succeed in making the inside of the tube quite smooth; the roughness of the wood was detrimental to the tone and gave the cor anglais a veiled, somewhat hoarse quality, and makers before long reverted to the direct or vertical form.

(K. S.)

[1] See Harleian MS. 2034, f. 207b, British Museum, in the third part of Randle Holme’s Academy of Armoury, written before 1688, where an outline sketch in ink is also given.

[2] See J. Écorcheville, “Quelques documents sur la musique de la Grande Écurie du Roi,” Sammelband intern. Musikges. ii. 4, pp. 609 and 625. Deeds exist creating charges for four hautbois and musettes de Poitou in the hand of King John, middle of 14th century, see p. 633.

[3] See Henri Lavoix, Histoire de l’instrumentation, p. 111; Gerber, Lexikon, “Giuseppe Ferlendis”; Robert Eitner, Quellen-Lexikon der Tonkünstler, “Gioseffo Ferlendis.” Fétis and Pohl also refer to him.

[4] See Musical Travels thro’ England (London, 1774), p. 56.

CORATO, a city of Apulia, Italy, in the province of Bari, 26 m. W. of Bari by steam tramway. Pop. (1901) 41,573. It is situated in the centre of an agricultural district. It contains no buildings of great interest, but is a clean and well-kept town.

CORBAN (ןברק), an Aramaic word meaning “a consecrated gift.” Josephus uses the word of Nazirites and of the temple treasure of Jerusalem. Such a votive offering lay under a curse if it were diverted to ordinary purposes, like the spoil of Jericho which Achan appropriated (Josh. vii.), or the temple treasure of Delphi which was seized by the Phocians, 356 B.C. The word is found in Mark vii. 11, the usual interpretation of which is that Jesus refers to an abuse—a man might declare that any part of his property which came into his parents’ hands was corban, consecrated, i.e. that a curse rested on any benefit they might get from it. The Jewish scribes thus fenced the law of vows with a traditional interpretation which made men break the most binding injunctions of the Mosaic Law, in this case the fifth commandment. A totally different explanation of the passage is put forward by J. H. A. Hart in The Jewish Quarterly Review for July 1907, the gist of which is that Jesus commends the Pharisees for insisting that when a man has vowed a vow to God he should pay it even though his parents should suffer.

CORBEIL, WILLIAM OF (d. 1136), archbishop of Canterbury, was born probably at Corbeil on the Seine, and was educated at Laon. He was soon in the service of Ranulf Flambard, bishop of Durham; then, having entered the order of St Augustine, he became prior of the Augustinian foundation at St Osyth in Essex. At the beginning of 1123 he was chosen from among several candidates to be archbishop of Canterbury, and as he refused to admit that Thurstan, archbishop of York, was independent of the see of Canterbury, this prelate refused to consecrate him, and the ceremony was performed by his own suffragan bishops. Proceeding to Rome the new archbishop found that Thurstan had anticipated his arrival in that city and had made out a strong case against him to Pope Calixtus II.; however, the exertions of the English king Henry I. and of the emperor Henry V. prevailed, and the pope gave William the pallium. The archbishop’s next dispute was with the papal legate. Cardinal John of Crema, who had arrived in England and was acting in an autocratic manner. Again travelling to Rome, William gained another victory, and was himself appointed papal legate (legatus natus) in England and Scotland, a precedent of considerable importance in the history of the English Church. The archbishop had sworn to Henry I. that he would support the claim of his daughter Matilda to the English crown, but nevertheless he crowned Stephen in December 1135. He died at Canterbury on the 21st of November 1136. William built the keep of Rochester Castle, and finished the building of the cathedral at Canterbury, which was dedicated with great pomp in May 1130.

See W. F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (1860-1884); and W. R. W. Stephens, History of the English Church (1901).

CORBEIL, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Seine-et-Oise, at the confluence of the Essonne with the Seine, 21 m. S. by E. of Paris on the Orléans railway to Nevers. Pop. (1906) 9756. A bridge across the Seine unites the main part of the town on the left bank with a suburb on the other side; handsome boulevards lead to the village of Essonnes (pop. 7255), about a mile to the south-west. St Spire, the only survivor of the formerly numerous churches of Corbeil, dates from the 12th to the 15th centuries. Behind the church there is a Gothic gateway. A monument has been erected to the brothers Galignani, publishers of Paris, who gave a hospital and orphanage to the town. Corbeil is the seat of a sub-prefect, and has tribunals of first instance and commerce and a chamber of commerce. It has important flour-mills, tallow-works, printing-works, large paper-works at Essonnes, and carries on boat and carriage-building, and the manufacture of plaster. The Decauville engineering works are in the vicinity. There is trade in grain and flour.

From the 10th to the 12th century Corbeil was the chief town of a powerful countship, but it was united to the crown by Louis VI.; it continued for a long time to be an important military post in connexion with the commissariat of Paris. In 1258 St Louis concluded a treaty here with James I. of Aragon. Of the numerous sieges to which it has been exposed the most important were those by the Huguenots in 1562, and by Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma, in 1590.

CORBEL (Lat. corbellus, a diminutive of corvus, a raven, on account of the beak-like appearance; Ital. mensola, Fr. corbeau, cul-de-lampe, Ger. Kragstein), the name in medieval architecture for a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any super-incumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a tassel or a bragger. Thus the carved ornaments from which the vaulting shafts spring at Lincoln are corbels. Norman corbels are generally plain. In the Early English period they are sometimes elaborately carved, as at Lincoln above cited, and sometimes more simply so, as at Stone. They sometimes end with a point apparently growing into the wall, or forming a knot, as at Winchester, and often are supported by angels and other figures. In the later periods the foliage or ornaments resemble those in the capitals. The corbels carrying the arches of the corbel tables in Italy and France were often elaborately moulded, and sometimes in two or three courses projecting over one another; those carrying the machicolations of English and French castles had four courses. The corbels carrying balconies in Italy and France were sometimes of great size and richly carved, and some of the finest examples of the Italian Cinquecento style are found in them. Throughout England, in half-timber work, wood corbels abound, carrying window-sills or oriels in wood, which also are often carved. A “corbel table” is a projecting moulded string course supported by a range of corbels. Sometimes these corbels carry a small arcade under the string course, the arches of which are pointed and trefoiled. As a rule the corbel table carries the gutter, but in Lombard work the arcaded corbel table was utilized as a decoration to subdivide the storeys and break up the wall surface. In Italy sometimes over the corbels will be a moulding, and above a plain piece of projecting wall forming a parapet (see also [Masonry]).

CORBET, RICHARD (1582-1635), English bishop and poet, was born in 1582, the son of a nurseryman at Ewell, Surrey. At Oxford, to which he proceeded from Westminster school in 1597, he was noted as a wit. On taking orders he continued to display this talent from the pulpit, and James I., in consideration of his “fine fancy and preaching,” made him one of the royal chaplains. In 1620 he became vicar of Stewkley, Berkshire, and in the same year was made dean of Christchurch, Oxford. In 1628 he was made bishop of Oxford, and in 1632 translated thence to the see of Norwich. Corbet was the author of many poems, for the most part of a lively, satirical order, his most serious production being the Fairies’ Farewell. His verses were first collected and published in 1647. His conviviality was famous, and many stories are told of his youthful merrymaking in London taverns in company with Ben Jonson, who always remained his close friend, and other dramatists. He died at Norwich on the 28th of July 1635.

CORBIE (Lat. corvus), a crow or raven. In architecture, “corbie steps” is a Scottish term (cf. Corbel) for the steps formed up the sides of the gable by breaking the coping into short horizontal beds.

CORBRIDGE, a small market town in the Hexham parliamentary division of Northumberland, England; 3½ m. E. of Hexham, on the north bank of the river Tyne, which is here crossed by a fine seven-arched bridge dating from 1674. Pop. (1901) 1647. Corbridge was formerly of greater importance than at present. Its name, derived from the small river Cor, a tributary of the Tyne, is said to be associated with the Brigantian tribe of Corionototai. About 760 it became the capital of Northumbria; later it was a borough and was long represented in parliament. In 1138 David of Scotland made it a centre of military operations, and it was ravaged by Wallace in 1296, by Bruce in 1312, and by David II. in 1346. Its chief remains of antiquity are a square peel-tower and the cruciform church of St Andrew, of which part of the fabric is of pre-Conquest date, though the building is mainly Early English. Extensive use is made of building materials from the Roman station of Corstopitum (also called Corchester), which lay half a mile west of Corbridge at the junction of the Cor with the Tyne. This site has from time to time yielded many valuable relics, notably a silver dish, discovered in 1734, 148 oz. in weight and ornamented with figures of deities; but the first-rate importance of the station was only revealed by careful excavations undertaken in 1907 seq. There were then unearthed remains of several buildings fronting a broad thoroughfare, one of which is the largest Roman building, except the baths at Bath, yet discovered in England. Two of these buildings were granaries, and indicate the importance of Corstopitum as a base of the northward operations of Antoninus Pius. After his conquests had been lost, and Corstopitum ceased to be a military centre, its military buildings passed into civilian occupation, of which many evidences have been found. A fine hoard of gold coins, wrapped in lead-foil and hidden in a wall, was discovered in 1908. Corstopitum ceased to exist early in the 5th century, and the site was never again occupied.

CORBULO, GNAEUS DOMITIUS (1st century A.D.), Roman general, was the half-brother of Caesonia, one of the wives of the emperor Caligula. In the reign of Tiberius he held the office of praetor, and was appointed to the superintendence of the roads and bridges. Under Claudius he was governor of lower Germany (A.D. 47). He punished the Frisii who refused to pay the tribute, and was on the point of advancing against the Chauci, but was recalled by the emperor and ordered to withdraw behind the Rhine. In order to provide employment for his soldiers, Corbulo made them cut a canal from the Mosa (Meuse) to the northern branch of the Rhine, which still forms one of the chief drains between Leiden and Sluys, and before the introduction of railways was the ordinary traffic road between Leiden and Rotterdam. Soon after the accession of Nero, Vologaeses (Vologasus), king of Parthia, overran Armenia, drove out Rhadamistus, who was under the protection of the Romans, and set his own brother Tiridates on the throne. Corbulo was thereupon sent out to the East with full military powers. After some delay, he took the offensive in 58, and, reinforced by troops from Germany, attacked Tiridates. Artaxata and Tigranocerta were captured, and Tigranes, who had been brought up in Rome and was the obedient servant of the government, was installed king of Armenia. In 61 Tigranes invaded Adiabene, an integral portion of the Parthian kingdom, and a conflict between Rome and Parthia seemed unavoidable. Vologaeses, however, thought it better to come to terms. It was agreed that both the Roman and Parthian troops should evacuate Armenia, that Tigranes should be dethroned, and the position of Tiridates recognized. The Roman government declined to accede to these arrangements, and L. Caesennius Paetus, governor of Cappadocia, was ordered to settle the question by bringing Armenia under direct Roman administration. The protection of Syria in the meantime claimed all Corbulo’s attention. Paetus, a weak and incapable man, suffered a severe defeat at Rhandea (62), where he was surrounded and forced to capitulate and to evacuate Armenia. The command of the troops was again entrusted to Corbulo. In 63, with a strong army, he crossed the Euphrates, but Tiridates declined to give battle and concluded peace. At Rhandea he laid down his diadem at the foot of the emperor’s statue, promising not to resume it until he received it from the hand of Nero himself in Rome. In 67 disturbances broke out in Judaea, but Nero, jealous of Corbulo’s success and popularity, ordered Vespasian to take command of the forces and summoned Corbulo to Greece. On his arrival at Cenchreae, the port of Corinth, messengers from Nero met Corbulo, and ordered him to commit suicide. Without hesitation he obeyed, exclaiming, “I have deserved it.” Whether he had really given any grounds for suspicion is unknown; but there is no doubt, so great was his popularity with the soldiers and such the hatred felt for Nero, that he could easily have seized the throne. Corbulo wrote an account of his Asiatic experiences, which is lost.

See Tacitus, Annals, xii.-xv.; Dio Cassius lix. 15, lx. 30, lxii. 19-23, lxiii. 6, 17, lxvi. 3; H. Schiller, Geschichte des römischen Kaiserreichs unter der Regierung des Nero (1872); E. Egli, “Feldzüge in Armenien von 41-63,” in M. Büdinger’s Untersuchungen zur römischen Kaisergeschichte, i. (1868); Mommsen, Hist. of the Roman Provinces, ii. (1886); for the Armenian campaigns see B. W. Henderson in Classical Review (April, May, June, 1901); in general D. T. Schoonover, A Study of Cn. Domitius Corbulo (Chicago, 1909).

CORD (derived through the Fr. corde, from the Lat. chorda, Gr. χορδή, the string of a musical instrument), a length of twisted or woven strands, in thickness coming between a rope and a string, a smaller kind of rope (q.v.). From the use of such a cord for measuring, the word is applied to a quantity of cut wood, differing according to locality. The variant “chord,” which, in spelling, reverts to the original Latin, is used in particular senses, as, in physiology, for such cord-like structures as the vocal chords; in the case of the “umbilical cord,” the other spelling is usually retained. In mathematics a “chord” is a straight line joining any two points on the same curve, and, in music, the word is used of several musical notes sounded simultaneously and in harmony (q.v.). In this last sense, “chord” is properly a shortened form of “accord,” agreement, from Late Lat. accordare, and the spelling with h is due to a confusion.

CORDAY D’ARMONT, MARIE ANNE CHARLOTTE (1768-1793), French revolutionary heroine, the murderess of Marat, born at St Saturnin des Lignerets, near Séez in Normandy, was descended from a noble but poor family, and numbered among her ancestors the dramatist Corneille. Charlotte Corday was educated in the convent of the Holy Trinity at Caen, and then sent to live with an aunt. Here she saw hardly any one but her relative, and passed her lonely hours in reading the works of the philosophes, especially Voltaire and the Abbé Raynal. Another of her favourite authors was Plutarch, from whose pages she doubtless imbibed the idea of classic heroism and civic virtue which prompted the act that has made her name famous. On the outbreak of the Revolution she began to study current politics, chiefly in the papers issued by the party afterwards known as the Girondins. On the downfall of this party, on May 31, 1793, many of the leaders took refuge in Normandy, and proposed to make Caen the headquarters of an army of volunteers, at the head of whom Félix de Wimpffen, who commanded the army assembled for the defence of the coasts at Cherbourg, was to have marched upon Paris. Charlotte attended their meetings, and heard them speak; but we have no reason to believe that she saw any of them privately, till the day when she went to ask for introductions to friends of theirs in Paris. She saw that their efforts in Normandy were doomed to fail. She had heard of Marat as a tyrant and the chief agent in their overthrow, and she had conceived the idea of going alone to Paris and assassinating him,—doubtless thinking that this would break up the party of the Terrorists and be the signal of a counter-revolution, and ignorant of the fact that Marat was ill almost to the point of death, and that others were more influential than he.

Apparently she had thought of going to Paris in April, before the fall of the Girondins, for she had then procured a passport which she used in July. It contained the usual description of the bearer, and ran thus: Laissez passer la citoyenne Marie, &c., Corday, âgée de 24 ans, taille de 5 pieds 1 pouce, cheveux et sourcils châtains, yeux gris, front élevé, nez long, bouche moyenne, menton rond fourchu, visage ovale. Arrived in Paris she first attended to some business for a friend at Caen, and then she wrote to Marat: “Citizen, I have just arrived from Caen. Your love for your native place doubtless makes you desirous of learning the events which have occurred in that part of the republic. I shall call at your residence in about an hour; have the goodness to receive me and to give me a brief interview. I will put you in a condition to render great service to France.” On calling she was refused admittance, and wrote again, promising to reveal important secrets, and appealing to Marat’s sympathy on the ground that she herself was persecuted by the enemies of the republic. She was again refused an audience, and it was only when she called a third time (July 13) that Marat, hearing her voice in the antechamber, consented to see her. He lay in a bathing tub, wrapped in towels, for he was suffering from a horrible disease which had almost reduced him to a state of putrefaction. Our only source of information as to what followed is Charlotte’s own confession. She spoke to Marat of what was passing at Caen, and his only comment on her narrative was that all the men she had mentioned should be guillotined in a few days. As he spoke she drew from her bosom a dinner-knife (which she had bought the day before for two francs) and plunged it into his left side. It pierced the lung and the aorta. He cried out, “À moi, ma chère amie!” and expired. Two women rushed in, and prevented Charlotte from escaping. A crowd collected round the house, and it was with difficulty that she was escorted to the prison of the Abbaye. On being brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal she gloried in her act, and when the indictment against her was read, and the president asked her what she had to say in reply, her answer was, “Nothing, except that I have succeeded.” Her advocate, Claude François Chauveau Lagarde, put forward in vain the plea of insanity. She was sentenced to death, and calmly thanked her counsel for his efforts on her behalf, adding that the only defence worthy of her was an avowal of the act. She was then conducted to the Conciergerie, where at her own desire her portrait (now in the museum of Versailles) was painted by the artist Jean Jacques Hauer. She preserved her perfect calmness to the last. When she saw the guillotine, she placed herself in position under the fatal blade without assistance from any one. The knife fell, and one of the executioners held up her head by the hair, and had the brutality to strike it with his fist. Many believed they saw the dead face blush,—probably an effect of the red stormy sunset. It was the 17th of July 1793. It is difficult to analyse the character of Charlotte Corday; but there was in it much that was noble and exalted. Her mind had been formed by her studies on a pagan type. To C. J. M. Barbaroux and the Girondins of Caen she wrote from her prison, anticipating happiness “with Brutus in the Elysian Fields” after her death, and with this letter she sent a simple loving farewell to her father, revealing a tender side to her character that otherwise we would hardly have looked for in such a woman. Lamartine called her l’ange de l’assassinat, and Vergniaud said, “Elle nous perd, mais elle nous apprend à mourir.”

See Œuvres politiques de Charlotte Corday (Caen, 1863; some letters and an Adresse aux Français amis des lois el de la paix), with a supplement printed in the same year; Louvet de Couvrai, Mémoires (ed. Aulard, Paris, 1889); Alphonse Esquiros, Charlotte Corday (2nd ed., 2 vols., Paris, 1841); Cheron de Villiers, Marie Anne Charlotte Corday (Paris, 1865); Casimir Périer, “La Jeunesse de Charlotte Corday” (Revue des deux mondes, 1862); C. Vatel, Dossiers du procès criminel de Charlotte de Corday ... extraits des archives impériales (Paris, 1861), and Dossier historique de Charlotte Corday (Paris, 1872); Austin Dobson, Four Frenchwomen (London, 1890); A. Ducos, Les Trois Girondines, Mme Roland, Charlotte Corday ... (Paris, 1896); Dr Cabanès, “La vraie Charlotte Corday,” in Le Cabinet secret de l’histoire (4 vols., 1897-1900). Her tragic history was the subject of two anonymous tragedies, Charlotte Corday (1795), said to be by the Conventional F. J. Gamon, and Charlotte Corday (Caen, 1797), neither of which have any merit; another by J. B. Salles is published by C. Vatel in Charlotte de Corday et les Girondins (1864-1872). See further bibliographical articles in M. Tourneux, Bibl. de l’hist. de Paris ... (vol. iv., 1906), and in the Bibliographie des femmes célèbres (3 vols., Turin and Rome, 1892-1905); and also E. Defrance, Charlotte Corday et la mort de Marat (1909).

