[1] Rev. J. Storer, _The Wild White Cattle of Great Britain_ (1879).
[2] See Wallace's _Farm Live Stock of Great Britain_ (1907), Low's
_Breeds of the Domestic Animals of the British Isles_ (1842,
illustrated, and 1845), and E.V. Wilcox's _Farm Animals_ (1907), an
American work.
[3] Shorthorn Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1822). Sec. E.J.
Powell, 12 Hanover Square, London, W.
[4] C.J. Bates, "The Brothers Colling," _Jour. Roy. Agric. Soc._
(1899).
[5] C.J. Bates, _Thomas Bates and the Kirklevington Shorthorns: a
Contribution to the History of Pure Durham Cattle_
(Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1897).
[6] Housman, "Robert Bakewell," _Jour. Roy. Agric. Soc._ (1894).
[7] See E. Wolff, _Farm Foods_, by H.H. Cousins (1895); A.D. Hall,
_Rothamsted Experiments_ (1905); R. Warington, _Chemistry of the
Farm_ (15th ed., 1902); W.A. Henry, _Feeds and Feeding_ (1907); H.W.
Mumford, _Beef Production_ (1907); H.P. Armsby, _Animal Nutrition_
(2nd ed., 1906); T. Shaw, _Animal Breeding_ (1903); R. Wallace, _Farm
Live Stock of Great Britain_ (4th ed., 1907).
[8] E. J. Powell, _History of the Smithfield Club from 1798 to 1900_
(1902).
CATULLUS, GAIUS VALERIUS (?84-54 B.C.), the greatest lyric poet of Rome.
As regards his names and the dates of his birth and death, the most
important external witness is that of Jerome, in the continuation of the
Eusebian _Chronicle_, under the year 87 B.C., "Gaius Valerius Catullus,
scriptor lyricus Veronae nascitur," and under 57 B.C., "Catullus xxx.
aetatis anno Romae moritur." There is no controversy as to the gentile
name, _Valerius_. Suetonius, in his _Life of Julius Caesar_ (ch. 73),
mentions the poet by the names "Valerium Catullum." Other persons who
had the _cognomen_ Catullus belonged to the Valerian gens, e.g. M.
Valerius Catullus Messalinus, a _delator_ in the reign of Domitian,
mentioned in the fourth satire of Juvenal (l. 113):--
"Et cum mortifero prudens Veiento Catullo."
Inscriptions show, further, that _Valerius_ was a common name in the
native province of Catullus, and belonged to other inhabitants of Verona
besides the poet and his family (Schwabe, _Quaestiones Catullianae_, p.
27). Scholars have been divided in opinion as to whether his _praenomen_
was _Gaius_ or _Quintus_, and in the best MSS. the volume is called
simply _Catulli Veronensis liber_. For _Gaius_ we have the undoubted
testimony, not only of Jerome, which rests on the much earlier authority
of Suetonius, but also that of Apuleius. In support of _Quintus_ a
passage was quoted from the _Natural History_ of Pliny (xxxvii. 6, 81).
But the _praenomen_ Q. is omitted in the best MSS., and in other
passages of the same author the poet is spoken of as "Catullus
Veronensis." The mistake may have arisen from confusion with Q. Catulus,
the colleague of Marius in the Cimbric War, himself also the author of
lyrical poems. Allusions in the poems show that the date of his death
given by Jerome (57 B.C.) is wrong, and that Catullus survived the
second consulship of Pompey (55 B.C.) (cf. lv. 6, cxiii. 2), and was
present in August of the following year at the prosecution of Vatinius
by Licinius Calvus (cf. liii.). The allusion in lii. 3--
"Per consulatum peierat Vatinius,"
does not prove that Catullus must have lived to see the consulship
bestowed on Vatinius in the end of 47 B.C. but only that Vatinius, after
being praetor in 55 B.C., was in the habit of boasting of the certainty
of his attaining the consulship, as Cleopatra was in the habit of
confirming her most solemn declarations by appealing to her hope of one
day administering justice in the Capitol (cf. Haupt, "Quaestiones
Catullianae," _Opuscula_, vol. i. 1875). There is then nothing to prove
that Catullus lived beyond the month of August 54 B.C. Some of the poems
(as xxxvii. and lii.) may have been written during his last illness. If
he died in 54 B.C. or early in 53 B.C., Catullus must either have been
born later than 87 B.C., or have lived to a greater age than thirty.
Catullus is described by Ovid as "hedera iuvenalia cinctus Tempora"
(_Amor_. iii. 9. 61),--a description somewhat more suitable to a man who
dies in his thirtieth year than to one who dies three or four years
later. Further, the age at which a man dies is more likely to be
accurately remembered than the particular date either of his death or of
his birth, and the common practice of recording the age of the deceased
in sepulchral inscriptions must have rendered a mistake about this less
likely to occur. It seems, therefore, on the whole, most likely that
Jerome's words "xxx. aetatis anno" are correct, and that Catullus was
born in 84 B.C.
The statement that he was born at Verona is confirmed by passages in
Ovid and Martial. Pliny the elder, who was born at Como, speaks of
Catullus in the preface to his _Natural History_, as his "countryman"
(_conterraneus_), and the poet speaks of Verona as his home, or at least
his temporary residence, in more than one place. His occasional
residence in his native place is further attested by the statement of
Suetonius (_Julius Caesar_, 73), that "Julius Caesar accepted the poet's
apology for his scurrilous verses upon him, invited him to dine with him
on the same day, and continued his intimacy with his father as before."
As this incident could only have happened during the time that Julius
Caesar was pro-consul, the scene of it must have been in the Cisalpine
province, and at the house of the poet's father, in or near Verona. The
verses apologized for were those contained in poems xxix. and lvii., the
former of which must have been written after Caesar's invasion of
Britain, so that this interview probably took place in the winter of
55-54 B.C. The fact that his father was the host of the great
pro-consul, and lived on terms of intimacy with him, justifies the
inference, that he was, in wealth and rank, one of the principal men of
the province. The only other important statement concerning the poet's
life which rests on external authority is that of Apuleius, that the
real name of the Lesbia of the poems was Clodia. Another, which concerns
the reputation which he enjoyed after his death, is given in the _Life
of Atticus_ by Cornelius Nepos (12. 4). It is to the effect that he
regarded Lucretius and Catullus as the two greatest poets of his own
time.
The poems of Catullus consist of 116 pieces, varying in length from 2 to
408 lines, the great mass of them being, however, short pieces, written
in lyric, iambic or elegiac metre. The arrangement cannot be the poet's;
it is neither chronological nor in accordance with the character of the
topics. The shorter poems, lyric or iambic, are placed first, next the
longer epithalamia, (most being written in hexameters) amongst which the
_Attis_ is inserted and then those written in the elegiac metre. But,
though no chronological order is observed, yet internal evidence enables
us to determine the occasions on which many of the poems were written,
and the order in which they followed one another. They give a very vivid
image of various phases of the poet's life, and of the strong feelings
with which persons and things affected him. They throw much light also
on the social life of Rome and of the provincial towns of Italy in the
years preceding the outbreak of the second civil war. In this respect
they may be compared with the letters of Cicero.
The poems extend over a period of seven or eight years, from 61 or 62
till 54 B.C. Among the earliest are those which record the various
stages of the author's passion for Lesbia. It is in connexion with this
passion that he is generally mentioned, or alluded to, by the later
Roman poets, such as Propertius, Ovid, Juvenal and Martial. Her real
name, as we learn from Apuleius, was Clodia. The admiration of Catullus
for Sappho, the Lesbian poetess, which is clearly indicated by the
imitation of her language in his fifty-first and sixty-second poems,
affords an obvious explanation of the Greek name which he gave to his
Roman mistress. Clodia was the notorious sister of Publius Clodius
Pulcher, and in the year 56 she charged M. Caelius Rufus, after tiring
of him, as she had of Catullus, with an attempt to poison her. It was in
defence of Rufus that Cicero described the spell she exercised over
young men, in language which might have been applied to her previous
relations with the youthful poet, as well as those with the youthful
orator and politician.