CORDELIERS, CLUB OF THE, or Society of the Friends of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a popular society of the French Revolution. It was formed by the members of the district of the Cordeliers, when the Constituent Assembly suppressed the 60 districts of Paris to replace them with 48 sections (21st of May 1790). It held its meetings at first in the church of the monastery of the Cordeliers,—the name given in France to the Franciscan Observantists,—now the Dupuytren museum of anatomy in connexion with the school of medicine. From 1791, however, the Cordeliers met in a hall in the rue Dauphine. The aim of the society was to keep an eye on the government; its emblem on its papers was simply an open eye. It sought as well to encourage revolutionary measures against the monarchy and the old régime, and it was it especially which popularized the motto “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” It took an active part in the movement against the monarchy of the 20th of June and the 10th of August 1792; but after that date the more moderate leaders of the club, Danton, Fabre d’Eglantine, Camille Desmoulins, seem to have ceased attending, and the “enragés” obtained control, such as J. R. Hébert, F. N. Vincent, C. P. H. Ronsin and A. F. Momoro. Its influence was especially seen in the creation of the revolutionary army destined to assure provisions for Paris, and in the establishment of the worship of Reason. The Cordeliers were combated by those revolutionists who wished to end the Terror, especially by Danton, and by Camille Desmoulins in his journal Le Vieux Cordelier. The club disowned Danton and Desmoulins and attacked Robespierre for his “moderation,” but the new insurrection which it attempted failed, and its leaders were guillotined on the 24th of March 1794, from which date nothing is known of the club. We know little of its composition.

The papers emanating from the Cordeliers are enumerated in M. Tourneux, Bibliographie de l’histoire de Paris pendant la Révolution (1894), i. (on the trial of the Hebertists) Nos. 4204-4210, ii. Nos. 9795-9834 and 11,813. See also A. Bougeart, Les Cordeliers, documents pour servir à l’histoire de la Révolution (Caen, 1891); G. Lenotre, Paris révolutionnaire (Paris, 1895); G. Tridon, Les Hébertists, plainte contre une calomnie de l’histoire (Paris, 1864). The last-named author was condemned to four months’ prison; his work was reprinted in 1871. The inventory of the pictures found in 1790 in the monastery of the Cordeliers was published by J. Guiffrey in Nouvelles archives de l’art français, viii., 2nd series, iii. (1880).

(R. A.*)

CORDERIUS, the Latinized form of name used by Mathurin Cordier (c. 1480-1564), French schoolmaster, a native of Normandy or Perche. He possessed special tact and liking for teaching children, and taught first at Paris, where Calvin was among his pupils, and, after a number of changes, finally at Geneva, where he died on the 8th of September 1564. He wrote several books for children; the most famous is his Colloquia (Colloquiorum scholasticorum libri quatuor), which has passed through innumerable editions, and was used in schools for three centuries after his time. He also wrote: Principia Latine loquendi scribendique, sive selecta quaedam ex Epistolis Ciceronis; De corrupti sermonis apud Gallos emendatione et Latine loquendi Ratione; De syllabarum quantitate; Conciones sacrae viginti sex Galliae; Catonis disticha de moribus (with Latin and French translation); Remontrances et exhortations au roi et aux grands de son royaume.

See monograph by E. A. Berthault, De M. Corderio et creatis apud Protestantes litterarum studiis (1875).

CORDES, a town of southern France, in the department of Tarn, 15 m. N.W. of Albi by road. Pop. (1906) 1619. Cordes, which covers the summit and slopes of an isolated hill, was a bastide founded by Raymond VII., count of Toulouse, in the first half of the 13th century. It preserves its medieval aspect to a remarkable degree, a large number of houses of the 13th and 14th centuries, with decorated fronts, forming its chief attraction. A church of the same periods and remains of the original ramparts are also to be seen.

CORDILLERA, a Spanish term for a range or chain of mountains, derived from the Old Spanish cordilla, the diminutive of cuerda, a cord or rope. The name was first given to the Andes ranges of South America, Las Cordilleras de los Andes, and applied to the extension of the system into Mexico. In North America the parallel ranges of mountains running between and including the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada are known as the “Cordilleras,” and that part of the western continent crossed by them has been termed the “Cordilleran region.” Although the name has been applied to the eastern mountain system of Australia, the word is not, outside America, used as a generic term for parallel ranges of mountains.

CORDITE, the name given to the smokeless propellant in use in the British army and navy. The material is produced in the form of cylindrical rods or strings of varying thicknesses by pressing the material, whilst in a soft and pasty state, through dies or perforations in a steel plate by hydraulic or screw pressure, hence the name cordite. The thickness or size of the rods varies from about 1 mm. diameter to 5 or more mm. according to the nature of the charge for which it is intended. The smallest diameter is used for revolver cartridge and the largest for heavy guns. When first devised by the Ordnance Committee, presided over by Sir Frederick Abel, in 1891, this explosive consisted of 58% of nitro-glycerin, 37% of gun-cotton, and 5% of mineral jelly. This variety is now known as Cordite Mark 1. At the present time a modification is made which contains gun-cotton 65%, nitro-glycerin 30%, and mineral jelly 5%. This is known as Cordite M.D. The advantages of Cordite M.D. over Mark 1 are slightly reduced rate of burning, higher velocities and more regular pressure in the gun, and lower temperature.

Cordite of either mark is a perfectly waterproof substance, containing only traces of water remaining from the manufacturing processes. It has a density of about 1.56 at the ordinary temperature (15° C.), and, as its coefficient of expansion is small, this density does not change to any serious extent under climatic temperature variations. A rod may be bent to a moderate extent without breaking, and Cordite M.D. especially shows considerable elasticity. It can be impressed by the nail and cut with a knife, but is not in the least sticky, nor does the nitro-glycerin exude to any appreciable extent. It can be obtained in a finely-divided state by scraping with a sharp knife, or on a new file, or by grinding in a mill, such as a coffee-mill, but can scarcely be pounded in a mortar. Cordite is of a brownish colour in mass, but is much paler when finely ground or scraped. The rods easily become electrified by gentle friction with a dry substance. Like all colloidal substances it is an exceedingly bad conductor of heat. A piece ignited in air burns with a yellowish flame. With the smaller sizes, about 2 mm. diameter or less, this flame may be blown out, and the rod will continue to burn in a suppressed manner without actual flame, fumes containing oxides of nitrogen being emitted. Temperature appears to have an effect on the rate of burning. When much cooled it certainly burns more slowly than when at the ordinary air temperature, and is also more difficult to ignite. Rods of moderate thickness, say from 5 mm. diameter, will continue to burn under water if first ignited in air and the burning portion slowly immersed. The end of a rod of cordite may be struck a moderately heavy blow on an anvil without exploding or igniting. The rod will first flatten out. A sharp blow will then detonate or explode the portion immediately under the hammer, the remainder of the rod remaining quite intact. Bullets may be fired through a bundle or package of cordite without detonating or inflaming it. This is of course a valuable quality. The exact temperature at which substances ignite or take fire is in all cases difficult to determine with any exactness. Cordite is not instantly ignited on contact with a flame such as that of a candle, because, perhaps, of the condensation of some moisture from the products of burning of the candle upon it. A blow-pipe flame or a red-hot wire is more rapid in action. The ignition temperature may be somewhere in the region of 180° C.

All the members of this class of explosive when kept for some time at (for them) moderately high temperatures, such as the boiling-point of water (100° C.), show signs of decomposition; oxides of nitrogen are liberated, and some complex oxidation processes are started. Carefully prepared gun-cotton and nitro-glycerin will, however, withstand this temperature for a long time without serious detriment, excepting that nitro-glycerin is slightly volatilized. When incorporated in cordite, however, the nitro-glycerin appears to be much less volatile than when free at this temperature. Under reduced pressure (3 or 4 in. only of mercury instead of 30) it is possible to distil away a considerable amount of nitro-glycerin from cordite at 100° C. It is very doubtful whether at ordinary temperatures and pressures any nitro-glycerin whatever evaporates.

Cordite may be kept in contact with clean, dry metals, wood, paper, and a number of ordinary substances without deterioration. In contact with damp and easily oxidizable metals all the substances of the gun-cotton class are liable to a slight local action, but the colloid nature, and probably also the contained mineral jelly, protect cordite considerably in these circumstances. Ammonia has a deleterious action, but even this proceeds but slowly. Cordite does not appear to change when kept under water.

The manufacturing processes comprise: drying the gun-cotton and nitro-glycerin; melting and filtering the mineral jelly; weighing and mixing the nitro-glycerin with the gun-cotton; moistening this mixture with acetone until it becomes a jelly; and then incorporating in a special mixing mill for about three hours, after which the weighed amount of mineral jelly is added and the incorporation continued for about one hour or until judged complete. The incorporating or mixing machine is covered as closely as possible to prevent too great evaporation of the very volatile acetone. Before complete incorporation the mixture is termed, in the works, “paste,” and, when finally mixed, “dough.”

The right consistency having been produced, the material is placed in a steel cylinder provided with an arrangement of dies or holes of regulated size at one end, and a piston or plunger at the other. The plunger is worked either by hydraulic power or by a screw (driven from ordinary shafting). Before reaching and passing through the holes in the die, the material is filtered through a disk of fine wire gauze to retain any foreign substances, such as sand, bits of wood or metal, or unchanged fibres of cellulose, &c., which might choke the dies or be otherwise dangerous. The material issues from the cylinders in the form of cord or string of the diameter of the holes of the die. The thicker sizes are cut off, as they issue, into lengths (of about 3 ft.), it being generally arranged that a certain number of these—say ten—should have, within narrow limits, a definite weight. The small sizes, such as those employed for rifle cartridges, are wound on reels or drums, as the material issues from the press cylinders, in lengths of many yards.

Some of the solvent or gelatinizing material (acetone) is lost during the incorporating, and more during the pressing process and the necessary handling, but much still remains in the cordite at this stage. It is now dried in heated rooms, where it is generally spread out on shelves, a current of air passing through carrying the acetone vapour with it. In the more modern works this air current is drawn, finally, through a solution of a substance such as sodium bisulphite; a fixed compound is thus formed with the acetone, which by suitable treatment may be recovered. The time taken in the drying varies with the thickness of the cordite from a few days to several weeks. For several reasons it is desirable that this process should go on gradually and slowly.

After drying, all the various batches of cordite of the same size are carefully “blended,” so that any slight differences in the manufacture of one batch or one day’s output may be equalized as much as possible. Slight differences may arise from the raw materials, cotton waste or glycerin, or in the making of these into gun-cotton or nitro-glycerin respectively. To help in controlling the blending, each “make” of gun-cotton and nitro-glycerin is “marked” or numbered, and carries its mark to the cordite batch of which it is an ingredient. The history of each box of large-sized or reel of small-sized cordite is therefore known up to the operation of blending and packing. The final testing is by firing proofs, as in the case of the old gunpowders.

The gun-cotton employed for cordite is made in the usual way (see [Gun-Cotton]), with the exception of treating with alkali. It is also after complete washing with water gently pressed into small cylinders (about 3 in. diameter and 4 in. high) whilst wet, and these are carefully dried before the nitro-glycerin is added. The pressure applied is only sufficient to make the gun-cotton just hold together so that it is easily mixed with the nitro-glycerin. The mineral jelly or vaseline is obtained at a certain stage of distillation of petroleum, and is a mixture of hydrocarbons, paraffins, olefines and some other unsaturated hydrocarbons, possibly aromatic, which no doubt play a very important part as preservatives in cordite.

The stability of cordite, that is, its capability of keeping without chemical or ballistic changes, is judged of by certain “heat tests.” The Abel heat test consists in subjecting a weighed quantity, 2 grams, of the finely divided cordite contained in a test tube, to a temperature of 70° C. maintained constant by a water bath. The test tube is about 6×¾ in., and dips into the water sufficiently to immerse about 2 in., viz. the part containing the cordite. In the upper free portion a piece of filter-paper impregnated with a mixture of potassium iodide and starch paste is suspended by a platinum wire from the stopper of the tube. A portion of the test paper is moistened with a solution of glycerin to render it more sensitive than the dry part. A faint brown colour appearing on the moistened portion indicates that some oxides of nitrogen have been evolved from the cordite. This brown tint is compared with a standard, and the time taken before the standard tint appears is noted. The time fixed upon as a test of relative stability is an arbitrary one determined by examination of well-known specimens. Should the cordite or other explosive contain traces of mercury salts, such as mercuric chloride, which is sometimes added as a preservative, this test is rendered nugatory, and no coloration may appear (or only after a long exposure), although the sample may be of indifferent stability. It is now customary to examine specially for mercury, either by heating the explosive in contact with gold leaf or silver foil, or by burning the substance and examining the flame in the spectroscope.

The method of examination known as the vacuum silvered vessel process is probably not interfered with by the presence of very small quantities of mercury. It consists in heating 50 grams of the finely divided explosive in a Dewar’s silvered vacuum glass bulb to a rigidly constant temperature of 80° C. for many hours. A sensitive thermometer having its bulb immersed in the centre of the cordite shows when the temperature rises above 80°. Such a rise indicates internal oxidation or decomposition of the explosive; it is accompanied by an evolution of nitrogen dioxide, NO2, the depth of colour of which is noted through a side tube attached to the bulb. As all explosives of this class would in time decompose sufficiently to give these indications, time periods or limits have been fixed at which an appreciable and definite rise in temperature and production of red fumes indicate relative stability or instability.

(W. R. E. H.)

CÓRDOBA, GONZALO FERNANDEZ DE (1453-1515), Spanish general and statesman, usually spoken of by the Italianized form of his Christian name as Gonsalvo de Córdoba, or as “the Great Captain,” was the second son of Don Pedro Fernandez de Córdoba, count of Aguilar, and of his wife Elvira de Herrera, who belonged to the family of Enriquez, the hereditary admirals of Castile, a branch of the royal house. Gonzalo was born at Montilla near the city of Córdova (Cordoba) on the 16th of March 1453. The father died when he and his elder brother, Don Alonso, were mere boys. The counts of Aguilar carried on an hereditary feud with the rival house of Cabra, and the children were carried by their vassals into the faction fights of the two families. As a younger son Gonzalo had his fortune to make, but he was generously aided by the affection of his elder brother, who was very wealthy. War and service in the king’s court offered the one acceptable career outside the church to a gentleman of his birth.

He was first attached to the household of Don Alphonso, the king’s brother, and upon his death devoted himself to Isabella, afterwards the queen. During the civil war, and the conflict with Portugal which disturbed the first years of her reign, he fought under the grand master of Santiago, Alonso de Cardenas. After the battle of Albuera, the grand master gave him especial praise, saying that he could always see Gonzalo to the front because he was conspicuous by the splendour of his armour. Indeed the future Great Captain, who, as a general, was above all things astute and patient, could, and habitually did, display the most reckless personal daring, going into a fight as if he loved it, and having a shrewd sense that a reputation for intrepidity, a free-handed profusion, and the personal magnificence which strikes the eye, would secure him the devotion of his soldiers. During the ten years’ war for the conquest of Granada he completed his apprenticeship under his brother, the count of Aguilar, the grand master of Santiago, and the count of Tendilla, of whom he always spoke as his masters. It was a war of surprises and defences of castles or towns, of skirmishes, and of ambuscades in the defiles of the mountains. The military engineer and the “guerrillero” were about equally employed. Gonzalo’s most distinguished single feat was the defence of the advanced post of Illora, but he commanded the queen’s escort when she wished to take a closer view of Granada, and he beat back a sortie of the Moors under her eyes. When Granada surrendered, he was one of the officers chosen to arrange the capitulation, and on the peace he was rewarded by a grant of land.

So far he was only known as an able subordinate, but his capacity could not be hidden from such an excellent judge of character as Isabella, to whom as a woman he appealed by a chivalrous union of devotion and respect. When, therefore, the Catholic sovereigns decided to support the Aragonese house of Naples against Charles VIII. of France, Gonzalo was chosen by the influence of the queen, and in preference to older men, to command the Spanish expedition. It was in Italy that he won the title of the Great Captain; Guicciardini says that it was given him by the customary arrogance of the Spaniards, but it was certainly accepted as just by all the soldiers of the time of whatever nationality. A detailed account of his campaigns cannot be given here. He held the command in Italy twice. In 1495 he was sent with a small force of little more than five thousand men to aid Ferdinand of Naples to recover his kingdom, and he returned home after achieving success, in 1498. After a brief interval of service against the conquered Moors who had risen in revolt, he returned to Italy in 1501. Ferdinand of Spain had entered into his iniquitous compact with Louis XII. of France for the spoliation and division of the kingdom of Naples. The Great Captain was chosen to command the Spanish part of this robber coalition. As general and as viceroy of Naples he remained in Italy till 1507. During his first command he was mostly employed in Calabria in mountain warfare which bore much resemblance to his former experience in Granada. There was, however, a material difference in the enemy. The French forces, commanded by the Scotsman Stuart d’Aubigny, consisted largely of Swiss pikemen, and of their own men-at-arms. With his veterans of the Granadine war, foot soldiers armed with sword and buckler, or arquebuses and crossbows, and light cavalry, trained to unsleeping vigilance, capable of long marches, and of an endurance unparalleled among the soldiers of the time, he could carry on a guerrillero warfare which wore down his opponents, who suffered far more than the Spaniards from the heat. But he saw clearly that this was not enough. His experience in Seminara showed him that something more was wanted on the battlefield. The action was lost mainly because King Ferdinand, disregarding the advice of Gonzalo, persisted in fighting a pitched battle with inferior numbers, some of whom were untrustworthy Neapolitans. The Spanish foot behaved excellently, but the result showed that in the open field their loose formation and their swords put them at a disadvantage as against a charge of heavy cavalry or pikemen. Gonzalo therefore introduced a much more strict formation, and adopted the pike as the weapon of a part of his foot. The division of the Spanish infantry into the “battle” or main central body of pikemen, and the wings (alas) of “shot” to be employed in outflanking the enemy, was primarily due to the Great Captain.

The French were expelled by 1498 without another battle. When the Great Captain reappeared in Italy he had first to perform the congenial task of driving the Turk from Cephalonia, then to aid in robbing the king of Naples, Frederick, brother of his old ally Ferdinand. When the king of Naples had been despoiled, the French and Spaniards quarrelled over the booty. The Great Captain now found himself with a much outnumbered army in the presence of the French. The war was divided into two phases very similar to one another. During the end of 1502 and the early part of 1503 the Spaniards stood at bay in the entrenched camp at Barletta near the Ofanto on the shores of the Adriatic. He resolutely refused to be tempted into battle either by the taunts of the French or the discontent of his own soldiers. Meanwhile he employed the Aragonese partisans in the country, and flying expeditions of his own men, to harass the enemy’s communications. When he was reinforced, and the French committed the mistake of scattering their forces too much to secure supplies, he took the offensive, pounced on the enemy’s depot of provisions at Cerignola, took a strong position, threw up hasty field works, and strengthened them with a species of wire entanglements. The French made a headlong front attack, were repulsed, assailed in flank, and routed. The later operations on the Garigliano were very similar, and led to the total expulsion of the French from Naples. Gonzalo remained as governor of Naples till 1507. But he had become too great not to arouse the jealousy of such a typical king of the Renaissance as Ferdinand the Catholic. The death of the queen in 1504 had deprived him of a friend, and it must be allowed that he was profuse in rewarding his captains and his soldiers out of the public treasury. Ferdinand loaded him with titles and fine words, but recalled him so soon as he could, and left him unemployed till his death on the 2nd of December 1515.