Poems concerning Lesbia occur among both the earliest and the latest of
those contained in the series. They record the various stages of passion
through which Catullus passed, from absolute devotion and a secure sense
of returned affection, through the various conditions of distrust and
jealousy, attempts at renunciation, and short-lived "amoris
integrationes," through the "odi et amo" state, and the later state of
savage indignation against both Lesbia and his rivals, and especially
against Caelius Rufus, till he finally attains, not without much
suffering and loss, the last state of scornful indifference. Among the
earliest of the poems connected with Lesbia, and among those written in
the happiest vein, are ii. and iii., and v. and vii. The 8th, "Miser
Catulle, desinas ineptire," perhaps the most beautiful of them all,
expresses the first awakening of the poet to a sense of her
unworthiness, before the gentler have given place to the fiercer
feelings of his nature. His final renunciation is sent in a poem written
after his return from the East, with a union of imaginative and scornful
power, to his two butts, Furius and Aurelius (xi., "Furi et Aureli,
comites Catulli"), who, to judge by the way Catullus writes of them,
appear to have been hangers-on upon him, who repaid the pecuniary and
other favours they received by giving him grounds for jealousy, and
making imputations on his character (cf. xv., xvi., xviii., xxiii.).
The intrigue of Caelius Rufus with Lesbia began in 59 or 58 B.C. It was
probably in the earlier stages of this liaison that the 68th poem was
written, from which it appears that Catullus, at the time living at
Verona, and grieving for the recent death of his brother in the Troad,
had heard of Lesbia's infidelity, and, in consideration of her previous
faithlessness in his favour, was not inclined to resent it very warmly.
Two other poems in the series express the grief which Catullus felt for
the death of his brother,--one, the 65th, addressed to the orator
Hortensius, who is there, as in some of Cicero's letters, called
Hortalus or Ortalus, and sent to him along with the _Coma Berenices_
(lxvi.), a translation of a famous elegy of Callimachus. The other poem
referring to this event (ci.) must have been composed some years later,
probably in 56 B.C., when Catullus visited his brother's tomb in the
Troad, on his return from Bithynia. Between 59 and 57 B.C. most of the
lampoons on Lesbia and her numerous lovers must have been written (e.g.
xxxvii., xxxix., &c.). Some, too, of the poems expressive of his more
tender feelings to her, such as viii. and lxxvi. belong also to these
years; and among the poems written either during this period or perhaps
in the early and happier years of his liaison, some of the most charming
of his shorter pieces, expressing the affection for his young friends
Verannius and Fabullus (ix., xii., xiii.), may be included.
In the year 57 the routine of his life was for a short time broken by
his accompanying the propraetor C. Memmius, the friend to whom Lucretius
dedicates his great poem, as one of his staff, to the province of
Bithynia. His object was probably to better his fortunes by this absence
from Rome, as humorous complaints of poverty and debt (xiii., xxvi.)
show that his ordinary means were insufficient for his mode of life. He
frankly acknowledges the disappointment of these hopes, and still more
frankly his disgust with his chief (x., xxviii.). Some of the most
charming and perfect among the shorter poems express the delight with
which the poet changed the dulness and sultry climate of the province
for the freedom and keen enjoyment of his voyage home in his yacht,
built for him at Amastris on the Euxine, and for the beauty and peace of
his villa on the shores of Lake Benacus, which welcomed him home
"wearied with foreign travel." To this period and to his first return to
Rome after his visit to his native district belong the poems xlvi., ci.,
iv., xxxi. and x., all showing by their freshness of feeling and vivid
truth of expression the gain which the poet's nature derived from his
temporary escape from the passions, distractions and animosities of
Roman society. Two poems, written in a very genial and joyous spirit,
and addressed to his younger friend Licinius Calvus (xiv. and l.), who
is ranked as second only to himself among the lyrical poets of the age,
and whose youthful promise pointed him out as likely to become one of
the greatest of Roman orators, may, indeed, with most probability be
assigned to these later years (xiv.). From the expression "Odissem te
odio Vatiniano," in the third line of xiv., it may be inferred that the
poem was written not earlier than December (the "Saturnalia") of the
year 56 B.C., as it was early in that year, as we learn from a letter of
Cicero to his brother Quintus (ii. 4. 1), that Calvus first announced
his intention of prosecuting Vatinius. The short poem numbered liii.
would be written in August 54 B.C. The poems which have left the
greatest stain on the fame of Catullus--those "referta contumeliis
Caesaris," the licentious abuse of Mamurra, and probably some of those
personal scurrilities addressed to women as well as men, or too frank
confessions, which posterity would willingly have let die, may well have
been written in the last years of his life, under the influence of the
bitterness and recklessness induced by his experience. It cannot be
determined with certainty whether the longer and more artistic pieces,
which occupy the middle of the volume--the _Epithalamium_ in celebration
of the marriage of Manlius Torquatus, the 62nd poem, written in
imitation of the Epithalamia of Sappho, "Vesper adest: iuvenes,
consurgite"; the _Attis_, and the Epic Idyll representing the marriage
festival of Peleus and Thetis--belong to the earlier or the later period
of the poet's career. If the person addressed in the first part of the
68th is the Manlius of the _Epithalamium_, and the lines from 3 to 8--
"Naufragum ut eiectum ... pervigilat,"
refer to the death of Vinia, it would follow that the first Epithalamium
was written some time before that poem, and thus belongs to the earlier
time. While the translations of Sappho,--
"Ille mi par esse deo videtur,"
and of Callimachus (lxvi.),--
"Omnia qui magni dispexit lumina mundi,"
belong to the earlier period, the _Attis_ and the _Peleus and Thetis_;
although perhaps suggested by the treatment of the same or similar
subjects in Greek authors, are executed with such power and originality
as declare them to be products of the most vigorous stage in the
development of the poet's genius. That his genius came soon to maturity
is a reason for hesitation in assigning any particular time between 62
and 54 B.C. for the composition of the _Attis_ and of that part of the
_Epithalamium_ ("Peliaco quondam prognatae vertice pinus") which deals
with the main subject of the poem. But the criticism of Munro in his
edition of Lucretius, which shows similarities of expression that cannot
be mere casual coincidences, between the Ariadne-episode in the
_Epithalamium_ of Catullus (from line 52 to 266) and the poem of
Lucretius, leaves little doubt that that portion at least of the poem
was written after the publication of the _De rerum natura_, in the
winter of 55-54 B.C.
No ancient author has left a more vivid impression of himself on his
writings than Catullus. Coming to Rome in early youth from a distant
province, not at that time included within the limits of Italy, he lived
as an equal with the men of his time of most intellectual activity and
refinement, as well as of highest social and political eminence. Among
those to whom his poems are addressed, or who are mentioned in them, we
find the names of Hortensius, Cicero, Cornelius Nepos, Licinius Calvus,
Helvius Cinna and Asinius Pollio, then only a youth (xii. 8). Catullus
brought into this circle the genius of a great poet, the social
vivacity of a vigorous nature, the simplicity and sincerity of an
unambitious, and the warmth of an affectionate disposition. He betrays
all the sensitiveness of the poetic temperament, but it is never the
sensitiveness of vanity, for he is characterized by the modesty rather
than the self-confidence which accompanies genius, but the sensitiveness
of a heart which gives and expects more sympathy and loyalty in
friendship than the world either wants or cares to give in return. He
shows also in some of his lighter pieces the fastidiousness of a refined
taste, intolerant of all boorishness, pedantry, affectation and sordid
ways of life. The passionate intensity of his temperament displays
itself with similar strength in the outpourings of his animosity as of
his love and affection. It was, unfortunately, the fashion of the time
to employ in the expression of these animosities a licence of speech and
of imputation which it is difficult for men living under different
social conditions to understand, still more difficult to tolerate. Munro
has examined the 29th poem--
"Quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati,"
the longest and most important of the lampoons on Caesar and Mamurra,
and shown with much learning and acuteness the motives and intention of
Catullus in writing them. Had Julius Caesar really believed, as
Suetonius, writing two hundred years afterwards, says he did, that "an
eternal stigma had been cast upon him by the verses concerning Mamurra,"
we should scarcely apply the word magnanimity to his condonation of the
offence. But these verses survive as a memorial not of any scandal
affecting Julius Caesar which could possibly have been believed by his
contemporaries, but of the licence of speech which was then indulged in,
of the jealousy with which the younger members of the Roman aristocracy,
who a little later fought on the side of Pompey, at that time regarded
the ascendancy both of the "father-in-law and the son-in-law," and the
social elevation of some of their instruments, and also, to a certain
extent, of the deterioration which the frank and generous nature of
Catullus underwent from the passions which wasted, and the faithlessness
which marred his life.