The Great Captain is sometimes spoken of as the first of modern generals. The expression is uncritical, for modern generalship arose from many sides, but he was emphatically a general. There is much in his methods which bears a curious likeness to those of the duke of Wellington; Barletta, for instance, has a distinct resemblance to the Torres Vedras campaign, and the battle on the Garigliano to Assaye. As an organizer he founded the Spanish infantry of the 16th and 17th centuries, and he gave the best proof of his influence by forming a school of officers. The best generals of Charles V. were either the pupils of the Great Captain or were trained by them.

There is no life of Gonzalo de Córdoba written by a scholar who was also a good judge of war. The dull Cronica del Gran Capitan gives the bare events of his campaigns rather wearisomely but fully. Paulus Govius, Vitae illustrium virorum, translated by Domenichi (Florence, 1550), is elegant and very readable. Don José Quintana includes him in his Españoles celebres (Rivadeneyra Biblioteca de autores españoles, vol. xix., Madrid, 1846-1880); and Prescott collected the authorities, and made good use of them in his Ferdinand and Isabella. See also P. du Poncet, Histoire de Gonsalve de Cordoue (Paris, 1714). The Gonsalve de Cordoue, ou Grenade reconquise of Florian (Paris, 1791) is a romance.

(D. H.)

CÓRDOBA, a large central province of the Argentine Republic, bounded N. by Santiago del Estero, E. by Santa Fé, S. by Buenos Aires and La Pampa, W. by San Luis and Rioja, and N.W. by Catamarca. Pop. (1895) 351,223; (1904, estimate) 465,464; area, 62,160 sq. m. The greater part of the province belongs to the pampas, though less fertile and grassy than the plains farther E. and S. It likewise includes large saline and swampy areas. The N.W. part of the province is traversed by an isolated mountain system made up of the Córdoba, Pocho and Ischilin sierras, which extend for a distance of some 200 m. in a N. and S. direction. These ranges intercept the moist winds from the Atlantic, and receive on their eastern slopes an abundant rainfall, which gives them a strikingly verdant appearance in comparison with the surrounding plains. West and N.W. of the sierras are extensive saline basins called Las Salinas Grandes, which extend into the neighbouring provinces and are absolutely barren. In the N.E. the land is low and swampy; here are the large saline lagoons of Mar Chiquita and Los Porongos. The principal rivers, which have their sources in the sierras and flow eastward, are the Primero and Segundo, which flow north-easterly into the lacustrine basin of Mar Chiquita; the Tercero and Quarto, which unite near the Santa Fé frontier to form the Carcaraña, a tributary of the Paraná; and the Quinto, which flows south-easterly into the swamps of the Laguna Amarga in the S. part of the province. Countless small streams also descend the eastern slopes of the sierras and are lost in the great plains. The eastern districts are moderately fertile, and are chiefly devoted to cattle-breeding, though cereals are also produced. In the valleys and well-watered foothills of the sierras, however, cereals, alfalfa and fruit are the principal products. The rainfall is limited throughout the province, and irrigation is employed in but few localities. The mineral resources include gold, silver, copper, lead and iron, but mining is carried on only to a very limited extent. Salt and marble are also produced. Córdoba is traversed by several railway lines—those running westward from Buenos Aires and Rosario to Mendoza and the Chilean frontier, those connecting the city of Córdoba with the same cities, and with Tucuman on the N. and Catamarca and Rioja on the N.W. The chief towns are Córdoba, the capital, Rio Quarto, Villa Maria, an important railway centre 82 m. S.E. of Córdoba, and Cruz del Eje on the W. slopes of the sierras, 110 m. N.W. of Córdoba.

CÓRDOBA, a city in the central part of the Argentine Republic, capital of the above province, on the Rio Primero, 435 m. by rail N.W. of Buenos Aires by way of Rosario, 246 m. from the latter. Pop. (1895) 42,783—the suburbs having 11,679 more—(1905, estimate) 60,000. The city is connected by railway with Buenos Aires and Rosario, and with the capitals of all the surrounding provinces. Córdoba stands on a high eastward-sloping plain called the “Altos,” 1240 ft. above sea-level, and is built in a broad river bottom washed out by periodical inundations and the action of the rains on the alluvial banks. The inundations have been brought under control by the construction of barriers and dams, but the banks are constantly broken down. The city is regularly laid out, and contains many fine edifices and dwellings. Several suburban settlements surround the city, the more important of which are served by the urban tramway lines. The streets are lighted by gas and electricity, and an excellent telephone service is maintained. The noteworthy public buildings include the cathedral, a handsome edifice curiously oriental in appearance, a massive old Jesuit church with a ceiling of richly carved and gilded cedar, the old university, founded in 1613, which still occupies the halls built by the Jesuits around a large quadrangle, the fine old cabildo, or government house, of Moorish appearance, and the national observatory on the barranca overlooking the city. There are, also, two national normal schools, a national college, an episcopal seminary, an endowed Carmelite orphanage, a national meteorological station, a national academy of sciences, and a good public library. Among the attractive features of the city is an alameda of about six acres, within which is a square artificial lake of 4 acres, surrounded by shrubbery and shaded walks; the alameda dates from the time when the Jesuits ruled the city, and to them also are due the tiled baths, supplied with running water. A short avenue connects the alameda with the principal plaza, a pretty garden and promenade. The water supply of Córdoba is derived from the Rio Primero, 12 m. above the city, where an immense dam (Dique San Roque), one of the largest of its kind in South America, has been built across the river valley. This dam also serves to irrigate the valley below, and to furnish power for the electric plant which provides Córdoba with light and electric power. In and about the city there are several industrial establishments which have sprung into existence since the opening of the first railway in 1870. The surrounding country is irrigated and well cultivated, and produces an abundance of fruit and vegetables.

The city was founded in 1573 by Luis Geronimo de Cabrera and was for a long time distinguished for its learning and piety. It was the headquarters of the Jesuits in this part of South America for two centuries, and for a time the capital of the Spanish intendencia of Tucuman. The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 proved to be a serious blow to the academic reputation of the city, from which it did not recover until 1870, when President Sarmiento engaged some eminent scientific men from Europe to teach modern science in the university.

CÓRDOBA, a town of the state of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 55 m. W.S.W. of the port of Vera Cruz, in a highly fertile valley, near the volcano of Orizaba, and 2880 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1895) 7974. The surrounding district produces sugar, tobacco and coffee, Córdoba being one of the principal coffee-producing centres of Mexico. It also manufactures cotton and woollen fabrics. The town is regularly laid out and built of stone, and contains several handsome edifices, chief of which is the old cathedral. Córdoba was a town of considerable importance in colonial times, but fell into decay after the revolution. The railway from Vera Cruz to Mexico, which passes through it, and the development of coffee production, have helped the city to recover a part of its lost trade.

CORDON (a French derivative of corde, cord), a word used in many applications of its meaning of “line” or “cord,” and particularly of a cord of gold or silver lace worn in military and other uniforms. The word is especially used of the sash or ribbon worn by members of an order of knighthood, crossing from one shoulder to the opposite hip. The cordon bleu, the sky-blue ribbon of the knight’s grand cross of the order of the Holy Spirit, the highest order of the Bourbon kings of France, was, like the “blue ribbon” of the English Garter, taken as a type of the highest reward or prize to which any one can attain (see also [Cookery]). In heraldry, “cordons” are the ornamental cords which, with the hats to which they are attached, ensign the shields of arms of certain ecclesiastical dignitaries; they are interlaced to form a mesh or network and terminate in rows of tassels. A cardinal’s cordon is gules with five rows of fifteen tassels, an archbishop’s vert with four rows of ten, and a bishop’s also vert, with three rows of six. In architecture a “cordon” is a projecting band of stone along the outside of a building, a string-course. The word is frequently used in a transferred sense of a line of posts or stations to guard an enclosed area from unauthorized passage, e.g. a military or police cordon, and especially a sanitary cordon, a line of posts to prevent communication from or with an area infected with disease.

CORDOVA (Span. Córdoba), an inland province of southern Spain, bounded on the N.E. by Ciudad Real, E. by Jaén, S.E. by Granada, S. by Málaga, S.W. and W. by Seville, and N.W. by Badajoz. Pop. (1900) 455,859; area, 5299 sq. m. The river Guadalquivir divides the province into two very dissimilar portions. On the right bank is the mountainous region of the Sierra Morena, less peopled and fertile than the left bank, with its great plains (La Campiña) and slightly undulating country towards the south and south-east, where the surface again becomes mountainous with the outlying ridges of the Sierra Nevada. The Guadalquivir, flowing from E.N.E. to W.S.W., waters the richest districts of Cordova, and has many tributaries, notably the Bembezar, Guadiato and Guadamellato, on the right, and the Genil and Guadajoz on the left. The northern districts (Los Pedroches) are drained by several small tributaries of the Guadiana. The climate is much varied. Snow is to be found for months on the highest peaks of the mountains; mild temperature in the plains, except in the few torrid summer months, when rain seldom falls. The peasantry are chiefly occupied in various branches of husbandry; sheep-farming and the culture of the olive employ large numbers. The agricultural wealth of Cordova is, however, not fully exploited, owing to the conservatism and backward education of the peasantry. There are no great manufacturing towns, but mining is an industry of some importance. In 1903 coal was obtained in considerable quantities in the Belmez district; argentiferous lead and zinc near Pozoblanco and elsewhere; iron ore at Luque, near Baena. A small amount of bismuth is also obtained. Mining is facilitated by a fairly complete and well-kept system of communication by road and railway. The main line Madrid-Lináres-Seville follows the Guadalquivir valley throughout the province, passing through the capital, Cordova. Here it meets the line from Almorchón, on the north, to Málaga, on the south, which has three important branches—Belmez-Fuente del Arco, Cordova-Utrera, and Puente Genil-Jaén. After the capital, the principal towns are Aguilar de la Frontera (13,236), Baena (14,539), Cabra (13,127), Fuente Ovejuna (11,777), Lucena (21,179), Montilla (13,603), Montoro (14,581), Pozoblanco (12,792), Priego de Cordoba (16,904) and Puente Genil (12,956). These are described under separate headings. Other towns of less importance are Adamuz (6974), Belalcázar (7682), Belmez (8978), Bujalance (10,756), Castro del Río (11,821), Hinojosa del Duque (10,673), Palma del Río (7914), Rute (10,740) and Villafranca de Córdoba (9771).

CORDOVA (Span. Córdoba; Lat. Corduba), the capital of the Spanish province of Cordova, on the southern slopes of the Sierra de Cordova, and the right bank of the river Guadalquivir. Pop. (1900) 58,275. At Cordova the Madrid-Seville railway meets the branch line from Almorchón to Málaga. The city is an episcopal see. Few fragments remain of its Moorish walls, which were erected on Roman foundations and enclosed a very wide area, now largely occupied by garden-ground cleared from the ruins of ancient buildings. On the outskirts are many modern factories in striking contrast with the surrounding orange, lemon and olive plantations, and with the pastures which belong to the celebrated Cordovan school of bull-fighting. Nearer the centre the streets are for the most part narrow and crooked. Almost every building, however, is profusely covered with whitewash, and thus there is little difference on the surface between the oldest and the most modern houses. The southern suburb communicates with the town by means of a bridge of sixteen arches across the river, exhibiting the usual combination of Roman and Moorish masonry and dominated at the one end by an elevated statue of the patron saint, St Raphael, whose effigy is to be seen in various other quarters of the city. The most important of the public buildings are the cathedral, the old monastic establishments, the churches, the bishop’s palace, the city hall, the hospitals and the schools and colleges, including the academy for girls founded in 1590 by Bishop Pacheco of Cordova, which is empowered to grant degrees. The Alcázar, or royal palace, stands on the south-west amid the gardens laid out by its builder, the caliph Abd-ar-Rahman III. (912-961). Its older parts are in ruins, and even the so-called New Alcázar, erected by Alphonso XI. of Castile in 1328, and long used as the offices of the Holy Inquisition, has only one wing in good repair, which serves as a prison.

But the glory of Cordova, surpassing all its other Moorish or Christian buildings, is the mezquita, or mosque, now a cathedral, but originally founded on the site of a Roman temple and a Visigothic church by Abd-ar-Rahman I. (756-788), who wished to confirm the power of his caliphate by making its capital a great religious centre. Immigration from all the lands of Islam soon rendered a larger mosque necessary, owing to the greatly increased multitude of worshippers, and, by orders of Abd-ar-Rahman II. (822-852) and Al-Hakim II. (961-976), the original size was doubled. After various minor additions, Al-Mansur, the vizier of the caliph Hisham II. (976-1009), again enlarged the Zeca, or House of Purification, as the mosque was named, to twice its former size, rendering it the largest sacred building of Islam, after the Kaaba at Mecca. The ground plan of the completed mosque forms a rectangle, measuring 570 ft. in length and 425 in breadth, or little less than St Peter’s in Rome. About one-third of this area is occupied by the courtyard, and the cloisters which surround it on the north, west and east. The exterior, with the straight lines of its square buttress towers, has a heavy and somewhat ungainly appearance; but the interior is one of the most beautiful specimens of Moorish architecture. Passing through a grand courtyard about 500 ft. in length, shady with palm and cypress and orange trees and watered by five fountains, the visitor enters on the south a magnificent and bewildering labyrinth of pillars in which porphyry, jasper and many-coloured marbles are boldly combined. Part came from the spoils of Nîmes or Narbonne, part from Seville or Tarragona, some from the older ruins of Carthage, and others as a present to Abd-ar-Rahman I. from the East Roman emperor Leo IV., who sent also from Constantinople his own skilled workmen, with 16 tons of tesserae for the mosaics. Originally of different heights, the pillars have been adjusted to their present standard of 12 ft. either by being sunk into the soil or by the addition of Corinthian capitals. Twelve hundred was the number of the columns in the original building, but many have been destroyed. The pillars divide the area of the building from north to south, longitudinally into nineteen and transversely into twenty-nine aisles—each row supporting a tier of open Moorish arches of the same height (12 ft.) with a third and similar tier superimposed upon the second. The full height of the ceiling is thus about 35 ft. The Moorish character of the building was unfortunately impaired in the 16th century by the formation in the interior of a crucero, or high altar and cruciform choir, by the addition of numerous chapels along the sides of the vast quadrangle, and by the erection of a belfry 300 ft. high in room of the old minaret. The crucero in itself is no disgrace to the architect Hernan Ruiz, but every lover of art must sympathize with the rebuke administered by the emperor Charles V. (1500-1558) to the cathedral authorities: “You have built here what could have been built as well anywhere else; and you have destroyed what was unique in the world.” Magnificent, indeed, as the cathedral still is, it is almost impossible to realize what the mosque must have been when the worshippers thronged through its nineteen gateways of bronze, and its 4700 lamps, fed with perfumed oil, illuminated its brilliant aisles. Of the exquisite elaboration bestowed on the more sacred portions abundant proof is afforded by the third Mihrab, or prayer-recess, a small 10th-century chapel, heptagonal in shape, roofed with a single shell-like block of snow-white marble, and inlaid with Byzantine mosaics of glass and gold.

Cordova was celebrated in the time of the Moors for its silversmiths, who are said to have come originally from Damascus; and it exported a peculiar kind of leather which took its name from the city, whence is derived the word cordwainer. Fine silver filigree ornaments are still produced; and Moorish work in leather is often skilfully imitated, although this handicraft almost disappeared in the 15th century. The chief modern industries of Cordova are distillation of spirits and the manufacture of woollen, linen and silken goods.

Corduba, probably of Carthaginian origin, was occupied by the Romans under Marcus Marcellus in 152 B.C.. and shortly afterwards became the first Roman colonia in Spain. From the large number of men of noble rank among the colonists, the city obtained the title of Patricia; and to this day the Cordovese pride themselves on the purity and antiquity of their descent. In the 1st century B.C. Cordova aided the sons of Pompey against Caesar; but after the battle of Munda, in 45 B.C., it fell into the hands of Caesar, who avenged the obstinacy of its resistance by massacring 20,000 of the inhabitants. Under Augustus, if not before, it became a municipality, and was the capital of the thoroughly Romanized province of Baetica. In the lifetime of Strabo, however (c. 63 B.C.-A.D. 21), it still ranked as the largest city of Spain. Its prosperity was due partly to its position on the Baetis, and on the Via Augusta, the great commercial road from northern Spain built by Augustus, and partly to its proximity to mines and rich grazing and grain-producing districts. Hosius, its bishop, presided over the first council of Nicaea in 345; and its importance was maintained by the Visigothic kings, whose rule lasted from the 5th to the beginning of the 8th century. Under the Moors, Cordova was at first an appanage of the caliphate of Damascus; but after 756 Abd-ar-Rahman I. made it the capital of Moorish Spain, and the centre of an independent caliphate (see [Abd-ar-Rahman]). It reached its zenith of prosperity in the middle of the 10th century, under Abd-ar-Rahman III. At his death, it is recorded by native chroniclers, probably with Arabic exaggeration, that Cordova contained within its walls 200,000 houses, 600 mosques, 900 baths, a university, and numerous public libraries; whilst on the bank of the Guadalquivir, under the power of its monarch, there were eight cities, 300 towns and 12,000 populous villages. A period of decadence began in 1016, owing to the claims of the rival dynasties which aimed at succeeding to the line of Abd-ar-Rahman; the caliphate never won back its position, and in 1236 Cordova was easily captured by Ferdinand III. of Castile. The substitution of Spanish for Moorish supremacy rather accelerated than arrested the decline of art, industry and population; and in the 19th century Cordova never recovered from the disaster of 1808, when it was stormed and sacked by the French. Few cities of Spain, however, can boast of so long a list of illustrious natives in the Moorish and Roman periods, and even, to a less extent, in modern times. It was the birthplace of the rhetorician Marcus Annaeus Seneca, and his more famous son Lucius (c. 3 B.C.-A.D. 65); of the poet Lucan (A.D. 39-65); of the philosophers Averroes (1126-1198) and Maimonides (1135-1204); of the Spanish men of letters Juan de Mena (c. 1411-1456), Lorenzo de Sepúlveda (d. 1574) and Luis de Gongora y Argote (1561-1627); and the painters Pablo de Céspedes (1538-1608) and Juan de Valdés Leal (1630-1691). The celebrated captain Gonzalo Fernandez de Córdoba (q.v.), the conqueror of Naples (1495-1498), was born in the neighbouring town of Montilla.

See Estudio descriptivo de los monumentos árabes de Granada y Córdoba, by R. Contreras (Madrid, 1885); Córdoba, a large illustrated volume of the series España, by P. de Madrazo (Barcelona, 1884); Inscripciones árabes de Córdoba, by R. Amador de los Ríos y Villalta (Madrid, 1886).