The great age of Latin poetry extends from about the year 60 B.C. till
the death of Ovid in 17 A.D. There are three marked divisions in this
period, each with a distinct character of its own: the first represented
by Lucretius and Catullus, the second by Virgil and Horace, the last by
Ovid. Force and sincerity are the great characteristics of the first
period, maturity of art of the second, facility of the last. The
educating influence of Greek art on the Roman mind was first fully
experienced in the Ciceronian age, and none of his contemporaries was so
susceptible of that influence as Catullus. With the susceptibility to
art he combined a large share of the vigorous and genial qualities of
the Italian race. Like most of his younger contemporaries, he studied in
the school of the Alexandrine poets, with whom the favourite subjects of
art were the passion of love, and stories from the Greek mythology,
which admitted of being treated in a spirit similar to that in which
they celebrated their own experiences. It was under this influence that
Catullus wrote the _Coma Berenices_, the 68th poem, which, after the
manner of the Alexandrines, interweaves the old tale of Protesilaus and
Laodamia with the personal experiences of the poet himself, and the
_Epithalamium_ of Peleus and Thetis, which combines two pictures from
the Greek mythology, one of the secure happiness of marriage, the other
of the passionate despair of love betrayed. In this last poem Catullus
displays a power of creative pictorial imagination far transcending that
displayed in any of the extant poetry of Alexandria. We have no means of
determining what suggested the subject of the _Attis_ to Catullus,
whether the previous treatment of the subject by some Greek writer, some
survival of the myth which he found still existing during his residence
among the "Phrygii Campi," or the growth of various forms of Eastern
superstition and fanaticism, at Rome, in the last age of the Republic.
Whatever may have been its origin, it is the finest specimen we possess,
in either Greek or Latin literature, of that kind of short poem more
common in modern than ancient times, in which some situation or passion
entirely alien to the writer, and to his own age, is realized with
dramatic intensity. But the genius of Catullus is, perhaps, even
happier in the direct expression of personal feeling than in artistic
creation, or the reproduction of tales and situations from mythology.
The warmth, intensity and sincerity of his own nature are the sources of
the inspiration in these poems. The most elaborate and one of the finest
of them is the _Epithalamium_ in honour of the marriage of a member of
the old house of Manlius Torquatus with Vinia Aurunculeia, written in
the glyconic in combination with the pherecratean metre. To this metre
Catullus imparts a peculiar lightness and grace by making the trochee,
instead of the spondee as in Horace's glyconics and pherecrateans, the
first foot in the line. His elegiac metre is constructed with less
smoothness and regularity than that of Ovid and Tibullus or even of
Propertius, but as employed by him it gives a true echo to the serious
and plaintive feelings of some of his poems, while it adapts itself, as
it did later in the hands of Martial, to the epigrammatic terseness of
his invective. But the perfection of the art of Catullus is seen in his
employment of those metres which he adapted to the Latin tongue from the
earlier poets of Greece, the pure iambic trimeter, as in iv.--
"Phaselus ille quem videtis hospites,"
the scazon iambic, employed in viii. and xxxi.--
"Paeninsularum, Sirmio, insularumque,"
and the phalecian hendecasyllabic, a slight modification of the Sapphic
line, which is his favourite metre for the expression of his more joyful
moods, and of his lighter satiric vein. The Latin language never flowed
with such ease, freshness and purity as in these poems. Their perfection
consists in the entire absence of all appearance of effort or
reflection, and in the fulness of life and feeling, which gives a
lasting interest and charm to the most trivial incident of the passing
hour. In reference to these poems Munro has said with truth and force:
"A generation had yet to pass before the heroic attained to its
perfection; while he (Catullus) had already produced glyconics,
phalecians and iambics, each 'one entire and perfect chrysolite,'
'cunningest patterns' of excellence, such as Latium never saw before or
after,--Alcaeus, Sappho, and the rest then and only then having met
their match."
The work of Catullus has not come down to us intact, as is shown by
lacunae and quotations in ancient writers which cannot now be found in
his poems. Out of the MSS. only three have claims to intrinsic
importance. The oldest and best appears to be the Bodleian (Canon.
30). But little inferior is the _Sangermanensis_ (Par. 14137). Of the
third, the _Romanus_, we shall be better able to judge when its
discoverer, Prof. W.G. Hale, has published his collation. None of
these MSS. are older than the 14th century. One poem, 62, is, however,
preserved in a MS. of the 9th century (the _Thuaneus_, Par. 8071).
Prof. R. Ellis's discovery of the Bodleian MS. and E. Baehrens's
recognition of its value opened a new chapter in the history of the
text. Ellis's contributions comprise an indispensable commentary (ed.
2, 1889), an elaborate critical edition (ed. 2, 1878) and an English
translation (1871) in the metres of the original. The text in the
Oxford series, published in 1905, is inferior to those specified
below. Baehrens's edition, 2 volumes (text 1876, the second edition by
K.P. Schulze is a misnomer; and Latin commentary 1885) is still of
value. Amongst other editions with critical or explanatory notes or
both may be mentioned those of A. Riese (1884), L. Schwabe (1886, with
_index verborum_), B. Schmidt (1887), J.P. Postgate (1889, text
differing little from that in the new _Corpus Poetarunt_), E. Benoist
and E. Thomas, with French translation by Rostand (2 vols.,
1882-1890), S.G. Owen (1893, an _edition de luxe_), W.T. Merrill
(1893, Boston, U.S.A., with succinct English notes), A. Palmer (1896,
one of the best of this scholar's works); M. Haupt's text of the three
poets Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, edited by J. Vahlen, reached
its sixth edition in 1904. Of the numerous contributions to the
textual and literary criticism of the poems may be named the papers in
M. Haupt's _Opuscula_, L. Schwabe's _Quaestiones Catullianae_ (1862),
B. Schmidt's _Prolegomena_, H.A.J. Munro's _Criticisms and
Elucidations of Catullus_ (1878; second edition by J.D. Duff, 1905).
Translations into English verse by J. Cranstoun (1867), Sir T. Martin
(1861, 1876), R. Ellis (above); a recent version in prose with the
Latin text by F.W. Cornish (1904). For further information see
Teuffel's _History of Roman Literature_ (tr. by Warre), S 214, or the
more recent accounts by M. Schanz, _Geschichte der romischen
Litteratur_, i. SS 102-106, and Frederic Plessis, _La Poesie latine_
(1909), pp. 143-173. (W. Y. S.; X.)
CATULUS, the name of a distinguished family of ancient Rome of the gens
Lutatia. The following are its most important members.
1. GAIUS LUTATIUS CATULUS, Roman commander during the First Punic War,
consul 242 B.C. He was sent with a fleet of 200 ships to Sicilian
waters, and almost without opposition occupied the harbours of Lilybaeum
and Drepanum. A hurriedly equipped fleet sent out from Carthage under
Hanno was intercepted by the praetor Publius Valerius Falto and totally
defeated (battle of the Aegates Islands, March 10, 241). Catulus, who
had been wounded at Drepanum, took no part in the operations, but on his
return to Rome was accorded the honour of a triumph, which against his
will he shared with Valerius. (See PUNIC WARS: First, ad fin.).
2. QUINTUS LUTATIUS CATULUS, Roman general and consul with Marius in 102
B.C. In the war against the Cimbri and Teutones he was sent to defend
the passage of the Alps but found himself compelled to retreat over the
Po, his troops having been reduced to a state of panic (see MARIUS,
GAIUS). In 101 the Cimbri were defeated on the Raudine plain, near
Vercellae, by the united armies of Catulus and Marius. The chief honour
being ascribed to Marius, Catulus became his bitter opponent. He sided
with Sulla in the civil war, was included in the proscription list of
87, and when Marius declined to pardon him, committed suicide. He was
distinguished as an orator, poet and prose writer, and was well versed
in Greek literature. He is said to have written the history of his
consulship and the Cimbrian War after the manner of Xenophon; two
epigrams by him have been preserved, one on Roscius the celebrated actor
(Cicero, _De Nat. Deorum_, i. 28), the other of an erotic character,
imitated from Callimachus (Gellius xix. 9). He was a man of great
wealth, which he spent in beautifying Rome. Two buildings were known as
"Monumenta Catuli": the temple of _Fortuna hujusce diei_, to commemorate
the day of Vercellae, and the Porticus Catuli, built from the sale of
the Cimbrian spoils.
See Plutarch, _Marius, Sulla_; Appian, _B.C._ i. 74; Vell. Pat. ii.
21; Florus iii. 21; Val. Max. vi. 3, ix. 13; Cicero, _De Oratore_,
iii, 3. 8, _Brutus_, 35.
3. QUINTUS LUTATIUS CATULUS (c. 120-61 B.C.), sometimes called
Capitolinus, son of the above, consul in 102. He inherited his father's
hatred of Marius, and was a consistent though moderate supporter of the
aristocracy. In 78 he was consul with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who after
the death of Sulla proposed the overthrow of his constitution, the
re-establishment of the distribution of grain, the recall of the
banished, and other democratic measures. Catulus vigorously opposed
this, and a temporary compromise was effected. But Lepidus, having
levied troops in his province of Transalpine Gaul, returned to Rome at
the head of an army. Catulus defeated him at the Mulvian bridge and near
Cosa in Etruria, and Lepidus made his escape to Sardinia, where he died
soon afterwards. In 67 and 66 Catulus unsuccessfully opposed, as
prejudicial to constitutional freedom, the Gabinian and Manilian laws,
which conferred special powers upon Pompey (q.v.). He consistently
opposed Caesar, whom he endeavoured to implicate in the Catilinarian
conspiracy. Caesar, in return, accused him of embezzling public money
during the reconstruction of the temple on the Capitol, and proposed to
obliterate his name from the inscription and deprive him of the office
of commissioner for its restoration. Catulus's supporters rallied round
him, and Caesar dropped the charge. Catulus was the last _princeps
senatus_ of republican times; he held the office of censor also, but
soon resigned, being unable to agree with his colleague Licinius
Crassus. Although not a man of great abilities, Catulus exercised
considerable influence through his political consistency and his
undoubted solicitude for the welfare of the state.
See Sallust, _Catilina_, 35. 49; Dio Cassius xxxvi. 13; Plutarch,
_Crassus_; Suetonius, _Caesar_, 15.
CAUB, or KAUB, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of
Hesse-Nassau, on the right bank of the Rhine, 28 m. N.W. from Wiesbaden,
on the railway from Frankfort-on-Main to Cologne. Pop. 2200. It has a
Roman Catholic and an Evangelical church, and a statue of Blucher. The
trade mainly consists of the wines of the district. On a crag above the
town stands the imposing ruin of Gutenfels, and facing it, on a rock in
the middle of the Rhine, the small castle Pfalz, or Pfalzgrafenstein,
where, according to legend, the Palatine countesses awaited their
confinement, but which in reality served as a toll-gate for merchandise
on the Rhine.
Caub, first mentioned in the year 983, originally belonged to the lords
of Falkenstein, passed in 1277 to the Rhenish Palatinate, and attained
civic rights in 1324. Here Blucher crossed the Rhine with the Prussian
and Russian armies, on New Year's night 1813-1814, in pursuit of the
French.
CAUCA, a large coast department of Colombia, South America, lying
between the departments of Bolivar, Antioquia, Caldas and Tolima on the
E., and the Pacific Ocean and Panama on the W., and extending from the
Caribbean Sea S. to the department of Narino. Pop. (1905, estimate)
400,000; area 26,930 sq. m. Although Cauca was deprived of extensive
territories on the upper Caqueta and Putumayo, and of a large area
bordering on Ecuador in the territorial redistribution of 1905, it
remained the largest department of the republic. The Western Cordillera,
traversing nearly its whole length from south to north, and the Central
Cordillera, forming a part of its eastern frontier, give a very
mountainous character to the region. It includes, besides, the fertile
and healthful valley of the upper Cauca, the hot, low valley of the
Atrato, and a long coastal plain on the Pacific. The region is rich in
mines and valuable forests, but its inhabitants have made very little
progress in agriculture because there are not adequate transportation
facilities. The capital of the department is Popayan at its southern
extremity, with an estimated population in 1905 of 10,000, other
important towns are Cali (16,000), Buga, Cartago and Buenaventura.
CAUCASIA, or CAUCASUS, a governor-generalship of Russia, occupying the
isthmus between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov on the west and the
Caspian Sea on the east, as well as portions of the Armenian highlands.
Its northern boundary is the Kuma-Manych depression, a succession of
narrow, half-desiccated lakes and river-beds, only temporarily filled
with water and connecting the Manych, a tributary of the Don, with the
Kuma, which flows into the Caspian. This depression is supposed to be a
relic of the former post-Pliocene connexion between the Black Sea and
the Caspian, and is accepted by most geographers as the natural frontier
between Europe and Asia, while others make the dividing-line coincide
with the principal water-parting of the Caucasus mountain system. The
southern boundary of Caucasia is in part coincident with the river Aras
(Araxes), in part purely conventional and political. It was shifted
several times during the 19th century, but now runs from a point on the
Black Sea, some 20 m. south of Batum, in a south-easterly and easterly
direction to Mt. Ararat, and thence along the Aras to within 30 m. of
its confluence with the Kura, where it once more turns south-east, and
eventually strikes the Caspian at Astara (30 deg. 35' N.). This large
territory, covering an area of 180,843 sq. m., and having in 1897
9,248,695 inhabitants (51 per sq. m.), may be divided into four natural
zones or sections:--(i.) the plains north of the Caucasus mountains,
comprising the administrative division of Northern Caucasia; (ii.) the
Caucasus range and the highlands of Daghestan; (iii.) the valleys of the
Rion and the Kura, between the Caucasus range and the highlands of
Armenia; and (iv.) the highlands of Armenia.
(i.) The _plains of Northern Caucasia_, which include most of the
provinces of Kuban and Terek and of the government of Stavropol, slope
gently downwards from the foot of the Caucasus range towards the
Kuma-Manych depression. It is only in their centre that they reach
altitudes of as much as 2000-2500 ft. e.g. in the Stavropol "plateau,"
which stretches northwards, separating the tributaries of the Kuban
from those of the Terek and the Kuma. Towards the foothills of the
Caucasus they are clothed with thick forests, while in the west they
merge into the steppes of south Russia or end in marshy ground, choked
with reeds and rushes, in the delta of the Kuban. In the north and
east they give place, as the Manych and the coasts of the Caspian are
approached, to arid, sandy, stony steppes. The soil of these plains is
generally very fertile and they support a population of nearly
2,800,000 Russians, composed of Cossacks and peasant immigrants,
settled chiefly along the rivers and grouped in large, wealthy
villages. They carry on agriculture--wheat-growing on a large
scale--with the aid of modern agricultural machines, and breed cattle
and horses. Vines are extensively cultivated on the low levels, and a
variety of domestic trades are prosecuted in the villages. The higher
parts of the plains, which are deeply trenched by the upper
tributaries of the rivers, are inhabited by various Caucasian
races--Kabardians and Cherkesses (Circassians) in the west, Ossetes in
the middle, and several tribal elements from Daghestan, described
under the general name of Chechens, in the east; while nomadic Nogai
Tatars and Turkomans occupy the steppes.
(ii.) The _Caucasus range_ runs from north-west to south-east from the
Strait of Kerch to the Caspian Sea for a length of 900 m., with a
varying breadth of 30 to 140 m., and covers a surface of 12,000 sq. m.
The orographical characteristics of the Caucasus are described in
detail under that heading.