CORDUROY, a cotton cloth of the fustian kind, made like a ribbed velvet. It is generally a coarse heavy material and is used largely for workmen’s clothes, but some finer kinds are used for ladies’ dresses, &c. According to the New English Dictionary the word is understood to be of English invention, “either originally intended, or soon after assumed, to represent a supposed French corde du roi.” It is said that a coarse woollen fabric called duroy, made in Somerset during the 18th century, has no apparent connexion with it. From the ribbed appearance of the cloth the name corduroy is applied, particularly in America, to a rough road of logs laid transversely side by side, usually across swampy ground.

CORDUS, AULUS CREMUTIUS, Roman historian of the later Augustan age. He was the author of a history (perhaps called Annales) of the events of the civil wars and the reign of Augustus, embracing the period from at least 43-18 B.C. In A.D. 25 he was brought to trial for having eulogized Brutus and spoken of Cassius as the last of the Romans. His real offence was a witticism at the expense of Sejanus, who put up two of his creatures to accuse him in the senate. Seeing that nothing could save him, Cordus starved himself to death. A decree of the senate ordered that his works should be confiscated and burned by the aediles. Some copies, however, were saved by the efforts of Cordus’s daughter Marcia, and after the death of Tiberius the work was published at the express wish of Caligula. It is impossible to form an opinion of it from the scanty fragments (H. Peter, Historicorum Romanorum Fragmenta, 1883). According to ancient authorities, the writer was very outspoken in his denunciations, and his relatives considered it necessary to strike out the most offensive passages of the work before it was widely circulated (Quintilian, Instit. x. 1, 104). Two passages in Pliny (Nat. Hist. x. 74 [37], xvi. 108 [45]) seem to refer to a work of a different nature from the history—perhaps a treatise on Admiranda or remarkable things.

See Tacitus, Annals, iv. 34, 35; Suetonius, Tiberius, 61, Caligula, 16; Seneca, Suasoriae, vii., esp. the Consolatio to Cordus’s daughter Marcia; Dio Cassius lvii. 24. There are monographs by J. Held (1841) and C. Rathlef (1860). Also H. Peter, Die geschichtliche Literatur über die römische Kaiserzeit (1897); Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Lit., Eng. trans., 277, 1.

CORELLI, ARCANGELO (1653-1713), Italian violin-player and composer, was born on the 12th or 13th of February 1653, at Fusignano near Imola, and died in 1713. Of his life little is known. His master on the violin was Bassani. Matteo Simonelli, the well-known singer of the pope’s chapel, taught him composition. His first decided success was gained in Paris at the age of nineteen. To this he owed his European reputation. From Paris Corelli went to Germany. In 1681 he was in the service of the electoral prince of Bavaria; between 1680 and 1685 he spent a considerable time in the house of his friend Farinelli. In 1685 he was certainly in Rome, where he led the festival performances of music for Queen Christine of Sweden and was also a favourite of Cardinal Ottoboni. From 1689 to 1690 he was in Modena, the duke of which city made him handsome presents. In 1708 he went once more to Rome, living in the palace of Cardinal Ottoboni. His visit to Naples, at the invitation of the king, took place in the same year. The style of execution introduced by Corelli and preserved by his pupils, such as Geminiani, Locatelli, and many others, has been of vital importance for the development of violin-playing, but he employed only a limited portion of his instrument’s compass, as may be seen by his writings, wherein the parts for the violin never proceed above D on the first string, the highest note in the third position; it is even said that he refused to play, as impossible, a passage which extended to A in altissimo in the overture to Handel’s Trionfo del Tempo, and took serious offence when the composer played the note in evidence of its practicability. His compositions for the instrument mark an epoch in the history of chamber music; for his influence was not confined to his own country. Even Sebastian Bach submitted to it. Musical society in Rome owed much to Corelli. He was received in the highest circles of the aristocracy, and arranged and for a long time presided at the celebrated Monday concerts in the palace of Cardinal Ottoboni. Corelli died possessed of a sum of 120,000 marks and a valuable collection of pictures, the only luxury in which he had indulged. He left both to his benefactor and friend, who, however, generously made over the money to Corelli’s relations. Corelli’s compositions are distinguished by a beautiful flow of melody and by a masterly treatment of the accompanying parts, which he is justly said to have liberated from the strict rules of counterpoint. Six collections of concerti, sonatas and minor pieces for violin, with accompaniment of other instruments, besides several concerted pieces for strings, are authentically ascribed to this composer. The most important of these is the XII. Suonati a violino e violone o cimbalo (Rome, 1700).

CORELLI, MARIE (1864-  ), English novelist, was the daughter of an Italian father and a Scottish mother, but in infancy was adopted by Charles Mackay (q.v.), the song-writer and journalist, whose son Eric, at his death, became her guardian. She was sent to be educated in a French convent with the object of training her for the musical profession, and while still a girl composed various pieces of music. But her journalistic connexion proved a stronger stimulus to expression, and editors who were friends of her adopted father printed some of her early poetry. Then she produced what was at least a clever, if not a remarkably well written, romantic story, on the theme of a self-revelation connecting the Christian Deity with a world force in the form of electricity, which was published in 1886 under the title of A Romance of Two Worlds. It had an immediate and large sale, which resulted, naturally, in her devoting her inventive faculty to satisfy the public demand for similar work. Thus she wrote in succession a series of melodramatic romantic novels, original in some aspects of their treatment, daring in others, but all combining a readable plot with enough au fond of what the majority demanded in ethical and religious correctness to suit a widespread contemporary taste; these were Vendetta (1886), Thelma (1887), Ardath (1889), The Soul of Lilith (1892), Barabbas (1893), The Sorrows of Satan (1895),—the very titles were catching,—The Mighty Atom (1896),—which appealed to all who knew enough of modern science to wish to think it wicked,—and others, down to The Master Christian (1900), again satisfying the socio-ethico-religious demand, and Temporal Power (1902), with its contemporary suggestion from the accession of Edward VII. Miss Corelli had the advantage of writing quite sincerely and with conviction, amid what superior critics sneered at as bad style and sensationalism, on themes which conventional readers nevertheless enjoyed, and round plots which were dramatic and vigorous. Her popular success was great and advertised itself. It was helped by a well-spread belief that Queen Victoria preferred her novels to any other. Reviewers wrote sarcastically, and justly, of her obvious literary lapses and failings; she retorted by pitying the poor reviewers and letting it be understood that no books of hers were sent to the Press for criticism. When she went to live at Stratford-on-Avon, her personality, and her importance in the literary world, became further allied with the historic associations of the place; and in the public life of women writers her utterances had the réclame which is emphasized by journalistic publicity. Such success is not to be gauged by purely literary standards; the popularity of Miss Corelli’s novels is a phenomenon not so much of literature as of literary energy—entirely creditable to the journalistic resource of the writer, and characteristic of contemporary pleasure in readable fiction.

CORENZIO, BELISARIO (c. 1558-1643), Italian painter, a Greek by birth, studied at Venice under Tintoretto, and then settled at Naples, where he became famous for unscrupulous conduct as a man and rapid execution as an artist. Though careless in composition and a mannerist in style, he possessed an acknowledged fertility of invention and readiness of hand; and these qualities, allied to a certain breadth of conception, seem in the eyes of his contemporaries to have atoned for many defects. When Guido Reni came in 1621 to Naples to paint in the chapel of St Januarius, Corenzio suborned an assassin to take his life. The hired bravo killed Guido’s assistant, and effectually frightened Reni, who prudently withdrew to Rome. Corenzio, however, only suffered temporary imprisonment, and lived long enough to supplant Ribera in the good graces of Don Pedro di Toledo, viceroy of Naples, who made him his court painter. Corenzio vainly endeavoured to fill Guido’s place in the chapel of St Januarius. His work was adjudged to have been under the mark, and yet the numerous frescoes which he left in Neapolitan churches and palaces, and the large wall paintings which still cover the cupola of the church of Monte Casino are evidence of uncommon facility, and show that Corenzio was not greatly inferior to the fa prestos of his time. His florid style, indeed, seems well in keeping with the overladen architecture and full-blown decorative ornament peculiar to the Jesuit builders of the 17th century. Corenzio died, it is said, at the age of eighty-five by a fall from a scaffolding.

CO-RESPONDENT, in law, generally, a person made respondent to, or called upon to answer, along with another or others, a petition or other proceeding. More particularly, since the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, the term is applied to the person charged by a husband, when presenting a petition praying for the dissolution of his marriage on the ground of adultery, with misconduct with his wife, and made, jointly with her, a respondent to the suit. (See also [Divorce].)

CORFE CASTLE, a town in the eastern parliamentary division of Dorsetshire, England, in the district called the Isle of Purbeck, 129½ m. S.W. by W. from London by the London & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 1440. The castle, through which the town is famous, guarded a gap in the line of considerable hills which rise in the centre of Purbeck. It is strongly placed on an eminence falling almost sheer on three sides. Its ruins are extensive, and date for the most part from the Norman period to the reign of Edward I. There is, however, a trace of early masonry which may have belonged to the Saxon house where, in 978, King Edward the Martyr was murdered. Corfe Castle was held for the empress Maud against King Stephen in 1139, was frequently the residence of King John, and was a stronghold of the barons against Henry III. Edward II. was imprisoned here for a short period. The castle withstood a protracted siege by the Parliamentarians in 1643, and fell to them by treachery in 1646, after which it was dismantled and wrecked. The church in the town, almost wholly rebuilt, is dedicated to St Edward the Martyr. The quarrying of Purbeck stone and the raising of potters’ clay are the chief industries.

Probably Corfe Castle (Corfes geat, Corf geat, Corve, Corph) was an early Anglo-Saxon settlement. According to William of Malmesbury the church was founded by St Aldhelm in the 7th century. In 1086 the abbey of Shaftesbury held the manor, which afterwards passed to the Norman kings, who raised the castle. Its date is disputed, but the town dependent on it seems to have grown up during the 13th century, being first mentioned in 1290, when an inquisition states that the mayor has pesage of wool and cheese. The rights of the burgesses seem to have been undefined, for frequent commissions attest to encroachments on the rights of warren, forest and wreckage belonging to the royal manor. In 1380-1381 at an inquisition into the liberties of Corfe Castle, the jurors declared that from time immemorial the constable and his steward had held all pleas and amerciaments except those of the mayor’s court of Pie Powder, but that the town had judgment by fire, water and combat. The tenants, or “barons,” elected themselves a mayor and coroners, but the constable received the assize of ale. Elizabeth in 1577 gave exclusive admiralty jurisdiction within the island of Purbeck to Sir Christopher Hatton, and granted the mayor and “barons” of Corfe the rights they enjoyed by prescription and charter and that of not being placed on juries or assizes in matters beyond the island. Charles II. incorporated Corfe Castle in 1663, the mayor being elected at a court leet from three nominees of the lord of the manor. Corfe Castle first returned two representatives to parliament in 1572, but was disfranchised in 1832. A market for each Saturday was granted to Corfe in 1214, and in 1248 the town obtained a fair and a market on each Thursday, while Elizabeth granted fairs on the feasts of St Philip and St James and of St Luke; both of these still survive. As early as the 14th century the quarrying and export of marble gave employment to the men of Corfe, and during the 18th century the knitting of stockings was a flourishing industry.

See T. Bond, History and Description of Corfe Castle (London and Bournemouth, 1883).

CORFINIUM, in ancient Italy, the chief city of the Paeligni, 7 m. N. of Sulmona in the valley of the Aternus. The site of the original town is occupied by the village of Pentima. It probably became subject to Rome in the 4th century B.C., though it does not appear in Roman history before the Social War (90 B.C.), in which it was at first adopted by the allies as the capital and seat of government of their newly founded state under the name Italia (this form, not Italica, is vouched for by the coins). It appears also as a fortress of importance in the Civil War, though it only resisted Caesar’s attack for a week (49 B.C.). Whether the Via Valeria ran as far as Corfinium before the time of Claudius is uncertain: he, however, certainly extended it to the Adriatic, and at the same time constructed a cross road, the Via Claudia Nova, which diverged from the Via Claudia Valeria at a point 6 m. farther north, and led past Peltuinum and Aveia to Foruli on the Via Salaria. Another road ran S.S.E. past Sulmo to Aesernia. It was thus an important road centre, and must have been, in the imperial period, a town of some size, as may be gathered from the inscriptions that have been discovered there, and from the extent rather than the importance of the buildings visible on the site (among them may be noted the remains of two aqueducts), which has, however, never been systematically excavated. Short accounts of discoveries will be found in Notizie degli Scavi, passim, and a museum, consisting chiefly of the contents of tombs, has been formed at Pentima. In one corner of a large enclosed space (possibly a palaestra) was constructed the church of S. Pelino. The present building dates from the 13th century, though its origin may be traced to the end of the 5th when it was the cathedral of the see of Valva, which appears to have been the name of Corfinium at the close of the Roman period.

(T. As.)

CORFU (anc. and mod. Gr. Κέρκυρα or Κόρκυρα, Lat. Corcyra), an island of Greece, in the Ionian Sea, off the coast of Albania or Epirus, from which it is separated by a strait varying in breadth from less than 2 to about 15 m. The name Corfu is an Italian corruption of the Byzantine Κορυφώ, which is derived from the Greek Κορυφαί (crests). In shape it is not unlike the sickle (drepanē), to which it was compared by the ancients,—the hollow side, with the town and harbour of Corfu in the centre, being turned towards the Albanian coast. Its extreme length is about 40 m. and its greatest breadth about 20. The area is estimated at 227 sq. m., and the population in 1907 was 99,571, of whom 28,254 were in the town and suburbs of Corfu. Two high and well-defined ranges divide the island into three districts, of which the northern is mountainous, the central undulating and the southern low-lying. The most important of the two ranges is that of San Salvador, probably the ancient Istone, which stretches east and west from Cape St Angelo to Cape St Stefano, and attains its greatest elevation of 3300 ft. in the summit from which it takes its name. The second culminates in the mountain of Santi Deca, or Santa Decca, as it is called by misinterpretation of the Greek designation οἱ Ἄγιοι Δέκα, or the Ten Saints. The whole island, composed as it is of various limestone formations, presents great diversity of surface, and the prospects from the more elevated spots are magnificent.

Corfu is generally considered the most beautiful of all the Greek isles, but the prevalence of the olive gives some monotony to its colouring. It is worthy of remark that Homer names, as adorning the garden of Alcinous, seven plants only—wild olive, oil olive, pear, pomegranate, apple, fig and vine. Of these the apple and the pear are now very inferior in Corfu; the others thrive well and are accompanied by all the fruit trees known in southern Europe, with addition of the Japanese medlar (or loquat), and, in some spots, of the banana. When undisturbed by cultivation, the myrtle, arbutus, bay and ilex form a rich brushwood and the minor flora of the island is extensive.

The common form of laud tenure is the colonia perpetua, by which the landlord grants a lease to the tenant and his heirs for ever, in return for a rent, payable in kind, and fixed at a certain proportion of the produce. Of old, a tenant thus obtaining half the produce to himself was held to be co-owner of the soil to the extent of one-fourth; and if he had three-fourths of the crop, his ownership came to one-half. Such a tenant could not be expelled except for non-payment, bad culture or the transfer of his lease without the landlord’s consent. Attempts have been made to prohibit so embarrassing a system; but as it is preferred by the agriculturists, the existing laws permit it. The portion of the olive crop due to the landlord, whether by colonia or ordinary lease, is paid, not according to the actual harvest, but in keeping with the estimates of valuators mutually appointed, who, just before the fruit is ripe, calculate how much each tree will probably yield. The large old fiefs (baronie) in Corfu, as in the other islands, have left their traces in the form of quit-rents (known in Scotland by the name of feu-duties), generally equal to one-tenth of the produce. But they have been much subdivided, and the vassals may by law redeem them. Single olive trees of first quality yield sometimes as much as 2 gallons of oil, and this with little trouble or expense beyond the collecting and pressing of the fallen fruit. The trees grow unrestrained, and some are not less than three hundred years old. The vineyards are laboured by the broad heart-shaped hoe. The vintage begins on the festival of Santa Croce, or the 26th of September (O.S.). None of the Corfu wines is much exported. The capital is the only city or town of much extent in the island; but there are a number of villages, such as Benizze, Gasturi, Ipso, Glypho, with populations varying from 300 to 1000. Near Gasturi stands the Achilleion, the palace built for the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, and purchased in 1907 by the German emperor, William II.

The town of Corfu stands on the broad part of a peninsula, whose termination in the citadel is cut from it by an artificial fosse formed in a natural gully, with a salt-water ditch at the bottom. Having grown up within fortifications, where every foot of ground was precious, it is mostly, in spite of recent improvements, a labyrinth of narrow, tortuous, up-and-down streets, accommodating themselves to the irregularities of the ground, few of them fit for wheel carriages. There is, however, a handsome esplanade between the town and the citadel, and a promenade by the seashore towards Castrades. The palace, built by Sir Thomas Maitland (?1759-1824; lord high commissioner of the Ionian Islands, 1815), is a large structure of white Maltese stone. In several parts of the town may be found houses of the Venetian time, with some traces of past splendour, but they are few, and are giving place to structures in the modern and more convenient French style. Of the thirty-seven Greek churches the most important are the cathedral, dedicated to Our Lady of the Cave (ἡ Παναγία Σπηλιώτισσα); St Spiridion’s, with the tomb of the patron saint of the island; and the suburban church of St Jason and St Sosipater, reputed the oldest in the island. The city is the seat of a Greek and a Roman Catholic archbishop; and it possesses a gymnasium, a theatre, an agricultural and industrial society, and a library and museum preserved in the buildings formerly devoted to the university, which was founded by Frederick North, 5th earl of Guilford (1766-1827, himself the first chancellor in 1824,) in 1823, but disestablished on the cessation of the English protectorate. There are three suburbs of some importance—Castrades, Manduchio and San Rocco. The old fortifications of the town, being so extensive as to require a force of from 10,000 to 20,000 troops to man them, were in great part thrown down by the English, and a simpler plan adopted, limiting the defences to the island of Vido and the old citadel; these are now dismantled.

History.—According to the local tradition Corcyra was the Homeric island of Scheria, and its earliest inhabitants the Phaeacians. At a date no doubt previous to the foundation of Syracuse it was peopled by settlers from Corinth, but it appears to have previously received a stream of emigrants from Eretria. The splendid commercial position of Corcyra on the highway between Greece and the West favoured its rapid growth, and, influenced perhaps by the presence of non-Corinthian settlers, its people, quite contrary to the usual practice of Corinthian colonies, maintained an independent and even hostile attitude towards the mother city. This opposition came to a head in the early part of the 7th century, when their fleets fought the first naval battle recorded in Greek history (about 664 B.C.). These hostilities ended in the conquest of Corcyra by the Corinthian tyrant Periander (c. 600), who induced his new subjects to join in the colonization of Apollonia and Anactorium. The island soon regained its independence and henceforth devoted itself to a purely mercantile policy. During the Persian invasion of 480 it manned the second largest Greek fleet (60 ships), but took no active part in the war. In 435 it was again involved in a quarrel with Corinth and sought assistance from Athens. This new alliance was one of the chief immediate causes of the Peloponnesian War (q.v.), in which Corcyra was of considerable use to the Athenians as a naval station, but did not render much assistance with its fleet. The island was nearly lost to Athens by two attempts of the oligarchic faction to effect a revolution; on each occasion the popular party ultimately won the day and took a most bloody revenge on its opponents (427 and 425). During the Sicilian campaigns of Athens Corcyra served as a base for supplies; after a third abortive rising of the oligarchs in 410 it practically withdrew from the war. In 375 it again joined the Athenian alliance; two years later it was besieged by a Lacedaemonian armament, but in spite of the devastation of its flourishing countryside held out successfully until relief was at hand. In the Hellenistic period Corcyra was exposed to attack from several sides; after a vain siege by Cassander it was occupied in turn by Agathocles and Pyrrhus. It subsequently fell into the hands of Illyrian corsairs, until in 229 it was delivered by the Romans, who retained it as a naval station and gave it the rank of a free state. In 31 B.C. it served Octavian (Augustus) as a base against Antony.