(iii.) The combined _valleys of the Rion and the Kura_, which
intervene between the Caucasus and the Armenian highlands, and stretch
their axes north-west and south-east respectively, embrace the most
populous and most fertile parts of Caucasia. They correspond roughly
with the governments of Kutais, Tiflis, Elisavetpol and Baku, and have
a population of nearly 3,650,000. The two valleys are separated by the
low ridge of the Suram or Meskes mountains.
Spurs from the Caucasus and from the Armenian highlands fill up the
broad latitudinal depression between them. Above (i.e. west of) Tiflis
these spurs so far intrude into the valley that it is reduced to a
narrow strip in breadth. But below that city it suddenly widens out,
and the width gradually increases through the stretch of 350 m. to the
Caspian, until in the Mugan steppe along that sea it measures 100 m.
in width. The snow-clad peaks of the main Caucasus, descending by
short, steep slopes, fringe the valley on the north, while an abrupt
escarpment, having the characteristics of a border ridge of the
Armenian highlands, fronts it on the south. The floor of the valley
slopes gently eastwards, from 1200 ft. at Tiflis to 500 ft. in the
middle, and to 85 ft. _below_ normal sea-level beside the Caspian. But
the uniformity of the slope is interrupted by a plateau (2000-3000 ft.
in altitude) along the southern foothills of the east central
Caucasus, in the region known as Kakhetia, drained by the Alazan, a
left-hand tributary of the Kura. The deep, short gorges and glens
which seam the southern slopes of the Caucasus are inhabited by
Ossetes, Tushes, Pshavs and Khevsurs in the west, and by various
tribes of Lesghians in the east. In these high and stony valleys every
available patch of ground is utilized for the cultivation of barley,
even up to altitudes of 7000 and 8000 ft. above the level of the sea;
but cattle-breeding is the principal resource of the mountaineers,
whose little communities are often separated from one another by
passes, few of which are lower than 10,000 ft. The steppes along the
bottom of the principal valley are for the most part too dry to be
cultivated without irrigation. It is only in Kakhetia, where numerous
mountain streams supply the fields and gardens of the plateau of
Alazan, that wheat, millet and maize are grown, and orchards,
vineyards and mulberry plantations are possible. Lower down the valley
cattle-breeding is the chief source of wealth, while in the small
towns and villages of the former Georgian kingdom various petty
trades, exhibiting a high development of artistic taste and technical
skill, are widely diffused. The slopes of the Armenian highlands are
clothed with fine forests, and the vine is grown at their base, while
on the wide-stretching steppes the Turko-Tatars pasture cattle, horses
and sheep. The lower part of the Kura valley assumes the character of
a dry steppe, the rainfall not reaching 14 in. annually at Baku, and
it is still less in the Mugan steppe, though quite abundant in the
adjacent region of Lenkoran. The vegetation of the steppe is on the
whole scanty. Trees are generally absent, except for thickets of
poplars, dwarf oaks and tamarisks along the course of the Kura, the
delta of which is smothered under a jungle of reeds and rushes. The
Mugan steppe is, however, in spite of its dryness, a more fertile
region in virtue of the irrigation practised; but the Kura has
excavated its bed too deeply to admit of that being done along its
course. The Lenkoran district, sometimes called Talysh, on the western
side of the Kizil-Agach bay, is blessed with a rich vegetation, a
fertile soil, and a moist climate.
The inhabitants of the Kura valley consist principally of Iranian
Tates and Talyshes, of Armenians and Lesghians, with Russians, Jews
and Arabs. This conjoint valley of the Rion-Kura was in remote
antiquity the site of several Greek colonial settlements, later the
seat of successive kingdoms of the Georgians, and for centuries it has
formed a bulwark against hostile invasions from the south and east. It
is still inhabited chiefly by Georgian tribes--Gurians, Imeretians,
Mingrelians, Svanetians--in the basin of the Rion, and by Georgians
intermingled with Armenians in the valley of the Kura, while the
steppes that stretch away from the lower course of the latter river
are ranged over by Turko-Tatars. Mingrelia and Imeretia (valley of
Rion) are the gardens of Caucasia, but the high valleys of Svanetia,
farther north on the south slopes of the Caucasus mountains, are wild
and difficult of access. In the cultivated parts the land is so
exceedingly fertile and productive that it sells for almost fabulous
prices, and its value is still further enhanced by the discovery of
manganese and copper mines in the basin of the Rion, and of the almost
inexhaustible supplies of naphtha and petroleum at Baku in the
Apsheron peninsula. The principal products of the soil are mentioned
lower down, while the general character of the vegetation is
indicated under CAUCASUS: _Western Caucasus._ In the basin of the
Rion, in that of the Chorokh (which runs off the Pontic highlands into
the Black Sea south of Batura), and on the Black Sea littoral from
Batum northwards to Sukhum-kaleh, and beyond, the climate is extremely
hot and the rainfall heavy (see under _Climate_ below). It is in this
valley that the principal towns (except Vladikavkaz at the north foot
of the Caucasus) of Caucasia are situated, namely, Baku (179,133
inhabitants in 1900), Tiflis (160,645 in 1897), Kutais (32,492), and
the two Black Sea ports of Batum (28,512) and Poti (7666).
(iv.) The _highlands of Armenia_ are sometimes designated the Minor
Caucasus, Little Caucasus and Anti-Caucasus. But to use such terms for
what is not only an independent, but also an older, orographical
formation than the Caucasus tends to perpetuate confusion in
geographical nomenclature. The Armenian highlands, which run generally
parallel to the Caucasus, though at much lower elevations (5000-6000
ft.), are a plateau region, sometimes quite flat, sometimes gently
undulating, clothed with luxuriant meadows and mostly cultivable. From
it rise double or triple ranges connected by cross-ridges and spined
with outer spurs. These double and triple ranges, which have a general
elevation of 8500-10,000 ft., stretch from the south-east angle of the
Black Sea, 400 m. south-eastwards to the Kara-dagh and Salavat
mountains in north Persia, and the latter link them on to the Elburz
mountains that skirt the southern end of the Caspian Sea. Various
names are given to the different parts of the constituent ranges, or,
perhaps more correctly, elongated groups of mountains. The Ajar,
Akhalt-sikh and Meskes or Trialety groups in the west are succeeded
farther east by the Somkhet, Murguz, Ganji and Karabakh sections,
forming the southern rim of the Kura basin, while parallel with them,
but farther south, run the Mokry, Miskhan, Akmangan and Paltapin
ranges, marking the northern edge of the Aras drainage area. These two
sets of parallel ranges are linked together transversely by the
cross-ridges of Bezobdal, Pambak, Shah-dagh and Gok-cha. From this
last branches off the highest range in the entire series, namely, the
Zangezur, which soars up to 10,000 ft. above the left bank of the
Aras. From it again there shoot away at right angles, one on each
side, the ranges of the Dar-alagoz and Bergushet. These highlands
exhibit very considerable evidences of volcanic activity both in
remote geological periods and also since the Tertiary epoch. Large
areas are overlain with trachyte, basalt, obsidian, tuff and pumice.
The most conspicuous features of the entire region, Mount Ararat
(16,930 ft.) and Mount Alagoz (13,440 ft.), are both solid masses of
trachyte; and both rise above the limits of perpetual snow. Extinct
volcanoes are numerous in several of the ranges, e.g. Akmangan, Mokry,
Karabakh and Egri-dagh (see below). It is in this region of the
Armenian highlands that the largest lakes of Caucasia are situated,
namely, the Gok-cha or Sevanga (540 sq. m. in area) at an altitude of
6340 ft., the Chaldir-gol (33 sq. m.) at 6520 ft., and several smaller
ones, such as the _gols_ of Khozapin, Khopchalu, Arpa, Toporavan and
Tabiztskhur, all situated between 6500 and 7000 ft. above sea-level.
The principal water-divide in this highland region is, however, the
range of Egri-dagh (Ararat), which just south of 40 deg. S. forms for
100 m. the boundary between Russian and Turkish Armenia, having Ararat
at its eastern extremity and the extinct volcano of Kessa-dagh (11,260
ft.) at its western. Its importance lies in the fact that it divides
the streams which flow into the Black Sea and Caspian from those which
make their way into the Persian Gulf. The Egri-dagh possesses a
sharply defined crest, ranges at a general elevation of 8000 ft., is
bare of timber, scantily supplied with water, and rugged and deeply
fissured.