Eclipsed by the foundation of Nicopolis, Corcyra for a long time passed out of notice. With the rise of the Norman kingdom in Sicily and the Italian naval powers, it again became a frequent object of attack. In 1081-1085 it was held by Robert Guiscard, in 1147-1154 by Roger II. of Sicily. During the break-up of the Later Roman Empire it was occupied by Genoese privateers (1197-1207) who in turn were expelled by the Venetians. In 1214-1259 it passed to the Greek despots of Epirus, and in 1267 became a possession of the Neapolitan house of Anjou. Under the latter’s weak rule the island suffered considerably from the inroads of various adventurers; hence in 1386 it placed itself under the protection of Venice, which in 1401 acquired formal sovereignty over it. Corcyra remained in Venetian hands till 1797, though several times assailed by Turkish armaments and subjected to two notable sieges in 1536 and 1716-1718, in which the great natural strength of the city again asserted itself. The Venetian feudal families pursued a mild but somewhat enervating policy towards the natives, who began to merge their nationality in that of the Latins and adopted for the island the new name of Corfu. The Corfiotes were encouraged to enrich themselves by the cultivation of the olive, but were debarred from entering into commercial competition with Venice. The island served as a refuge for Greek scholars, and in 1732 became the home of the first academy of modern Greece, but no serious impulse to Greek thought came from this quarter.

By the treaty of Campo Formio Corfu was ceded to the French, who occupied it for two years, until they were expelled by a Russo-Turkish armament (1799). For a short time it became the capital of a self-governing federation of the Hephtanesos (“Seven Islands”); in 1807 its faction-ridden government was again replaced by a French administration, and in 1809 it was vainly besieged by a British fleet. When, by the treaty of Paris of November 5, 1815, the Ionian Islands were placed under the protectorate of Great Britain, Corfu became the seat of the British high commissioner. The British commissioners, who were practically autocrats in spite of the retention of the native senate and assembly, introduced a strict method of government which brought about a decided improvement in the material prosperity of the island, but by its very strictness displeased the natives. In 1864 it was, with the other Ionian Islands, ceded to the kingdom of Greece, in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants. The island has again become an important point of call and has a considerable trade in olive oil; under a more careful system of tillage the value of its agricultural products might be largely increased.

Corfu contains very few and unimportant remains of antiquity. The site of the ancient city of Corcyra (Κέρκυρα) is well ascertained, about 1½ m. to the south-east of Corfu, upon the narrow piece of ground between the sea-lake of Calichiopulo and the Bay of Castrades, in each of which it had a port. The circular tomb of Menecrates, with its well-known inscription, is on the Bay of Castrades. Under the hill of Ascension are the remains of a temple, popularly called of Neptune, a very simple Doric structure, which still in its mutilated state presents some peculiarities of architecture. Of Cassiope, the only other city of ancient importance, the name is still preserved by the village of Cassopo, and there are some rude remains of building on the site; but the temple of Zeus Cassius for which it was celebrated has totally disappeared. Throughout the island there are numerous monasteries and other buildings of Venetian erection, of which the best known are Paleocastrizza, San Salvador and Pelleka.

Authorities.—Strabo vi. p. 269; vii. p. 329; Herodotus viii. 168; Thucydides i.-iii.; Xenophon, Hellenica, vi. 2; Polybius ii. 9-11; Plutarch, Quaestiones Graecae, ch. xi.; H. Jervis, The Ionian Islands during the Present Century (London, 1863); D. F. Ansted, The Ionian Islands in the Year 1863 (London, 1863); Riemann, Recherches archéologiques sur les Îles ioniennes (Paris, 1879-1880); J. Partsch, Die Insel Korfu (Gotha, 1887); B. Schmidt, Korkyräische Studien (Leipzig, 1890); B. V. Head, Historia Numorum (Oxford, 1887), pp. 275-277; H. Lutz in Philologus, 56 (1897), pp. 71-77; also art. [Numismatics]: Greek, § “Epirus.”

(E. Gr.; M. O. B. C.)

CORI (anc. Cora), a town and episcopal see of the province of Rome, Italy, 36 m. S.E. by rail from the town of Rome, on the lower slopes of the Volscian mountains, 1300 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 6463. It occupies the site of the ancient Volscian town of Cora, the foundation of which is by classical authors variously ascribed to Trojan settlers, to the Volscians (with a later admixture of Latins), and to the Latins themselves. The last is more probable (though in that case it was the only town of the Prisci Latini in the Volscian hills), as it appears among the members of the Latin league. Coins of Cora exist, belonging at latest to 350-250 B.C. It was devastated by the partisans of Marius during the struggle between him and Sulla. Before the end of the Republic it had become a municipium. It lay just above the older road from Velitrae to Terracina, which followed the foot of the Volscian hills, but was 6 m. from the Via Appia, and it is therefore little mentioned by classical writers. It is comparatively often spoken of in the 4th century, but from that time to the 13th we hear hardly anything of it, as though it had almost ceased to exist. The remains of the city walls are considerable: three different enceintes, one within the other, enclose the upper and lower town and the acropolis. They are built in Cyclopean work, and different parts vary considerably in the roughness or fineness of the jointing and hewing of the blocks; but explorations at Norba (q.v.) have proved that inferences as to their relative antiquity based upon such considerations are not to be trusted. There is a fine single-arched bridge, now called the Ponte della Catena, just outside the town on the way to Norba, to which an excessively early date is often assigned.

At the summit of the town is a beautiful little Doric tetrastyle temple, belonging probably to the 1st century B.C., built of limestone with an inscription recording its erection by the duumviri. It is not known to what deity it was dedicated; and there is no foundation for the assertion that the porphyry statue of Minerva (or Roma) now in front of the Palazzo del Senatore, at Rome, was found here in the 16th century. Lower down are two columns of a Corinthian temple dedicated to Castor and Pollux, as the inscription records. The church of Santa Oliva stands upon the site of a Roman building. The cloister, constructed in 1466-1480, is in two storeys; the capitals of the columns are finely sculptured by a Lombard artist (G. Giovannoni in L’Arte, 1906, p. 108). There are remains of several other ancient buildings in the modern town, especially of a series of large cisterns probably belonging to the imperial period. Some interesting frescoes of the Roman school of the 15th century are to be found in the chapel of the Annunziata outside the town (F. Hermanin in L’Arte, 1906, p. 45).

See G. B. Piranesi, Antichità di Cora (Rome, n.d., c. 1770); A. Nibby, Analisi della Carta dei Dintorni di Roma (Rome, 1848), i. 487 seq.

(T. As.)

CORIANDER, the fruit, improperly called seed, of an umbelliferous plant (Coriandrum sativum), a native of the south of Europe and Asia Minor, but cultivated in the south of England, where it is also found as an escape, growing apparently wild. The name is derived from the Gr. κόρις (a bug), and was given on account of its foetid, bug-like smell. The plant produces a slender, erect, hollow stem rising 1 to 2 ft. in height, with bipinnate leaves and small flowers in pink or whitish umbels. The fruit is globular and externally smooth, having five indistinct ridges, and the mericarps, or half-fruits, do not readily separate from each other. It is used in medicine as an aromatic and carminative, the active principle being a volatile oil, obtained by distillation, which is isomeric with Borneo camphor, and may be given in doses of ½ to 3 minims. On account of its pleasant and pungent flavour it is a favourite ingredient in hot curries and sauces. The fruit is also used in confectionery, and as a flavouring ingredient in various liqueurs. The essential oil on which its aroma depends is obtained from it by distillation. The tender leaves and shoots of the young plant are used in soups and salads.

CORINGA, a seaport of British India, in the district of Godavari and presidency of Madras, on the estuary of a branch of the Godavari river. The harbour is protected from the swell of the sea by the southward projection of Point Godavari, and affords a shelter to vessels during the south-west monsoon; but though formerly the most important on this coast it has been silted up and lost its trade. The repairing and building of small coasting ships is an industry at Tallarevu in the vicinity. In 1787 a gale from the north-east occasioned an inundation which swept away the greater part of Coringa with its inhabitants; and in 1832 another storm desolated the place, carrying vessels into the fields and leaving them aground. Of Europeans the Dutch were the first to establish themselves at Coringa. In 1759 the English took possession of the town, and erected a factory 5 m. to the south of it.

CORINNA, surnamed “the Fly,” a Greek poetess, born at Tanagra in Boeotia, flourished about 500 B.C. She is chiefly known as the instructress and rival of Pindar, over whom she gained the victory in five poetical contests. According to Pausanias (ix. 22. 3), her success was chiefly due to her beauty and her use of the local Boeotian dialect. The extant fragments of her poems, dealing chiefly with mythological subjects, such as the expedition of the Seven against Thebes, will be found in Bergk’s Poëtae Lyrici Graeci.

Some considerable remains of two poems on a 2nd-century papyrus (Berliner Klassikertexte, v., 1907) have also been attributed to Corinna (W. H. D. Rouse’s Year’s Work in Classical Studies, 1907; J. M. Edmonds, New Frags. of ... and Corinna, 1910).

CORINTH, a city of Greece, situated near the isthmus (see [Corinth, Isthmus of]) which connects Peloponnesus and central Greece, and separates the Saronic and the Corinthian gulfs on E. and W. The ancient town stood 1½ m. from the latter, in a plain extending westward to Sicyon. The citadel, or Acrocorinthus, rising precipitously on the S. to a height of 1886 ft. was separated by a ravine from Oneium, a range of hills which runs E. to the isthmus entrance. Between this ridge and the offshoots of Geraneia opposite a narrow depression allowed of easy transit across the Isthmus neck. The territory of Corinth was mostly rocky and unfertile; but its position at the head of two navigable gulfs clearly marked it out as a commercial centre. Its natural advantages were enhanced by the “Diolcus” or tram-road, by which ships could be hauled across the Isthmus. It was connected in historic times with its western port of Lechaeum by two continuous walls, with Cenchreae and Schoenus on the east by chains of fortifications. The city walls attained a circuit of 10 m.

I. History.—In mythology, Corinth (originally named Ephyre) appears as the home of Medea, Sisyphus and Bellerophon, and already has over-sea connexions which illustrate its primitive commercial activity. Similarly the early presence of Phoenician traders is attested by the survival of Sidonian cults (Aphrodite Urania, Athena Phoenicice, Melicertes, i.e. Melkarth). In the Homeric poems Corinth is a mere dependency of Mycenae; nor does it figure prominently in the tradition of the Dorian migrations. Though ultimately conquered by the invaders it probably retained much of its former “Ionian” population, whose god Poseidon continued to be worshipped at the national Isthmian games throughout historic times; of the eight communal tribes perhaps only three were Dorian. Under the new dynasty of Aletes, which reigned according to tradition from 1074 to 747, Corinthian history continues obscure. The government subsequently passed into the hands of a small corporation of nobles descended from a former king Bacchis, and known as the Bacchidae, who nominated annually a Prytanis (president) from among their number. The maritime expansion of Corinth at this time is proved by the foundation of colonies at Syracuse and Corcyra, and the equipment of a fleet of triremes (the newly invented Greek men-of-war) to quell a revolt of the latter city.

But Corinth’s real prosperity dates from the time of the tyranny (657-581), established by a disqualified noble Cypselus (q.v.). and continued under his son Periander (q.v.). Under these remarkable men, whose government was apparently mild, the city rapidly developed. She extended her sphere of influence throughout the coast-lands of the western gulf; by the settlement of numerous colonies in N.W. Greece she controlled the Italian and Adriatic trade-routes and secured a large share of the commerce with the western Greeks. In Levantine waters connexions grew up with the great marts of Chalcis and Miletus, with the rulers of Lydia, Phrygia, Cyprus and Egypt. As an industrial centre Corinth achieved pre-eminence in pottery, metal-work and decorative handicraft, and was the reputed “inventor” of painting and tiling; her bronze and her pottery, moulded from the soft white clay of Oneium, were widely exported over the Mediterranean. The chief example of her early art was the celebrated “chest of Cypselus” at Olympia, of carved cedar and ivory inlaid with gold. The city was enriched with notable temples and public works (see § Archaeology), and became the home of several Cyclic poets and of Arion, the perfecter of the dithyramb.

The tyranny was succeeded by an oligarchy based upon a graduated money qualification, which ruled with a consistency equalling that of the Venetian Council, but pursued a policy too purely commercial to the neglect of military efficiency. Late in the 6th century Corinth joined the Peloponnesian league under Sparta, in which her financial resources and strategic position secured her an unusual degree of independence. Thus the city successfully befriended the Athenians against Cleomenes I. (q.v.), and supported them against Aegina, their common commercial rival in eastern waters. In the great Persian war of 480 Corinth served as the Greek headquarters: her army took part at Thermopylae and Plataea and her navy distinguished itself at Salamis and Mycale. Later in the century the rapid development of Athenian trade and naval power became a serious menace. In 459 the Corinthians, in common with their former rivals the Aeginetans, made war upon Athens, but lost both by sea and land. Henceforward their Levantine commerce dwindled, and in the west the Athenians extended their rivalry even into the Corinthian Gulf. Though Syracuse remained friendly, and the colonies in the N.W. maintained a close commercial alliance with the mother-city, the disaffection of Corcyra hampered the Italian trade. The alliance of this latter power with Athens accentuated the rising jealousy of the Corinthians, who, after deprecating a federal war in 440, virtually forced Sparta’s hand against Athens in 432. In the subsequent war Corinth displayed great activity in the face of heavy losses, and the support she gave to Syracuse had no little influence on the ultimate issue of the war (see [Peloponnesian War]). In 395 the domineering attitude of Sparta impelled the Corinthians to conclude an alliance with Argos which they had previously contemplated on occasions of friction with the former city, as well as with Thebes and with Athens, whose commercial rivalry they no longer dreaded. In the ensuing “Corinthian War” the city suffered severely, and the war-party only maintained itself by the help of an Argive garrison and a formal annexation to Argos. Since 387 the Spartan party was again supreme, and after Leuctra Corinth took the field against the Theban invaders of Peloponnesus (371-366). In 344 party struggles between oligarchs and democrats led to a usurpation by the tyrant Timophanes, whose speedy assassination was compassed by his brother Timoleon (q.v.).

After the campaign of Chaeronea, Philip II. of Macedon summoned a Greek congress at Corinth and left a garrison on the citadel. This citadel, one of the “fetters of Greece,” was eagerly contended for by the Macedonian pretenders after Alexander’s death; ultimately it fell to Antigonus Gonatas, who controlled it through a tyrant. In 243 Corinth was freed by Aratus and incorporated into the Achaean league. After a short Spartan occupation in 224 it was again surrendered to Macedonia. T. Quinctius Flamininus, after proclaiming the liberty of Greece at the Isthmus, restored Corinth to the league (196). With the revival of its political and commercial importance the city became the centre of resistance against Rome. In return for the foolish provocation of war in 146 B.C. the Roman conquerors despoiled Corinth of its art treasures and destroyed the entire settlement: the land was partly made over to Sicyon and partly became public domain.

In 46 Julius Caesar repeopled Corinth with Italian freedmen and dispossessed Greeks. Under its new name Laus Julii and an Italian constitution it rapidly recovered its commercial prosperity. Augustus made it the capital of Achaea; Hadrian enriched it with public works. Its prosperity, as also its profligacy, is attested by the New Testament, by Strabo and Pausanias. After the Gothic raids of 267 and 395 Corinth was secured by new fortifications at the Isthmus. Though restricted to the citadel, the medieval town became the administrative and ecclesiastical capital of Peloponnesus, and enjoyed a thriving trade and silk industry until in 1147 it was sacked by the Normans. In 1210 it was joined to the Latin duchy of the Morea, and subsequently was contended for by various Italian pretenders. Since the Turkish conquest (1459) the history of Corinth has been uneventful, save for a raid by the Maltese in 1611 and a Venetian occupation from 1687 to 1715.

Authorities.—Strabo, pp. 378-382; Pausanias ii. 1-4; Curtius, Peloponnesos (Gotha, 1851), ii., 514-556; E. Wilisch, Die Altkorinthische Thonindustrie (Leipzig, 1892) and Geschichte Korinth’s (1887, 1896, 1901); G. Gilbert, Griechische Staatsaltertümer (Leipzig, 1885), li. pp. 87-91.

(M. O. B. C.)

II. Archaeology and Modern Town.—The modern town of New Corinth, the head of a district in the province of Corinth (pop. 71,229), is situated on the Isthmus of Corinth near the south-eastern recess of the Gulf of Corinth, 3½ m. N.E. from the site of the ancient city. It was founded in 1858, when Old Corinth was destroyed by an earthquake. It is connected by railway with Athens (57 m.), with Patras (80 m.), and with Nauplia (40 m.), the capital of Argolis. Communication by sea with Athens, Patras, the Ionian Islands and the shores of the Ambracian Gulf, is constant since the opening of the Corinthian ship canal, in 1893. It has not, however, attained great prosperity. It has broad streets and low houses, but is architecturally unattractive, like most of the creations of the time of King Otto. Its chief exports are seedless grapes (“currants”), olive-oil, silk and cereals. Pop. (1905) about 4300.

Old Corinth passed through its various stages, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Turkish. After the War of Liberation it was again Greek, and, being a considerable town, was suggested as the capital of the new kingdom of Greece. The earthquake of 1858 levelled it to the ground with the exception of about a dozen houses. A mere handful of the old inhabitants remained on the site. But fertile fields and running water made it attractive; and outsiders gradually came in. At present it is an untidy, poverty-stricken village of about 1000 inhabitants, mostly of Albanian blood. Like the ancient city, it spreads out over two terraces, one about 100 ft. above the other. These were formed in different geological ages by the gulf, which had in historical times receded to a distance of 1¼ m. from the city. At the nearest point to the city was laid out the harbour, Lechaeum, a basin dug far into the shore and joined with the city by long walls. At about the middle of the two terraces, 1½ m. long, the edge of the upper one was worn back into a deep indentation, probably by running water, possibly by quarrying. Here was the heart of the ancient city. At the lower end of the indentation is the modern public square, shaded by a gigantic and picturesque plane tree, nourished by the surplus water of Pirene. As the visitor looks from the square up the indentation he sees on a height to the right a venerable temple ruin, and, directly in front, Acro-Corinth, rising over 1500 ft. above the village. Even from the village, the view over the gulf, including Parnassus with its giant neighbours on the N., Cyllene and its neighbours on the W., and Geraneia on the N.E., is very fine. But from Acro-Corinth the view is still finer, and is perhaps unsurpassed in Greece.