The transverse water-parting between the Black Sea and the Caspian
begins on the south side of the main range of the Caucasus, at Mount
Zikara (12,560 ft.), a little south-west of Kasbek, and runs
south-west along the sinuous crests of the Racha, Suram or Meskes
(3000-5000 ft.), Vakhan (10,000-11,000 ft.), Arzyan (7000-10,000 ft.),
and its continuation the Soganluk, thus linking the Caucasus ranges
with those of the Armenian highlands. This line of heights separates
the basins of the Chorokh and the Rion (Black Sea) from those of the
Aras and the Kura (Caspian Sea). North of the Caucasus ranges the
water-divide between these two seas descends from Mount Elbruz along
the Sadyrlar Mountains (11,000 ft.), and finally sinks into the
Stavropol "plateau" (1600 ft.). But the main axis of the transverse
upheavals would appear to be continued in a north-eastern direction in
the Andi and other parallel ranges of Daghestan, as stated under
CAUCASUS.
The population in this region consists principally of Armenians,
Tatars, Turks, Kurds, Ossetes, Greeks, with Persians, Tates and a few
Russians (see particulars below).
_Climate_.--Owing in part to the great differences in altitude in
different regions of Caucasia and in part to the directions in which the
mountain ranges run, and consequently the quarters towards which their
slopes face, the climate varies very greatly according to locality.
Generally speaking, it may be characterized as a climate of extremes on
the Armenian highlands, in the Kura valley and in northern Caucasia, and
as maritime and genial in Lenkoran, on the Black Sea coastlands, and in
the valley of the Rion. The greatest recorded range of temperature is
at Erivan (altitude 3230 ft.), namely, of 64 deg. between a January
average of 14.9 deg. and an August average of 78.8 deg. F. At
Sukhum-kaleh, on the Black Sea, the corresponding range is only 27.3
deg., between a January average of 48.8 deg. and an August average of
76.1 deg. The highest mean temperatures for the whole year are those of
Lenkoran (60.3 deg.) and of Sukhum-kaleh and Poti (about 58 deg.), and
the lowest at Ardahan (5840 ft.), in the province of Kars, namely, 37.9
deg., and at Gudaur (7245 ft.), a few miles south of Kasbek, namely,
38.6 deg. The following table gives particulars of temperature averages
at a few typical places:--
+-------------+--------------+--------+---------+-------+
| | | Annual | January | July |
| Place. | Altitude. | Mean. | Mean. | Mean. |
| | | [deg.] | [deg.] |[deg.] |
+-------------+--------------+--------+---------+-------+
| Stavropol | 2030 | 47.0 | 24.0 | 70.0 |
| Vladikavkaz | 2345 | 47.3 | 23.4 | 68.0 |
| Gudaur | 7245 | 38.6 | 20.3 | 57.2 |
| Baku | on Caspian | 58.0 | 38.0 | 80.0 |
| Tiflis | 1490 | 55.0 | 32.0 | 76.5 |
| Batum | on Black Sea | 59.0 | 42.0 | 75.0 |
| Sochi | on Black Sea | 56.3 | 40.3 | 76.1 |
| Lenkoran | on Caspian | 60.3 | 39.0 | 80.6 |
| Erivan | 3170 | 51.0 | 51.0 | 75.0 |
+-------------+--------------+--------+---------+-------+
In respect of precipitation the entire region of Caucasia may be divided
into two strikingly contrasted regions, a wet and a dry. To the former
belong the Black Sea littoral, where the rainfall averages 59 to 93 in.
annually, and the valleys that open upon it or are exposed to winds
blowing off it, in which the rainfall varies, however, from 20 in.
(Abbas-tuman, Borzhom) to 60 (Kutais). In Lenkoran also the rainfall
averages 40 to 50 in. in the year. Between 16 and 40 in. fall as a rule
at the northern foot of the Caucasus (Mozdok, Pyatigorsk) and in the
Kura valley (Tiflis, Novo-bayazet). On the Armenian highlands and on the
steppes north of Pyatigorsk the rainfall is less than 12 in. annually,
and even in some places less than 8 in., e.g. at the foot of Ararat.
Most rain falls at Batum and at Lenkoran in the autumn, in northern
Caucasia and in Transcaucasia in spring and summer, but in the vicinity
of the Sea of Azov in winter.
_Flora and Fauna._--Plant-life, in such a mountainous country as
Caucasia, being intimately dependent upon aspect and altitude, is
treated under CAUCASUS. The wild animals of Caucasia are for the most
part the same as those which frequent the mountainous parts of central
Europe, though there is also an irruption of Asiatic forms, e.g. the
tiger (in Lenkoran only), panther, hyaena and jackal. The more important
of the carnivores which haunt the forests, valleys and mountain slopes
are the bear (_Ursus arctos_), wolf, lynx, wild cat and fox (_Vulpes
melanotus_). The wild boar occurs around Borzhom. The aurochs (_Bos
urus_) appears to exist still in the forests of the western Caucasus. Of
interest for sportsmen, as well as serving as prey for the carnivores,
are red deer, goats (_Capra pallasit_ and _C. aegagrus_), chamois,
roebuck, moufflon (_Ovis musimon_), argali or Asiatic wild sheep (_O.
Amman_), another species of sheep in _O. gmelini_, and fallow deer
(_Capreolus pigargns_) in northern Caucasus only. Rodents are numerous,
the mouse (_Mus sylvaticus_) is very destructive, and beavers are met
with in places. The birds of prey are the same as these of central
Europe, and include the sea eagle, alpine vulture (_Gyps fulvus_),
buzzard, kites (_Gypaetus barbatus_ and _Milvus ater_), hawks (e.g.
_Astur nisus_), goshawk (_A. palumbarius_), fish-hawk (_Pandion
haliaetus_) and owls. Among the smaller birds may be enumerated finches,
the siskin, bullfinch, pipit, titmouse, wagtail, lark, fine-crested
wren, hedge-sparrow, corn-wren, nut-hatch, starling, swallow, martin,
swift, thrush, butcher bird, shrike, dipper, yellow-hammer, ortolan and
a warbler (_Accentor alpinus_). The game birds consist of grouse,
blackcock, moorhen, quail and partridge. The pheasant derives its name
from the ancient name (_Phasis_) of the Rion.
In the seas and rivers about 190 species of fishes have been enumerated.
Of these, 115 species are Mediterranean, 30 are common to the Caspian
Sea, and the remaining species are peculiar to the Black Sea. The most
useful economically are several species of sturgeon and of herring,
trout, barbel, chubb, bream, ray, sea-dace, carp, anchovy. Insects
abound, especially Coleoptera. Flies, lice, gadflies and mosquitoes are
the worst of the insect plagues. There are several snakes, including the
viper (_Pelias berus_).
_Ethnology_.--The population of Caucasia is increasing rapidly. In 1897
it numbered 9,291,090, of whom 4,886,230 were males and 4,404,867 were
females. The most densely-peopled provinces were Kutais and Tiflis, each
with 80 inhabitants to the square mile; the thinnest the Black Sea
government (20-1/2 per sq. m.), Terek (31), and Kars (39). Of the total
population 3,725,543 lived in northern Caucasia and 5,564,547 in
Transcaucasia (including Daghestan). In the latter territorial division
there exists a great disproportion between the sexes, namely, to every
100 males only 86 females; indeed in the Black Sea government there are
only 65.5 females to every 100 males. Ethnologically the population
belongs to a great variety of races. The older authorities asserted that
these numbered as many as 150, or even 300; the more recent researches
of Baron P.V. Uslar, F. Anton, von Schiefner, Zagursky, and others have
greatly reduced this number; but even then there are not less than fifty
represented.
According to the languages spoken the populations of Caucasia admit of
being classified as follows,[1] according to Senator N. Trointsky,
president of the Russian Census Committee for 1897.