The excavations begun in 1896 by the American school of Classical Studies at Athens, under the direction of Rufus B. Richardson, have brought to light important monuments of the ancient city, both Greek and Roman.

The first object was the locating of the agora, or public square, first because Pausanias says that most of the important monuments of the city were either on or near the agora; and secondly because, beginning with the agora, he mentions, sometimes with a brief description, the principal monuments in order along three of the principal thoroughfares radiating from it. In the first year’s work twenty-one trial trenches were dug in the hope of finding a clue to its position. Somewhat less than a quarter of a mile to the N.W. of the temple, set back into the edge of the upper terrace, there was found, under 20 ft. of soil, a ruined Roman theatre built upon the ruins of a Greek theatre. This theatre was, according to Pausanias, on the street leading from the agora towards Sicyon, and so to the west of the agora. Another trench dug across the deep indentation to the E. of the temple revealed a broad limestone pavement leading from the very northern edge of the city up through the indentation, in the direction of Acro-Corinth. It required little sagacity to identify it with the street mentioned by Pausanias as leading from the agora towards Lechaeum. It was practically certain that by following up this pavement to its point of intersection with the road from Sicyon the agora would be discovered.

The limestone pavement, with long porches on either side, was found to stop at the foot of a marble staircase of thirty-four steps of Byzantine construction, underneath which appeared a Roman arrangement of the two flights with a platform halfway up. The top flight led up to the propylaea. The remains of the propylaea above ground are few; but the foundations are massive and well laid, at the end of the upper terrace where it is farthest worn back. These foundations are clearly those of a Roman triumphal arch, which perhaps took the name “propylaea” from an ancient Greek structure on the same spot. This arch appears on Roman coins from Augustus to Commodus; according to Pausanias it bore two four-horse chariots, one driven by Helios and the other by Phaethon, his son, all in gilded bronze.

Although a considerable part of the agora has been excavated, none of the statues which Pausanias saw in it have been discovered. On the upper (S.) side are excellent foundations of a long porch. On the N. side, stretching westward from the propylaea, are two porches of different periods. The older one, which still existed in Roman times, was backed up against the temple hill, which was cut away to make room for it. An ancient staircase, 15 ft. broad, led down from the temple hill into the lower area of the broad pavement, from which access to the agora and the Pirene was easy.

To the E. of the paved road and close up against the agora itself, only at a much lower level, was found, buried under 35 ft. of earth, the famous fountain Pirene, tallying exactly with the description of Pausanias, as “a series of chambers that are like caves, and bearing a façade of white marble.” This Pirene originally had a two-storey façade of Roman fashion made of limestone, but, before the time of Pausanias, it had received a covering of marble which has now fallen off, but has left traces of itself in the holes drilled into the limestone, in the rough hacking away of the half columns, and in the numerous marble fragments which lay in front of the façade. This was not, however, the earliest form of Pirene. It was built up in front of a more simple Greek fountain-structure which consisted of seven cross-walls placed under the edge of the stratum forming the upper terrace. Six chambers were thus formed which showed the chaste beauty of Greek workmanship, while the stratum of native rock which covered them gave a touch of nature and made them caves. The walls ended at the front in the form of an anta delicately carved. On a parapet at the rear of each chamber a single slender Ionic column between two antae supported an Ionic entablature. The stuccoed walls were striped horizontally and vertically with red on a blue field, on which appear fishes swimming. The chambers were really reservoirs, filled by the water which flowed along their backs.

We know nothing further about the Greek system, but in the Roman adjustment the water was led from this series of cisterns into a large rectangular basin which formed the centre of a quadrangle 50 ft. square. In the N.E. corner is a hole through which it was drained, and at the N. end a flight of five steps led down into it. Besides the four orifices through which water flowed into it there were two other holes about 4 in. lower down to keep the basin from overflowing. Two uses of water are mentioned by Pausanias, “The water,” he says, “was sweet to drink,” and also good for tempering bronze. It seems clear then, that the basin was at stated times used for the latter purpose, and was converted into a tank. The bronze was plunged into the water in a red hot condition, and thus acquired its peculiar excellence.

In Byzantine times five columns, of various diameters, with no two bases of the same size, bearing Corinthian capitals, were set up about 6 ft. in front of the façade. Blocks of marble which had seen use elsewhere ran from them back into the façade, which was hacked away in rough fashion to receive them. Probably these blocks formed the floor of a balcony, a tawdry marble addition.

Pirene was at all times the heart of the city. Here it was that Athena helped Bellerophon to bridle Pegasus; and hence she received the epithet of “the Bridler,” Chalinitis. The importance of the fountain is attested by the fact that the Greek poets and the Delphic oracle instead of saying Corinth said, “the city of Pirene.” That it was a place of common resort is shown by Euripides (Medea, 68 f.), where it is said that the elders were to be found “near the august waters of Pirene, playing draughts (πεσσί).” The quadrangle, with its walls 20 ft. high, and its three apses probably covered with half domes, provided considerable shade. There is reason for supposing that the marble coating of the façade, and perhaps the erection of the quadrangle, also covered with marble, were the work of Herodes Atticus, and therefore just completed when Pausanias saw them. A base on which stood a statue of Herodes’ wife, Regilla, was found close to the façade, inscribed with fulsome praise, stating that the statue was “set up by order of the Sisyphaean Senate at the outpouring of the streams.” Two inscriptions of Roman times make the identity of Pirene certain, if there could be any doubt in the face of the exact agreement of Pausanias’s description with the structure.

Of the surviving monuments of the Greek city the most important is the temple of Apollo. While it was probably badly wrecked by the Romans at the sack of the city, its massive columns with the entablature survived. That it was restored and was in use in Roman time is shown by the fact that both the seven columns still standing and two fallen columns discovered in the excavations, to say nothing of several fragments of others, have a thick coating of Roman stucco laid over the finer Greek. The style of the temple points to 600 B.C., when Periander was at the height of his power. According to Herodotus he made his doubtful adherents deposit pledges of faithfulness in the temple of Apollo. Quite near the W. end of the temple is the fountain Glaucē cut out of a cube of rock, apparently left standing when the material for the temple was quarried around it. In it were carved out four chambers or reservoirs all connected and a porch consisting of three pillars between two antae in which the side walls ended. The water coming down from Acro-Corinth was introduced from behind. Approached by a flight of steps partly rock-cut, it had at the rear of the porch a balustrade with marble lions’ heads through which the water overflowed. Two of these heads were found. The top of the system of reservoirs was too heavy for the slender cross walls and pillars, only the stumps of which remain; a collapse took place, by which the porch and the W. compartment were carried away. From its location only about 50 yds. from the temple it seems to have been the temple fountain. It was named after the second wife of Jason, Glaucē, who plunged into it to quench the fire of the poisoned bridal garments given her by Medea.

It is not surprising that monuments were found of which there is no record in ancient writings. Such was a very ancient fountain W. of the propylaea, 25 ft. below the surface. Under remains of the Roman city appeared a triglyphon of porous stone with an extent from N. to S. of about 30 ft. At the N. end it turned westward at an obtuse angle and extended about 10 ft. in that direction. The system is about 4 ft. high. While the colours on the metopes and triglyphs had faded somewhat, the border above them, topped with a cornice projecting 6 in., retained a most brilliant maeander pattern of red, blue and yellow, while below these were two bands of godroons of blue and red. On the top of this system as a foundation were set several statue bases, one bearing the signature of Lysippus, which shows that the system stood there at least as early as the 4th century B.C. Some parts of it may have been taken from older buildings, but not the cornice nor the corner metope block which formed an obtuse angle. Near the middle of the long side is an opening; and from it a flight of seven steps led down to a trapezoidal chamber, on the back wall of which are two lions’ heads of bronze, through which water, conducted in long semi-cylindrical channels of bronze, from behind the wall, poured out into pitchers for which holes are cut in the floor. Channels for the overflow were cut along the back and sides of the chamber. All this was once approached from the front at the level of the floor, long before the triglyphon was set up, 7 ft. above it. Considering its depth this fountain must be dated back to the 5th century, probably near the beginning. The style of the lions’ heads would hardly admit a later date. This is the only case of an ancient Greek fountain of such an early date, unaltered and intact. The pains taken to preserve it suggest that it was invested with a sacred character.

Sculptures in large numbers, both of the Greek city and the Roman, are collected in the new museum erected by the Greek government near the plane tree. The finest of the Greek sculptures is the head of a youth found in the orchestra of the theatre at a depth of 23 ft. It lacks only the lower part of the bridge of the nose, and has style and character, resembling Myron’s heads in shape and in the hair. A large fragment of a relief also of early date, represents two dancing maenads half life-size. Most impressive is a colossal female figure of grand style and excellent drapery. If not an original of the 5th century it is one of the finest of copies. Of the great amount of Roman sculpture the best single piece is a head of Dionysus under the influence of wine, crowned with a wreath of ivy, his right hand thrown carelessly over his head. The fine execution is all that differentiates it from the numerous copies in various museums. The most important sculptures of the Roman period, however, are a group of colossal figures supporting an entablature, a large part of which has been recovered. One of the figures, a barbarian captive, effeminate like those which appear on Roman triumphal arches, is practically intact. Another, its counterpart, is preserved down to the hips. These differ from Caryatids, which bear the architrave on their heads. Here a pilaster forming the back of the figure receives a Corinthian capital, upon which the architrave rests; and the figures merely brace up the pilaster. Two of these figures stood at the end of a re-entrant curve, several pieces of which are preserved. Two female heads of like proportions belong to the system, since the backs of their heads are cut away in the same manner as the male heads. The building to which the figures belonged, a porch, extended westward from the propylaea; and may be traced for 45 ft. All that is left of it is the core of opus incertum.

The excavations brought to light vases and fragments of vases, of nearly every period except the Mycenaean. On the N. side of the hill on which stands the village schoolhouse, from which one looks across the indentation to the Apollo temple, several vertical shafts in the limestone stratum were found, and underneath it in horizontal passages were bodies surrounded with vases. These are pre-Mycenaean, and their only ornament is scratches, into which white matter has been pressed. There are over fifty of these vases, of multiform shapes. By the side of the Lechaeum road, near the steps leading to the propylaea, were found in deep diggings thirteen early Geometric vases. Proto-Corinthian vases also were everywhere strongly represented. The best find of pottery, however, was an Old Corinthian celebē (κελέβη, drinking vessel), about a foot high, in forty-six fragments, found in a well, 30 ft. below the surface. On one side are a boar and a leopard confronting each other, and on the other side two cocks in the same heraldic arrangement. On the projecting plates supported by the handles are palmettes.

Two inscriptions in the Old Corinthian alphabet came to light. But, on the whole, inscriptions before the Roman times were almost entirely lacking. One inscription, though of late date, deserves mention. On a marble block broken away at both ends, which in a second use was a lintel, we read ΑΓΩΓΗΕΒΡ, which can only be συναγωγὴ Ἑβραίων (synagogue of the Hebrews).

The excavations were confined to a small part of the city, but there is little doubt that it was the most important part. By good fortune the earth here was very deep. On the higher level of the agora and the Apollo temple, where the depth of earth is comparatively slight, there is little hope of important finds. There is no hope of finding the great bronze Athena, which stood in the middle of the agora. To the west, beyond the theatre, one might find the temple of Athena Chalinitis and the fountain Lerna, and somewhere near Glauce, the Odeum and the tomb of Medea’s children; but it is more likely that they have disappeared. On the Lechaeum road, on which a bewildering wealth of fountains and statues is enumerated, only the Baths of Eurycles below the plane tree were found; deep diggings were made into them, and the foundations of the façade laid bare. This great complex was apparently supplied with water from Hadrian’s aqueduct from Lake Stymphalus. On the street going eastward from the agora nothing is mentioned between it and the city wall. This level eastern part was probably given up to fine houses, all traces of which have perished. Outside the gate, apparently, was the famous Craneion, shaded by cypress trees, and near it the tombs of Lais and Diogenes, a precinct of Bellerophon and of Athena Melaenis. The number of temples and shrines enumerated by Pausanias along the road leading up to Acro-Corinth is bewildering. Here were represented Isis and Serapis, Helios, the Mother of the Gods, the Fates, Demeter and Persephone; but no trace of these temples remains. At the highest point of the road, according to Pausanias, there stood the famous temple of Aphrodite, but the remains excavated at this point seem to be those of a late tower, and the few foundations below it do not resemble those of a temple. We are equally unfortunate in regard to Strabo’s splendid marble Sisyphaeum just below the summit. The fountain Pirene, “behind the temple,” still exists, but so much earth has accumulated about it that one now approaches it by going down a ladder. The water is so crystal clear that one inadvertently steps into it. The identity of name with that of Pirene in the city is justified by the fact that the upper spring is the source of the Pirene below.

See, for details, the American Journal of Archaeology (from 1896).

(R. B. R.)

CORINTH, a city and the county-seat of Alcorn county, Mississippi, U.S.A., situated in the N.E. part of the state, about 90 m. E. by S. of Memphis, Tennessee. Pop.(1890) 2111; (1900) 3661 (1174 negroes); (1910) 5020. It is served by the Mobile & Ohio and the Southern railways; and by a branch of the Illinois Central connecting Jackson, Miss., and Birmingham, Ala. It has woollen mills, cotton compresses, clothing, furniture, and spoke and stave factories and machine shops, and is a cotton market. Because of its situation and its importance as a railway junction, Corinth played an important part in the western campaigns of the Civil War. After the first Confederate line of defence had been broken by the capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson (February 1862), Corinth was fortified by General P. G. T. Beauregard, and was made the centre of the new line along the Memphis & Charleston railway, “the great East and West artery of the Confederacy.” Grant’s advance on this centre, then defended by General A. S. Johnston, led to the battle of Shiloh, fought on April 6/7 about 20 m. N.E. of Corinth; after this engagement Beauregard withdrew to Corinth. General H. W. Halleck, with a greatly superior force, cautiously and slowly advanced upon the Confederate position, consuming more than a month in the operation. During the night of the 29th of May Beauregard evacuated the place (which was occupied by the Federals on the following day), and re-established his line at Tupelo. Corinth then became the headquarters of the Union forces under General W. S. Rosecrans, who on the 3/4 of October 1862 was fiercely attacked here by General Earl von Dorn, whom he repulsed, both sides suffering considerable losses in killed and wounded, and the Confederates leaving many prisoners behind.

CORINTH, ISTHMUS OF, an isthmus of Greece, dividing the Gulf of Corinth from the Saronic Gulf. Ships were sometimes dragged across it in ancient times at a place called the Diolcus (διέλκειν, to pull or cut through). Nero, in A.D. 67, began cutting a canal through it; but the project was abandoned. In 1893 a ship canal was opened, with its western entrance about 1¼ m. N.E. of the little town of New Corinth. It was begun in 1881 by a French company, which ceased operations in 1889, a Greek company completing the undertaking. The canal is about 70 ft. broad, nearly 4 m. long, and 26 ft. deep. It shortens the journey from the Adriatic to the Peiraeus by 202 m., but foreign steamships seldom use it, as the narrowness of the canal and the strength of the current at times render the passage dangerous. About 1 m. from its western end it is crossed by the iron bridge of the Athens and Corinth railway. Traces of the Isthmian wall may still be seen parallel to the canal; it was constructed, at an unknown date, for the fortification of the Isthmus. Just to the S. of it, and about ½ m. from the sea are the remains of the Isthmian precinct of Poseidon and its stadium, where the Isthmian games were celebrated. This precinct served also as a fortress. Within it have been found traces of the temple of Poseidon and other buildings.

(E. Gr.)

CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE, two books of the Bible (New Testament). The two letters addressed to the Christian church at Corinth are, with Romans, the longest of the Pauline epistles. They possess a singular interest and value, due to the apostle’s close acquaintance with the members of the church addressed and their circumstances. In consequence of this intimate character the First Epistle to the Corinthians presents a picture, unrivalled in fulness and colour, of the life of a Pauline church, while the Second Epistle, written out of strong feeling, gives a revelation of the innermost feelings and characteristic temperament of Paul himself, such as is not elsewhere to be found. Dealing, as both epistles do, with concrete problems of morals and with such tendencies of thought and life as find their parallel in all times, they are full of instruction to the modern Church; and this instruction increases in effectiveness the better we come to understand ancient modes of thought in their diversity from our own.

Lofty and vivid expression of the apostle’s thought on the highest themes is also to be found here—witness the “Hymn to Love” (1 Cor. xiii.), the declaration of the resurrection (1 Cor. xv. 51-57), or the list of signatures of the true servant of God (2 Cor. vi. 3-10). In important historical statements, also, these epistles stand second to none, not even to Galatians—as may be indicated by a reference to the words about the institution of the Lord’s supper (1 Cor. xi. 23-26) and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. xv. 1-8); or to the autobiographical utterances in which Paul explains that he was once a persecutor of Christians (1 Cor. xv. 9), mentions his escape from Damascus (2 Cor. xi. 32 f.), describes his coming to Corinth (1 Cor. ii. 1 ff.), enumerates his sufferings for the Gospel (2 Cor. xi. 16-31), tells of his visions (2 Cor. xii. 1-9). In the Corinthian epistles we come in contact, as nowhere else, with the man Paul and his daily life.

The history of Paul’s relations with Corinth can be made out from the Acts and the Epistles with considerable clearness. The chronology of Paul’s life is not at any point surely determinable within a range of less than five years, but it must have been in the autumn of one of the years A.D. 49-53 (the usual chronology has fixed on A.D. 52) that the arrival of Paul in Corinth took place as described in Acts xviii. 1. In his so-called second missionary journey Paul had been driven by irresistible inner impulses to push on into Greece the missionary work already begun in Asia Minor. First he preached in the province of Macedonia, where the work opened auspiciously at Philippi, Thessalonica and Beroea; then, apparently driven out by the violent opposition of the Jews, he moved on to Achaea, and after rather unsuccessful attempts to secure converts among the philosophers of Athens came to Corinth.

This ancient city, taken and destroyed by the Romans in 146 B.C., had been refounded by Julius Caesar as a Roman colony in 46 B.C., settled with Italian colonists, and made a residence of the Roman governor. Its situation on the isthmus of Corinth made it a stage on the greatest of the trade routes between Rome and the East, and it was at this time the commercial capital of Greece. The traditions of licentiousness and sensuality associated with the worship of Aphrodite, which had given rise to the sinister word corinthianize, increased the natural tendencies of a great city to wickedness and wanton luxury. Here, as in all great centres of trade and industry, there was a body of Jews, with a synagogue. The conditions of life in Corinth—the heathen surroundings, the temptations to vice, the competition and disputes of trading life, the controversial arguments of Jews, the alertness of mind of a lively city people, the haughty temper of the inhabitants of the capital—all these are to be seen reflected in the earnest paragraphs of Paul’s two epistles.

The founding of the church in Corinth (cf. 1 Cor. iv. 15) and nearly everything important that we know of Paul’s first visit there will be found, well told, in Acts xviii. 1-18, a passage for which, evidently, the writer of the history had excellent sources of information. Of the somewhat chastened spirit with which Paul came he himself tells in 1 Cor. ii. 1-5. His success was prompt and large, and in the year and six months of his stay a vigorous church was gathered, including Aquila and Priscilla, as well as Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, of whom we hear again in 1 Cor. i. 14; whether Sosthenes, who seems to have succeeded Crispus in his office (Acts xviii. 17), was afterwards converted and became the Christian brother mentioned in i Cor. i. 1 cannot be known. The church evidently consisted mainly of Gentile converts, but with some Jews (i Cor. x. 14, “flee from idolatry”; xii. 2, “when ye were Gentiles “; vii. 18, “was any man called being circumcised?”).

The apostle’s next long stay was at Ephesus, whither he seems to have gone in the course of the same year in which he left Corinth (A.D. 51-55) and where he stayed three years. Before he arrived at Ephesus Aquila and Priscilla, who had settled there, made the acquaintance of Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria, well-educated and zealous, who with imperfect Christian knowledge was preaching the gospel of Jesus to his fellow-countrymen in the synagogue. He presently went to Corinth and carried on Christian work there with success (Acts xviii. 24-28), “I planted,” says Paul (1 Cor. iii. 6), “Apollos watered.” From this point on our information comes from the epistles, of which the first was written from Ephesus before Pentecost of the year in which Paul left that city, i.e. A.D. 54-58 (1 Cor. xvi. 8).

It appears that the church grew in numbers, for Paul refers in 2 Cor. i. 1 to “saints who are in all Achaea.” Its membership was mostly of humble people (1 Cor. i. 26-29), but probably not exclusively so, for Crispus and Stephanas (who with his household was able to render services that may well have been costly, 1 Cor. xvi. 15), Gaius and Erastus (Rom. xvi. 23), would appear to have been persons of substance. The references to law-suits perhaps imply fairly prosperous traders, the tone of the letters suggests considerable education and a reasonable degree of property on the part of many (though not all) of the readers.

The first need of the church for help from Paul seems to have grown out of the dangers from surrounding heathenism. In 1 Cor. v. 9 we read of a letter in which Paul had directed the Christians “not to have company with fornicators.” This letter, so far as we know, opened the correspondence which was maintained during the three years of Paul’s stay in Ephesus, whence there was easy and frequent communication with Corinth. He refers to it in order to explain the injunction which had been (perhaps wilfully) misunderstood and exaggerated.[1]

While at Ephesus Paul was visited by persons of the household of Chloe (1 Cor. i. 11), and by Stephanas with Fortunatus and Achaicus (probably his slaves, xvi. 17). From them and from a letter (vii. 1), which was brought perhaps by Stephanas, he was able to gain the intimate knowledge which the epistles everywhere reveal. The letter from Corinth must have contained inquiries as to practical conduct with regard to marriage (vii. 1), meat offered to idols (viii. 1), and the “spiritual gifts” (xii. 1), and may well have related to other matters, such as the collection of money for Jerusalem (xvi. 1), the visit of Apollos (xvi. 12), the position of women (xi. 2). Paul’s reply includes many other topics. When it was sent, his trusted helper Timothy had also started on his way (probably through Macedonia) to Corinth, to contribute there to the edification of the Christians (iv. 17, xvi. 10). The letter itself was doubtless sent by the hand of returning Corinthians, possibly by the unnamed brethren referred to in xvi. 11, and was expected to arrive before Timothy.

First Epistle.—The first epistle (in many respects the most systematic of all Paul’s letters) is a pastoral letter, dealing both with positive evils that need correction, and with difficult questions of practice and of thought upon which advice may be valued. Through it all there is a genial undercurrent of confidence in the personal loyalty of the Corinthian church to Paul, its founder and father. We shall be aided to understand its contents by a brief summary of the tendencies and conditions at Corinth which it reflects.

First of all there was a lack of supreme devotion to the Cause itself, which led the Corinthians to forget that they were first, last and always Christians, and so to form factions and parties. Of these there were distinguished at least three, attached to the names respectively of the founder Paul, of the learned Apollos, and of the great pillar-apostle at Jerusalem, Peter, besides, as many hold, a fourth, which arrogantly claimed to be the party of Christ (i. 12). What were the precise motives and principles of these parties cannot be determined. They do not in any case seem to represent recognizable definite points of view with regard to the controverted matters that are taken up in the epistle. Yet some conjectures are possible. Paul and Apollos were personally on friendly terms (xvi. 12, cf. iii. 5-9, iv. 6), and were understood to be in fundamental agreement. But doubtless the more elaborate discourses of Apollos were admired, and Paul’s teaching seemed in contrast bare, plain and crude (cf. 2 Cor. x. 10). The contrast between the Hellenic and Jewish types of thought may well have played a part also. Paul seems to be replying to such criticisms brought against him when he declares that he deliberately chose to bring to Corinth not the “wisdom of men” but the “power of God” (i. 17, ii. 1-5), and informs them that he has a store of wisdom for those who are ready for it (ii. 6). On the other hand the party of Cephas must have had Jewish-Christian leanings. A little later, in the second epistle, such a tendency is seen breaking out into violent opposition to Paul. The “Christ-party,” if, as is probable, it existed, must also have been a party with a Judaizing turn (cf. 2 Cor. x. 7, xi. 22 f.), perhaps of a more extreme character. The danger of shattering the solid front of the Christian church against surrounding heathenism was keenly felt by Paul, as nearly every one of his epistles testifies. How serious it was at Corinth is shown by the long passage (chaps, i.-iv.) in which he points out that sectarianism is a mark not of superior but of inferior maturity and devotion.

Other difficulties arose from various causes. The influences of the heathen world, from which most of the Corinthian Christians had come and to which their friends and neighbours belonged, were always with them, and the problems created by these relations were very numerous. Christianity had brought over and had even intensified the moral code of Judaism, and, especially in the relations of the sexes, this brought a strain upon the naturalistic impulses and lower standards of converts trained in a different system.

Again, there were law-suits in the ordinary courts, a natural result of the frictions and strains of an oriental trading community. To Paul this was abhorrent, and here too he urges a complete break with their past. With regard to the social customs of meals at which meat that had been offered in heathen sacrifices was a part, and of feasts actually at heathen temples, doubtful questions arose. Was it a denial of the faith to eat such food or not? Mixed marriages, too, had their problems; ought the believing wife to separate herself? Ought the believing husband to insist that his heathen wife stay with him against her will? And, further, in the case of slaves, does the consciousness of Christian manhood give a new motive for trying to gain worldly freedom? In all these matters Paul gives sensible advice. There were clearly two groups of Christians, the “weak,” or scrupulous, whose principle was to abstain, and the “strong,” or free, who maintained that the morally insignificant must not usurp a place to which it has no right. Paul sides with neither, but follows two principles, one that the church and its members must be kept pure, the other that the moral welfare not only of the individual but of his neighbour must be the controlling motive.

Not due so much to heathen influences as to the natural tendencies of imperfect and passionate human nature were other conditions. The most striking incident here, and one which gave Paul much concern, was the case of a man who after his father’s death had married his own stepmother (“the case of incest”). That this was rare in the ancient world and generally abominated both by Jews and Greeks made it seem to Paul the more imperative that this stain on the Christian church should be removed. His language shows his indignation and grief that the Corinthians themselves have not already taken the matter in hand.

Besides these troubles from heathenism there were questions of asceticism; the Greek reaction against naturalism held that nature was vile and marriage wrong. Paul had a qualified tendency to asceticism, but he shows excellent good sense in his discussion of these delicate matters.

A different set of difficulties arose from the freedom into which Christianity had introduced persons from all classes of life. What degree of freedom was permissible to a Christian woman? How far must a woman of the lower classes who became a Christian subject herself to the restrictions of a higher class of society? Might a woman, as a free child of God, take part in the Christian public meeting?

Also in matters pertaining to the common religious life of the new society the new situation raised new problems. How should reasonable order be maintained in the wholly democratic forms of the church devotional meeting? What value should be assigned to the different religious functions or “spiritual gifts”? Did any of them confer the right to a consciousness of God’s special favour? Again, the celebration of the Lord’s supper, which was associated with a proper meal, was marred by exhibitions of selfishness and irreverence that needed correction.

The great variety of practical problems present to the anxious minds of the Corinthians themselves and of germinant abuses revealed to the paternal scrutiny of the apostle, opens to us some notion of the exciting times in which the Corinthian Christians stood, and explains the intensity and detailed concern of the apostle. From every side and at every moment new and often difficult questions were arising; to every one of them belonged remoter relations that made it profoundly important. It is by no accident that Paul is in the habit of treating the simplest moral issues by reference to the highest principles of his theology. From the situation at Corinth we gain an idea of what was taking place in many cities, but in the seething life of so great a capital with more rapid and varied development.

Of strictly intellectual and theological problems or errors only one is treated systematically, although at many other points in the practical discussions we can detect the theoretical basis cf the errors combated and the theological foundations of Paul’s own judgments. Questions about the resurrection, however, had appeared, of a rationalistic nature and evincing an Hellenic failure to understand the Jewish view. In his reply Paul shows that he too recognizes the significance of the Greek’s difficulties and he presents a conception which, fortunately for the later Church, does some measure of justice to the superior scientific insight of their attitude.

Second Epistle.—After the despatch of First Corinthians there took place, it would appear, the riot in the theatre at Ephesus (Acts xix. 23 ff.), to which 2 Cor. i. 8 seems to refer. On leaving Ephesus Paul went to Troas (2 Cor. ii. 12), then to Macedonia, and from Macedonia (2 Cor. vii. 5, viii. 1, ix. 2) he wrote Second Corinthians. This must have been in the autumn of one of the years A.D. 54-58, nearly or quite a year after First Corinthians was written (cf, “a year ago,” 2 Cor. viii. 10, ix. 2 and 1 Cor. xvi. 1-4). In the meantime there had been exciting developments in Paul’s relations with Corinth, the course of which we can partly trace by the aid of the second epistle. These events explain the great difference in tone between the second epistle and the first.

Several allusions in Second Corinthians show that Paul had already twice visited Corinth (2 Cor. ii. 1, xii. 14, xii. 21, xiii. 2). The second of these visits is not mentioned in Acts; it is referred to by Paul as having a painful character. The most natural hypothesis is that, in consequence of a growing spirit of insubordination on the part of the Corinthians, Paul found it necessary to go to Corinth from Ephesus (probably by sea direct) at some time after First Corinthians was written. Of what happened on this visit, which the writer of Acts has naturally enough thought it unnecessary to mention, we seem to learn further from certain passages in the letter (2 Cor. ii. 5-11, vii. 9) which refer to some sort of an insult to Paul for which there has now been repentance and which the apostle heartily forgives. For the offender he entreats also the pardon of the church. It may well be that the sad affair had to do with the gross offender of the “case of incest” (1 Cor. v. 1-8), who with the support of his fellow Christians may have refused to conform to Paul’s imperative commands. We may suppose an angry scene, possibly an attack of Paul’s bodily ailment (especially if the “thorn in the flesh” be understood to be epilepsy), the immediate triumph of the adversaries, Paul’s speedy departure in grief. If, as other scholars hold, the offender was not the same as in the first epistle, the general picture of the visit will not have to be much changed.

Besides making this visit it is probable that Paul also wrote to Corinth a letter, now lost, intended to secure the result of which the unfortunate visit had failed (ii. 3, 4, 9, vii. 8, 12). It, is, however, possible that the allusions merely refer to I Cor. v., in which case it is not necessary to assume this intermediate letter. The letter, if there was one, may have been sent by Titus, whom Paul in any case commissioned to go to Corinth and try to mend matters. Paul describes his anxiety over this last resource in touching language (ii. 12, 13). Disappointed that Titus did not meet him at Troas, he moved on to Macedonia, and there (vii. 5-9) was rejoiced by the coming of the envoy with good news of the complete return of the Corinthians to integrity and loyalty.

Second Corinthians was Paul’s response to this friendly attitude reported by Titus. It went by the hand of Titus, who was promptly sent back to complete the work he had so well begun (viii. 6, 16-24). In company with him (viii. 18) was sent a brother (unnamed) who had already been appointed as the representative of the churches to accompany Paul in carrying to Jerusalem the great collection of money now nearly completed. The greater part of the epistle consists of the outpouring of Paul’s thankful and loving heart (chaps, i.-vii.), together with directions and exhortations relating to the collection.

But the epistle contains evidence of another and a disagreeable side to the affairs of the Corinthian church. Especially the last four chapters, but also references in the earlier chapters, show that virulent personal opponents of Paul and his work had been exercising an evil activity. It is not easy to discover the precise relation of these persons to the parties at Corinth or to the series of events which have just been sketched, but we can well understand that their presence and efforts played a large part in the history. We learn that Jewish Christians (xi. 22) had come to Corinth, doubtless from Jerusalem, with letters of recommendation (iii. 1). They urged their own claims as apostles (though not of the twelve), and set themselves up as superior to Paul (xi. 5, xii. 11, v. 12, xi. 18). Paul calls them “false apostles” (xi. 13-15), and declares that they preach “another Jesus, another Spirit, another Gospel” (xi. 4). That in Paul’s judgment his influence with the Corinthian church depended on overthrowing the power of these disturbers of the peace is plain, and this accounts for the strenuous, and occasionally violent, tone of his polemic in chapters x.-xiii. As we compare them with the Judaizers of Galatia it seems that their polemic was less on the ground of principles and doctrines, and more a personal attack. Paul does not much argue, as he does in Galatians, against the inclination of Gentile Christians to subject themselves to the Law (yet note the contrast of the old veiled covenant and the new open revelation, iii. 4-18, esp. iii. 6); he is engaged in personal defence against charges of carnal motives (x. 2), perhaps even of embezzlement (xii. 16-18), and also of fickleness (i. 12-ii. 4). When he ironically calls himself a “fool” (xi. 1, 16, 17, 19, 21, xii. 6-11), he is doubtless taking up their term of abuse, and in many of the hard passages of this most difficult of all Paul’s epistles we may suspect that half-quoted flings of the enemy glimmer through his retort. From 2 Cor. x. 7, xi. 22 it may be inferred that these Jewish Christians had something to do with the “Christ-party” of which we seem to hear in the first epistle.

To the tact and firmness of Titus must be ascribed much of the successful issue of these dealings with the Corinthians. Paul spent the following winter at Corinth (Acts xx. 2, 3); while there he wrote the Epistle to the Romans, which in its milder tone gives clear indication that the day of violent controversy with Judaizing emissaries like those who came to Galatia had passed. There was indeed, as might have been expected, trouble from enemies among the Jews, but Paul escaped the danger, and with the money for the mother church, the collection of which had so long lain near his heart, he was able to start for Jerusalem in the spring of one of the years 55-59 (See [Paul]).

In later time (circ. A.D. 95) we hear from the epistle of Clement of Rome that the Corinthian church paid full honour to Paul’s memory; and circ. A.D. 139, the excellent Catholic (though Hebrew) Christian Hegesippus found himself deeply refreshed by the honest life and the fidelity to Christian truth of the descendants and successors of the Christians over whom Paul had laboured with such faithful oversight and so many anxious tears.

Critical Questions.—The manuscript evidence for the Corinthian epistles is the same as for the other epistles of Paul (see [Bible:] New Testament). Of early attestation the amount is rather greater for First Corinthians than for other epistles. Not only were both epistles included without question in the Pauline canon of Marcion (circ. A.D. 150) and in the Muratorian list (end of 2nd century), and known to various Gnostic sects of the 2nd century, but Clement of Rome (circ. A.D. 95) makes a specific reference (xlvii. 1) to the fact that the Corinthians “received the Epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul,” and proceeds with an unmistakable quotation from 1 Cor. i. 11-13. Other quotations from First Corinthians are found in Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, while use of the epistle can probably be detected in Hermas. Second Corinthians was, and still remains, less quotable, but it is probably used by Polycarp, perhaps by Ignatius, and by the presbyters known to Irenaeus, and it was freely used by Theophilus, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian.

The only serious doubt of the genuineness of First and Second Corinthians has been that of the so-called Dutch school of critics, in the latter part of the 19th century, and forms a part of their attempt (the first since that of Baur) entirely to reconstruct the history of early Christianity. Their view that the Corinthian epistles are the product of a body of progressive Christians in the 2nd century, who ascribed to a legendary Paul the advanced views they had themselves developed, has not commended itself to critics, and seems to be burdened by nearly all possible difficulties. The genuineness of both epistles is, in fact, amply attested not only by early writers, but by the surer proof of complicated and consistent concreteness, with perfect adaptation to all we know of Paul and of the passing circumstances of the earliest days of Christianity in Greece. For a writer a century later to have composed the Corinthian epistles and then successfully passed them off as the work of Paul could be explained only by an hypothesis of inspiration! It would have been as difficult as to forge a daily newspaper. It is to be observed that the two epistles are so intimately connected by their contents with Romans and Galatians that the four together support one another’s genuineness.

In Second Corinthians two important questions of integrity have been much discussed. (1) 2 Cor. vi. 14-vii. 1 is a passage somewhat distinct from its context, and introduced by a seemingly abrupt break in the sequence of thought. It is, therefore, held by some (including G. Heinrici) to be an interpolation by another writer, by others (as A. Hilgenfeld) to be a part of the letter referred to in 1 Cor. v. 9. But the arguments against Pauline authorship are not convincing; there is after all a certain real connexion to be traced between the section and vi. I; and the resemblance to the substance of 1 Cor. v. 9 is natural in any case. (2) More important is the question as to 2 Cor. x.-xiii. Since J. S. Semler (1776) it has been held by careful scholars that these chapters are written in a tone of excited irritation which is out of accord with the genial tone of gratified affection and confidence that pervades chaps, i.-ix. Hence such scholars as A. Hausrath, R. A. Lipsius, O. Pfleiderer, P. W. Schmiedel, A. C. M’Giffert have adopted the view that these four chapters were not written as part of Second Corinthians, but, while unquestionably from Paul’s hand, were from a separate letter (the “Vier-kapitel-Brief”), probably the same as that supposed to be referred to in 2 Cor. ii. 3-9, vii. 8-12. This theory is, however, probably not correct, for while, on the one hand, it is based on an exaggeration of the differences and a neglect of certain lines of connexion between the chaps, x.-xiii. and chaps, i.-ix., on the other hand the identification supposed is made difficult by several facts. Thus these chapters contain no mention whatever of the offender of 2 Cor. ii. 5-11, of whose case the intervening letter must have mainly treated; again, x. 1, 9, 10, 11 imply a previous sharp rebuke already administered, such as is hardly accounted for merely by First Corinthians; and finally, xii. 18 implies that these four chapters were not written until after Titus’s visit, that is, that they were written at just the same time as Second Corinthians.

An apocryphal correspondence of Paul and the church at Corinth, consisting of the church’s letter and Paul’s reply, had canonical authority in the Syrian church in the 4th century (Aphraates, Ephraem). It is preserved in Armenian and Latin manuscripts, and is now known to have been a part of the Acts of Paul, written in the 2nd century. The letters relate to the condemnation of certain Gnostic views. For a translation see Stanley’s Epistles of St Paul to the Corinthians (4th ed., 1876), PP. 593-598. See Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, i. pp. 37-39, ii. 1, pp. 506-508; Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, i. pp. 463-467; Hennecke, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen, pp. 362-364, 378-380.