ARYANS 4,901,412
_Slavs_ 3,183,870
Great Russians 1,829,793
Little Russians 1,305,463
White Russians 19,642
Poles 25,117
_Germans_ 47,391
_Greeks_ 100,299
_Rumanians_ 7,232
_French and Italians_ 1,435
_Lithuanians_ 6,687
Lithuanians proper 5,121
Letts 1,511
_Iranians_ 315,695
Persians 13,929
Talyshes 34,994
Tates 95,056
Ossetes 171,716
_Kurds_ 99,836
_Armenians_ 1,116,461
_Gypsies_ 3,041
SEMITES 46,739
_Jews_ 40,498
_Chaldaeans_ (Aisors) 5,353
URAL-ALTAIANS 1,902,142
_Finns_ 7,422
Esthonians 4,281
_Turko-Tatars_ 1,879,908
Tatars 1,509,785
Osmanli Turks 139,419
Nogai Tatars 64,048
Turkomans 24,522
Bashkirs 953
Chuvashes 411
Kirghiz 98
Sarts 158
Karachais 27,222
Kumyks 83,408
Kara-papaks 29,902
Kalmucks 14,409
CAUCASIANS 2,439,071
_Georgians_ (including Imeretians,
Gurians, Svanetians, Lazes,
Mingrelians, &c.) 1,352,455
_Circassians_
Cherkesses (Adigheh) and Kabardians 144,847
Abkhasians 72,103
_Chechens_ 274,318
Chechens proper 226,496
Ingushes[2] 47,409
Kistines 413
_Lesghians_ 600,514
Avaro-Andians 212,692
Darghis 130,209
Kurins 159,213
Udins 7,100
Others 91,300
_Religion_.--Most of the Russians and the Georgians belong to the
Orthodox Greek Church (over 4,000,000 in all); but considerable numbers
(estimated at nearly 122,000, though in reality probably a good many
more) are Nonconformists of different denominations. The Georgian Lazes
are, however, Mussulmans. The Armenians are Christians, mostly of the
national Gregorian Church (979,566), though 34,000 are Roman Catholics.
The Caucasian races (except the Gregorians), together with the Turks and
Tatars, are Mussulmans of the Sunnite sect (2,021,300), and the Iranian
races mostly Mussulmans of the Shiite sect (884,100). The Kalmucks and
other Mongolic tribes are Lamaists (20,300), and some of the Kurds
profess the peculiar tenets of the Yezids.
_Industries_.--The principal occupation of the settled inhabitants is
agriculture and of the nomadic the breeding of live stock, including
camels. The cultivation of the soil is, however, attended in many parts
with great difficulties owing to the scanty rainfall and the very
primitive implements still in use, and in the valley of the Kura heavy
losses are frequently incurred from depredations by locusts. But where
irrigation is employed the yield of crops is excellent. Rye and wheat
are the most important crops harvested in northern Caucasia, but oats,
barley and maize are also cultivated, whereas in Transcaucasia the
principal crops are maize, rice, tobacco and cotton. The rice is grown
chiefly in the valley of the Kura and in Lenkoran; the tobacco in the
Rion valley and on the Black Sea coastlands, also to some extent in
Kuban; and the cotton in the eastern provinces. Various kinds of fodder
crops are grown in Transcaucasia, such as hay, rye-grass and lucerne. It
is estimated that nearly 54,000 acres are under vineyards in northern
Caucasia and some 278,000 acres in Transcaucasia, the aggregate yield of
wine being 30 million gallons annually. The best wine grows in Kakhetia,
a district lying north-east and east of Tiflis; this district alone
yields nearly 8 million gallons annually. Large numbers of mulberry
trees are planted for rearing silkworms, especially in Kutais, Erivan,
Elisavetpol (Nukha) and Baku (Shemakha); the groves occupy nearly
150,000 acres, and the winding of the silk gives employment to large
numbers of the population. Melons and water-melons are also important
objects of cultivation. Sunflowers are very extensively grown for oil in
the government of Kuban and elsewhere, and also some flax. Liquorice is
an article of export. Many varieties of fruit are grown, especially good
being the apricots, peaches, walnuts and hazel nuts. A limited area (not
more than 1150 acres) of the Black Sea coast between Sukhum-kaleh and
Batum is planted with the tea-shrub, which succeeds very well. In the
same district bamboos, ramie-fibre and attar (otto) of roses are
cultivated.
The _mining_ industry is growing rapidly in importance in spite of
costly and deficient means of communication, want of capital, and lack
of general initiative. So far the principal developments of the industry
have been in the governments of Kutais, Batum, Elisavetpol and Kuban.
Copper ore is extracted above the Murgul river (some 30 m. south of
Batum), at Akhtala south of Tiflis, and at Kedabek in Elisavetpol;
manganese to a considerably greater extent (over 400,000 tons annually)
at Chiaturi in the Kvirila valley in Kutais. Steam coal of good quality
is reported to exist about 30 m. inland from the open roadstead of
Ochemchiri in Kutais, but it is not mined. About 50,000 tons of coal of
very poor quality are, however, extracted annually, and the same
quantity of salt in the Armenian highlands and in Kuban. Small
quantities of quicksilver, sulphur and iron are obtained. But all these
are insignificant in comparison with the mineral oil industry of Baku,
which in normal times yields annually between ten and eleven million
tons of crude oil (naphtha). A good deal of this is transported by
gravitation from Baku to Batum on the Black Sea by means of a pipe laid
overland. The refined oil is exported as kerosene or petroleum, the
heavier refuse (_mazut_) is used as fuel. Naphtha is also obtained,
though in much smaller quantities, in Terek and Kuban, in Tiflis and
Daghestan. Numerous mineral springs (chalybeate and sulphurous) exist
both north and south of the Caucasus ranges, e.g. at Pyatigorsk,
Zhelesnovodsk, Essentuki, and Kislovodsk in Terek, and at Tiflis,
Abbas-tuman and Borzhom in the government of Tiflis.
_Manufacturing_ industry is confined to a few articles and commodities,
such as cement, tea, tin cans (for oil), cotton goods, oil refineries,
tobacco factories, flour-mills, silk-winding mills (especially at Shusha
and Jebrail in the south of Elisavetpol), distilleries and breweries. On
the other hand, the domestic industries are extensively carried on and
exhibit a high degree of technical skill and artistic taste. Carpets
(especially at Shusha), silk, cotton and woollen goods, felts and fur
cloaks are made, and small arms in Daghestan and at Tiflis, Nukha and
Sukhum-kaleh; silversmiths' work at Tiflis, Akhaltsikh and Kutais;
pottery at Elisavetpol and Shusha; leather shoe-making at Alexandropol,
Nukha, Elisavetpol, Shusha and Tiflis; saddlery at Sukhum-kaleh and
Ochemchiri on the Black Sea and at Temirkhan-shura in Daghestan; and
copper work at Derbent and Alexandropol. But industries of every
description were most seriously crippled by the spirit of turbulence and
disorder which manifested itself throughout Transcaucasia in the years
1904-1906, accentuated as they were further by the outbreak of the
long-rooted racial enmities between the Armenians and the Tatars,
especially at Baku in 1905.
_Commerce_.--The exports through the Black Sea ports of Batum, Poti and
Novo-rossiysk average in value a little over L10,000,000 annually,
though showing a tendency to increase slightly. By far the most
important commodity is petroleum, fully one-half of the total value. In
addition large quantities are shipped at Baku direct for the Volga and
the Transcaspian port of Krasnovodsk. The export that comes next in
value is silk, and after it may be named wheat, barley, manganese ore,
maize, wool, oilcake, carpets, rye, oats, liquorice and timber. The
import trade reaches nothing like the same value, and what there is is
confined almost entirely to Batum. The annual average vahie may be put
at not quite L2,000,000, machinery and tin-plate being a long way the
most important items. There is further a small transit trade through
Transcaucasia from Persia to the value of less than half a million
sterling annually, and chiefly in carpets, cocoons and silk, wool, rice
and boxwood; and further a sea-borne trade between Persia and Caucasian
ports (Baku and Petrovsk) to the value of over 1-1/2 millions sterling
in all. The very extensive internal trade with Russia can only be
mentioned.