Bibliography.—On the Corinthian Epistles consult the Introduction to the New Testament of H. Holtzmann (1885, 3rd ed. 1892); B. Weiss (1886, 3rd ed. 1897, Eng. trans. 1887); G. Salmon (1887); A. Jülicher (1894, 5th and 6th ed. 1906, Eng. trans. 1904); T. Zahn (1897-1899, 2nd ed. 1900); and the articles in the Bible dictionaries, especially those by A. Robertson in Hastings’s Dictionary. See also Lives of Paul; and the general works on the Apostolic Age of C. von Weizsäcker (1886, 2nd ed. 1892); O. Pfleiderer, Das Urchristentum (1887, 2nd ed. 1902, Eng. trans. 1906); and A. C. M’Giffert (1897). Especially valuable for 1 and 2 Corinthians is E. von Dobschütz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church (1902, Eng. trans. 1904).

In English, Dean Stanley’s work (1855, 4th ed. 1876) is now out of date. On First Corinthians reference may be made to the works of T. Evans in Speaker’s Commentary (1881); T. C. Edwards (1885); C. J. Ellicott (1887); Fr. Godet (1886-1887, Eng. trans. 1887); on both epistles to those of H. A. W. Meyer (5th ed. 1870, Eng. trans. 1877-1879) and J. J. Lias, in Cambridge Greek Testament (1886-1892). F. W. Robertson’s classic Sermons on St Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians (1859) should not be neglected. In German there are commentaries of much value by G. Heinrici (1880—1887) and in Heinrici’s revision of Meyer’s Kommentar (8th ed., 1896-1900), and by P. W. Schmiedel in Hand-Commentar (1891, 2nd ed. 1892). For further literature see Robertson’s art, “Corinthians, First Epistle to the,” in Hastings’s Dictionary of the Bible. On early attestation see A. H. Charteris, Canonicity (1880), and the Oxford Committee’s New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (1905).

(J. H. Rs.)

[1] Hilgenfeld, Bacon and others hold that this letter is partly preserved in 2 Cor. vi. 14-vii. 1, but the evidence for removing those verses from their present position is insufficient.

CORINTO, a seaport on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, in the department of Chinandega, built on the small island of Asserradores or Corinto, at the entrance to Realejo Bay, 65 m. by rail N.W. of Managua. Pop. (1900) about 3000. The town, which was founded in 1849, and first came into prominence as a port in 1863, has a spacious and sheltered harbour, the best in Nicaragua. It possesses no docks or wharves, and vessels anchor some 500 yds. off-shore to load or discharge cargo by means of lighters. On the mainland is the terminus of a railway to Leon, Managua and other commercial centres. Coffee, gold, mahogany, rubber and cattle are largely exported; and more than half the foreign trade of Nicaragua passes through this port, which has completely superseded the roadstead of Realejo, now partly filled with sandbanks, but from 1550 to 1850 the principal seaport of the country. About 450 ocean-going ships, of some 450,000 tons, annually enter the port. Most of the foreign vessels are owned in Germany or the United States. The coasting trade is restricted to Nicaraguan boats.

CORIOLANUS, GAIUS (or Gnaeus) MARCIUS, Roman legendary hero of patrician descent. According to tradition, his surname was due to the bravery displayed by him at the siege of Corioli (493 B.C.) during the war against the Volscians (but see below). In 492, when there was a famine in Rome, he advised that the people should not be relieved out of the supplies obtained from Sicily, unless they would consent to the abolition of their tribunes. For this he was accused by the tribunes, and, being condemned to exile, took refuge with his friend Attius Tullius, king of the Volscians. A pretext for a quarrel with Rome was found, and Coriolanus, in command of the Volscian army, advanced against his native city. In vain the first men of Rome prayed for moderate terms. He would agree to nothing less than the restoration to the Volscians of all their land, and their admission among the Roman citizens. A mission of the chief priests also failed. At last, persuaded by his mother Veturia and his wife Volumnia, he led back the Volscian army, and restored the conquered towns. He died at an advanced age in exile amongst the Volscians; according to others, he was put to death by them as a traitor; a third tradition (mentioned, but ridiculed, by Cicero) represents him as having taken his own life.

The whole legend is open to serious criticism. At the traditional date (493 B.C.) Corioli was not a Volscian possession, but one of the Latin cities which had concluded a treaty of alliance with Rome; further, Livy himself states that the chroniclers knew nothing of a campaign carried on by the consul Postumus Cominius Auruncus (under whom Coriolanus is said to have served) against the Volscians. Only one of the consuls was mentioned as having concluded the treaty; the absence of the other was consequently assumed, and a reason for it found in a Volscian war. The bestowal of a cognomen from a captured city was unknown at the time, the first instance being that of Scipio; in any case, it would have been conferred upon the commander-in-chief, Postumus Cominius Auruncus, not upon a subordinate. The conquest of Corioli by Coriolanus is invented to explain the surname. The details of the famine are borrowed from those of later years, especially 433 and 411. The incident of Coriolanus taking refuge with the Volscian king, who, according to Plutarch, was his bitter enemy, curiously resembles the appeal of Themistocles to the Molossian king Admetus. Further, the tradition that Coriolanus, like Themistocles, committed suicide, renders it a probable conjecture that these incidents are derived from a Greek source. The contradictions in the accounts of the campaign against Rome and its inherent improbability give further ground for suspicion. Twelve important towns are taken in a single summer apparently without resistance on the part of the Romans, and after the retirement of Coriolanus they are immediately abandoned by the conquerors. It is strange that the Volscians should have entrusted a stranger with the command of their army, and it is possible that the attribution of their successes to a Roman general was intended to gratify the national pride and obliterate the memory of a disastrous war. It is suggested that Coriolanus never commanded the Volscian army at all, but that, like Appius Herdonius—the Sabine chieftain who in 460, with a band of fugitives and slaves, obtained possession of the capital—he appeared at the gates of Rome at the head of a body of exiles (but at a much later date, c. 443), at a time when the city was in great distress, perhaps as the result of a pestilence, and only desisted from making himself master of Rome at the earnest entreaty of his mother. This seems to be the historical nucleus of the tradition, which accentuates the great influence exercised by and the respect shown to the Roman matrons in early times.

Ancient Authorities.—Plutarch’s Life; Livy ii. 34-40; Dion. Halic. vi. 92-94, vii. 21-27, 41-47, viii. 1-60; Cicero, Brutus, x. 42. The story is the subject of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. For a critical examination of the story see Schwegler, Römische Geschichte, bk. xxiv.; Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, Credibility of Early Roman History, ch. xii. 19-23; W. Ihne, History of Rome, i.; T. Mommsen, “Die Erzählung von Cn. Marcius Coriolanus,” in Hermes, iv. (1869); E. Pais, Storia di Roma, i. ch. 4 (1898).

CORIOLI, an ancient Volscian city in Latium adiectum, taken, according to the Roman annals in 493 B.C., with Longula and Pollusca, and retaken (but see above) for the Volsci by Gaius Marcius Coriolanus, its original conqueror, who, in disgust at his treatment by his countrymen, had deserted to the enemy. After this it does not appear in history, and we hear soon afterwards (443 B.C.) of a dispute between Ardea and Aricia about some land which had been part of the territory of Corioli, but had at an unknown date passed to Rome with Corioli. The site is apparently to be sought in the N.W. portion of the district between the sea, the river Astura and the Alban Hills; but it cannot be more accurately fixed (the identification with Monte Giove, S. of the Valle-Aricciana, rests on no sufficient evidence), and even in the time of Pliny it ranked among the lost cities of Latium.

CORIPPUS, FLAVIUS CRESCONIUS, Roman epic poet of the 6th century A.D. He was a native of Africa, and in one of the MSS. is called grammaticus (teacher). He has been identified, but on insufficient grounds, with Cresconius, an African bishop (7th century), author of a Concordia Canonum, or collection of the laws of the church. Nothing is known of Corippus beyond what is contained in his own poems. He appears to have held the office of tribune or notary (scriniarius) under Anastasius, imperial treasurer and chamberlain of Justinian, at the end of whose reign he left Africa for Constantinople, in consequence of having lost his property during the Moorish and Vandal wars. He was the author of two poems, of considerable importance for the history of the times, one of which was not discovered till the beginning of the 19th century. The latter poem, dedicated to the nobles of Carthage, which comes first in point of time, is called Johannis or De bellis Libycis, and relates the overthrow of the Moors by a certain Johannes, magister militum in 546; it is in eight books (the last is unfinished) and contains about 5000 hexameters. The narrative commences with the despatch of Johannes to the theatre of war by Justinian, and ends with the decisive victory near Carthage (548). The other poem (In laudem Justini minoris), in four books, contains the death of Justinian, the coronation of his successor Justin II. (14th of November 565), and the early events of his reign. It is preceded by a preface, and a short and fulsome panegyric on Anastasius, the poet’s patron. The Laus was published at Antwerp in 1581 by Michael Ruyz Azagra, secretary to the emperor Rudolf II., from a 9th or 10th century MS. The preface contains a reference to a previous work by the author on the wars in Africa, and although Johannes Cuspinianus (1473-1529) in his De Caesaribus et Imperatoribus professed to have seen a MS. of it in the library at Buda (destroyed by Suleiman II. in 1527), it was not till 1814 that it was discovered at Milan by Cardinal Mazzucchelli, librarian of the Ambrosian library, from the codex Trivultianus (in the library of the marquis Trivulzi), the only MS. of the Johannis still extant.

The Johannis is of great value, not only from a purely historical point of view, but also as giving a description of the land and people of Africa, which conscientiously records the impressions of an intelligent native observer; many of his statements as to manners and customs are confirmed both by independent ancient authorities (such as Procopius) and by our knowledge of the modern Berbers. Virgil, Lucan, and Claudian were the poet’s chief models. The Laus, which was written when he was advanced in years, although marred by Byzantine servility and gross flattery of a by no means worthy object, throws much light upon Byzantine court ceremony, as in the account of the accession of Justin and the reception of the embassy of the Avars. On the whole the language and metre of Corippus, considering the age in which he lived and the fact that he was not a native Italian, is remarkably pure. That he was a Christian is rendered probable by negative indications, such as the absence of all the usual mythological accessories of an epic poem, positive allusions to texts of Scripture, and the highly orthodox passage Laus iv. 294 ff.

The editions of the Johannis by P. Mazzucchelli (1820) and of the Laus by P. F. Foggini (1777) are still valuable for their commentaries. They are both included in the 28th volume of the Bonn Corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae. The best modern editions are by J. Partsch (in Monumenta Germaniae historica, 1879), with very valuable prolegomena, and M. Petschenig (Berliner Studien für klassische Philologie, iv., 1886); see also Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xlv.

CORISCO, the name of a bay and an island on the Guinea Coast, West Africa. The bay is bounded N. by Cape San Juan (1° 10′ N.) and S. by Cape Esterias (0° 36′ N.), and is about 31 m. across, while it extends inland some 15 m. The bay is much encumbered with sandbanks, which impair its value as a harbour. Whereas the Muni river or estuary, which enters the bay on its northern side, has a maximum depth of over 100 ft., vessels entering it have to come by a channel with an average depth of six fathoms. The entrance to the southern part of the bay is obstructed by the Bana Bank, which extends for 9 m., rendering navigation dangerous. The bay encloses many small islands and islets, some hardly distinguishable from sandbanks and submerged at high water, giving rise to a native saying that “half the islands live under water.” The principal islands are four, Bana, Great and Little Elobey, and Corisco, the last-named lying farthest to seaward and giving its name to the bay.

Corisco Island, the largest of the group, is some 3 m. long by 1¾ m. in breadth and has an area of about 5½ sq. m. The surface of the island is very diversified. On a miniature scale it possesses mountains and valleys, rivers, lakes, forests and swamps, grassland and bushland, moorland and parkland. The forests supply ebony and logwood for export. The natives are a Bantu-Negro tribe called Benga. There are among them many converts to Roman Catholicism and a few Protestants. Corisco and the other islands named are Spanish possessions and are governed as dependencies of Fernando Po.

See Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, ch. xvii. (London, 1897); E. L. Perea, “Guinea española: La isla de Corisco,” in Revista de geog. colon. y mercantil (Madrid, 1906).

CORK, RICHARD BOYLE, 1st Earl of (1566-1643), Irish statesman, second son of Roger Boyle of Faversham in Kent, a descendant of an ancient Herefordshire family, and of Joan, daughter of Robert Naylor of Canterbury, was born at Canterbury on the 3rd of October 1566, and was educated at the King’s school and at Bennet (Corpus Christi) College, Cambridge, where he was admitted in 1583. He afterwards studied law at the Middle Temple and became clerk to Sir Richard Manwood, chief baron of the exchequer; but finding his position offered little opportunity for advancement he determined to make a new start in Ireland. He landed in Dublin on the 23rd of June 1588, as he relates himself, with £27, 3s. in money, a gold bracelet worth £10, and a diamond ring, besides some fine wearing apparel. He began to make his fortune almost immediately. In 1590 he obtained the appointment of deputy escheator to John Crofton, the escheator-general, and in 1595 he married Joan, daughter and co-heiress of William Appsley of Limerick, who died in 1599, having brought him an estate of £500 a year.

Meanwhile he had been the object of the attacks of Sir Henry Wallop and others, incited, according to his own account, by envy at his success and increasing prosperity, and was apprehended on various charges of fraud in his office, being more than once thrown into prison. He was on the point of leaving for England to justify himself to the queen, when the rebellion in Munster in October 1598 again reduced him to poverty and obliged him to return to London to his chambers at the Temple. He was, however, almost immediately taken by Essex into his service, when Sir Henry Wallop again renewed his prosecution, with the result that Boyle was summoned before the star chamber. His enemies appear to have failed in substantiating their accusations, and in the course of the inquiry, at which he had secured the presence of the queen herself, he was able to expose several instances of malversation on the part of his opponent, who was dismissed in consequence from his office of treasurer, while Boyle himself, who had favourably impressed the queen, was declared by her as “a man fit to be employed by ourselves” and was at once made clerk of the council of Munster. He brought to Elizabeth the news of the victory near Kingsale in December 1601, and in October 1602 was again sent over by Sir George Carew, the president of Munster, on Irish affairs; and on this occasion, at the instance of Carew, he bought for £1000 the whole of Sir Walter Raleigh’s lands in Cork, Waterford and Tipperary, consisting of 12,000 acres with immense capabilities of development. This offered a splendid opportunity for the exercise of his genius for business and administration. Manufactures were established, the breeding of cattle and fish introduced, mines opened, colonists from England encouraged to come over, the natural resources of the land developed, bridges, harbours and roads constructed, and towns settled, order being maintained by 13 castles garrisoned by retainers.

While himself quickly accumulating vast riches, the services which Boyle rendered to the government and to the nation at such a time of disorder and transition were incalculable. He soon became the most powerful subject in Ireland. On the 25th of July 1603 he married, as his second wife, Catherine, daughter of Sir Geoffrey Fenton, secretary of state, and was knighted. In 1606 he became a privy councillor for Munster and in 1613 for Ireland. On the 6th of September 1616 he was raised to the peerage as Lord Boyle, baron of Youghal, and on the 26th of October 1620 was created earl of Cork and Viscount Dungarvan. He was appointed on the 26th of October 1629 a lord justice, and on the 9th of November 1631 lord high treasurer. Though no peer of England, he was “by writ called into the Upper House by His Majesty’s great grace,” and took his place as an “assistant sitting on the inside of the Woolsack.”[1] The appointment of Wentworth (Lord Strafford), however, as lord deputy in 1633 put an end to the predominant power and influence of Cork in Ireland. “A most cursed man,” he writes in his diary on Wentworth’s arrival, “to all Ireland and to me in particular.” In reality these two great men had much in common, held similar views of administration, and had the same talents for practical statesmanship. Cork had already carried out in Munster the policy which Strafford desired to see extended to the whole of Ireland. But Cork belonged to the “spacious days of great Elizabeth,” and for such a man there was no room within the narrow despotism and intolerance of the government of Charles. The subjection of the great was part of Strafford’s settled policy, and consequently, instead of seeking his collaboration in developing the country and in maintaining order, he studied merely to diminish his influence. He subjected him to various humiliations. He forced him to remove his wife’s tomb from the choir in St Patrick’s at Dublin, and deprived him arbitrarily of the greater part of the revenues of Youghal, a portion of the Raleigh estates. “No physic,” wrote Laud, delighted, “better than a vomit if it be given in time, and therefore you have taken a very judicious course to administer one so early to my Lord of Cork. I hope it will do him good....”[2] Cork, however, refrained from any systematic or retaliatory resistance, and even simulated an admiration for Strafford’s rule. At the latter’s trial he was an important witness, but took no active part in the prosecution, though he thoroughly approved of his condemnation and execution. Scarcely had he returned to Ireland from witnessing his rival’s destruction when the rebellion broke out, but his influence and preparations, supported by the military prowess of his sons, were sufficient to offer a successful resistance to the rebels in Munster and to save the province from ruin. This was his last great service to the state. He died about the 15th of September 1643, leaving a large and illustrious family by his second wife.

Four of his seven sons received independent peerages,—Richard, created Baron Clifford and earl of Burlington; Lewis, Viscount Kinalmeaky, killed in 1642 at the battle of Liscarrol; Roger, baron of Broghill and earl of Orrery; and Francis, Viscount Shannon. Another son was Robert Boyle (q.v.), the famous natural philosopher and chemist.

The title passed to the eldest surviving son, Richard Boyle, 1st earl of Burlington and 2nd earl of Cork (1612-1698), who matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, and was knighted in 1624. Returning home after travelling abroad he married in 1635 Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Henry, Lord Clifford, later earl of Cumberland. On the outbreak of the rebellion he supported his father in Munster, fought at the battle of Liscarrol, and raised forces for the first war with the Scots. In 1640 he represented Appleby in the Long Parliament, and in the civil war he supported zealously the royal cause, being created in 1643 Baron Clifford of Lanesborough in the peerage of England, in addition to the earldom of Cork which he inherited from his father the same year. At the Restoration he obtained also the earldom of Burlington (or Bridlington), and was appointed lord-lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, resigning this office through opposition to the government of James II. He held the office of lord treasurer of Ireland from 1680 till 1695. He died on the 15th of January 1698. His two sons having predeceased him, he was succeeded in his titles by his grandson Charles, issue of his eldest son Charles, as 2nd earl of Burlington and 3rd earl of Cork; and on the extinction of the direct male line in the person of Richard, the 4th earl, in 1753 the earldom of Cork fell to the younger branch of the Boyle family, in the person of John, 5th earl of Orrery, he and later earls being “of Cork and Orrery.”

John Boyle, 5th earl of Cork and Orrery (1707-1762), only son of the 4th earl of Orrery, was born on the 2nd of January 1707. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and was led by indifferent health and many untoward accidents to cultivate in retirement his talents for literature and poetry. His translation of the Letters of Pliny the Younger, with various notes, for the use of his eldest son, was published in 1751. He also published Remarks on the Life and Writings of Jonathan Swift (1751), in several letters addressed to his second son, and Memoirs of Robert Carey, earl of Monmouth, from the original manuscript, with preface and notes. He died on the 16th of November 1762. His Letters from Italy appeared in 1774, edited, with memoir, by the Rev. J. Duncombe. The earldom continued in later years in the Boyle family, being held in 1909 by the 10th earl (b. 1861). The wife of the 7th earl (see [Cork and Orrery], [Mary, Countess of]) was a famous figure in society in the early 19th century.