_Railways_.--The principal approach to Caucasia from Russia by rail is
the line that runs from Rostov-on-Don to Vladikavkaz at the foot of the
central Caucasus range. Thence, or rather from the junction of Beslan,
14 m. north of Vladikavkaz, the main line proceeds east of Petrovsk on
the Caspian, and from Petrovsk skirts the shore southwards as far as
Baku, the distance from Vladikavkaz to Baku being 414 m. This railway,
together with the driving roads over the Caucasus mountains via the
Mamison pass (the Ossetic military road) and the Darial pass (the
Georgian military road), and the route across the Black Sea to Poti or
Batum are the chief means of communication between southern Russia and
Transcaucasia. Baku and Batum (also Poti) are connected by another main
line, 560 m. long, which traverses the valleys of the Kura and the Rion,
south of the Caucasus. From Tiflis, nearly midway on this last line, a
railway proceeds south as far as Erivan (234 m.), with a branch to Kars
(48 m.). The Erivan line is being continued into Persia, namely, to
Tabriz via Julfa on the Aras.
_History_.--To the ancient Greeks Caucasia, and the mighty range which
dominates it, were a region of mystery and romance. It was there that
they placed the scene of the sufferings of Prometheus (_vide_ Aeschylus,
_Prometheus Vinctus_), and there, in the land of Colchis, which
corresponds to the valley of the Rion, that they sent the Argonauts to
fetch the golden fleece. Outside the domain of myth, the earliest
connexion of the Greeks with that part of the world would appear to have
been through the maritime colonies, such as Dioscurias, which the
Milesians founded on the Black Sea coast in the 7th century B.C. For
more than two thousand years the most powerful state in Caucasia was
that of Georgia (q.v.), the authentic history of which begins with its
submission to Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. The southern portion of
Transcaucasia fell during the 1st century B.C. under the sway of
Armenia, and with that country passed under the dominion of Rome, and so
eventually of the Eastern empire. During the 3rd century A.D. Georgia
and Armenia were invaded and in great part occupied by the Khazars, and
then for more than a thousand years the mountain fastnesses of this
borderland between Europe and Asia were the refuge, or the
resting-place, of successive waves of migration, as people after people
and tribe after tribe was compelled to give way to the pressure of
stronger races harassing them in the rear. The Huns, for instance, and
the Avars appeared in the 6th century, and the Mongols in the 13th. In
the 10th century bands of Varangians or Russified Scandinavians sailed
out of the Volga and coasted along the Caspian until they had doubled
the Apsheron peninsula, when they landed and captured Barda, the chief
town of Caucasian Albania.
But, apart from Georgia, historical interest in Caucasia centres in the
long and persistent attempts which the Russians made to conquer it, and
the heroic, though unavailing, resistance offered by the mountain races,
more especially the Circassian and Lesghian tribes. Russian aggression
began somewhat early in the 18th century, when Peter the Great,
establishing his base at Astrakhan on the Volga, and using the Caspian
for bringing up supplies and munitions of war, captured Derbent from the
Persians in 1722, and Baku in the following year. But these conquests,
with others made at the expense of Persia, were restored to the latter
power after Peter's death, a dozen years later. At that period the
Georgians were divided into various petty principalities, the chief of
which were Imeretia and Georgia (Kharthlia), owing at times a more or
less shadowy allegiance to the sultan of the Ottoman Turks at
Constantinople. In 1770, during the course of a war between Russia and
Turkey, the Russians crossed over the Caucasus and assisted the
Imeretians to resist the Turks, and from the time of the ensuing peace
of Kuchuk-kainarji the Georgian principalities looked to their powerful
northern neighbour as their protector against the southern aggressors
the Turks. In 1783 George XIII., prince of Georgia and Mingrelia,
formally put himself under the suzerainty of Russia, and after his death
Georgia was converted (1801) into a Russian province. The same fate
overtook Imeretia, nine years later. Meanwhile the Russians had also
subdued the Ossetes (1802) and the Lesghian tribes (1803) of the middle
Caucasus. By the peace of Gulistan in 1813 Persia ceded to Russia
several districts in eastern Caucasia, from Lenkoran northwards to
Derbent. Nevertheless the mountain tribes who inhabited the higher parts
of the Caucasus were still independent, and their subjugation cost
Russia a sustained effort of thirty years, during the course of which
her military commanders were more than once brought almost to the point
of despair by the tenacity, the devotion and the adroitness and daring
which the mountaineers displayed in a harassing guerilla warfare. The
animating spirit of their resistance was Shamyl (Samuel), a chief and
priest of the Lesghians, who, a Mahommedan, proclaimed a "holy war"
against the "infidel" aggressors. At first the Russians were able to
continue their policy of conquest and annexation without serious check.
After acquiring the northern edge of the Armenian plateau, partly from
Persia in 1828 and partly from Turkey in 1829, Russia crushed a rising
which had broken out in the Caspian coast districts of Daghestan on the
north of the Caucasus. This took place during the years 1831-1832. The
next seven years were occupied with the subjugation of the Abkhasians
along the Black Sea coast, and of other Circassian tribes in the west.
Meanwhile Shamyl had roused the Lesghian tribes farther east and begun
his twenty years' struggle for freedom, a struggle which called forth
the sympathy and admiration of nearly the whole of Europe. More than
once he escaped, in a manner that seemed little short of marvellous, out
of the hands of the Russians when they held him closely invested in some
mountain fastness, as at Himry in 1831, at Akhulgo in 1839, and again at
the same stronghold in 1849. The general who at last broke the back of
the long opposition of the prophet-chief of the Lesghians was Prince
Baryatinsky, who after three years of strenuous warfare succeeded in
capturing Shamyl's stronghold of Weden, and then in surrounding that
chieftain himself on the inaccessible rocky platform of Gunib in the
heart of Daghestan. There the hitherto indomitable champion of Caucasian
independence was forced to surrender to the Russians on the 6th of
September 1859. Nevertheless the spirit of resistance in these stubborn
mountaineers was not finally broken until 1864, when the Russians
eventually stifled all opposition in the difficult valleys and glens of
the western Caucasus. But this was followed, during the next fourteen
years, by the wholesale emigration of thousands upon thousands of
Circassians, who sought an asylum in Turkish territory, leaving their
native region almost uninhabited and desolate, a condition from which it
has not recovered even at the present day. During the Russo-Turkish War
of 1877-78 the self-exiled Circassians and other Caucasian mountaineers,
supported by a force of 14,000 Turks, made a determined attempt to wrest
their native glens from the power of Russia; but, after suffering a
severe defeat at the hands of General Alkhazov, the Turks withdrew, and
were accompanied by some 30,000 Abkhasians, who settled in Asia Minor. A
few months later the Lesghians in Daghestan, who had risen in revolt,
were defeated and their country once more reduced to obedience. By the
ensuing peace of Adrianople, Russia still further enlarged her
Transcaucasian territories by the acquisition of the districts of Kars,
Batum and Ardahan. After a peaceful period of a quarter of a century the
Armenian subjects of Russia in Transcaucasia were filled with bitterness
and discontent by the confiscation of the properties of their national
(Gregorian) church by the Russian treasury. Nor were their feelings more
than half allayed by the arrangement which made their ecclesiastics
salaried officers of the Russian state. This ferment of unrest, which
was provoked in the years 1903-1904, was exacerbated in the winters that
followed by the renewed outbreak of the century-long racial feud between
the Tatars and the Armenians at Baku and other places. In fact, nearly
the whole of the region between the Caucasus and the Perso-Turkish
frontier on the south, from the Caspian Sea on the one side to the Black
Sea on the other, was embroiled in a civil war of the most sanguinary
and ruthless character, the inveterate racial animosities of the
combatants being in both cases inflamed by religious fanaticism.
Complete anarchy prevailed at the worst centres of disorder, as Baku and
Batum, the imperial authorities being more powerless to preserve even
the semblance of order than they were in the interior of Russia. Many of
the oil wells at Baku were burned, and massacres took place at that
town, at Shusha, at Erivan, at Tiflis, at Batum, at Jebrail and at other
places. An end was put to these disorders only by the mutual agreement
of the two contestants, alike horrified and exhausted by the fierce
outburst of passion, in September 1905. (J. T. Be.)