Though from this time forward Basel became the centre of occupation and

interest for Erasmus, yet for the next few years he was mainly in the

Netherlands. On the completion of the New Testament in 1516 he returned

to his friends in England; but his appointment, then recent, as

councillor to the young king Charles, brought him back to Brussels in

the autumn. In the spring of 1517 he went for the last time to England,

about a dispensation from wearing his canonical dress, obtained

originally from Julius II. and recently confirmed by Leo X., and in May

1518 he journeyed to Basel for three months to set the second edition of

the New Testament in progress. But with these exceptions he remained in

proximity to the court, living much at Louvain, where he took great

interest in the foundation of Hieronymus Busleiden's Collegium

Trilingue. His circumstances had improved so much, by pensions, the

presents which were showered upon him, and the sale of his books, that

he was now in a position to refuse all proposals which would have

interfered with his cherished independence. The general ardour for the

restoration of the arts and of learning created an aristocratic public,

of which Erasmus was supreme pontiff. Luther spoke to the people and the

ignorant; Erasmus had the ear of the educated class. His friends and

admirers were distributed over all the countries of Europe, and presents

were continually arriving from small as well as great, from a donation

of 200 florins, made by Pope Clement VII., down to sweetmeats and

comfits contributed by the nuns of Cologne (_Ep._ 666). From England, in

particular, he continued to receive supplies of money. In the last year

of his life Thomas Cromwell sent him 20 angels, and Archbishop Cranmer

18. Though Erasmus led a very hard-working and far from luxurious life,

and had no extravagant habits, yet he could not live upon little. The

excessive delicacy of his constitution, not pampered appetite, exacted

some unusual indulgences. He could not bear the stoves of Germany, and

required an open fireplace in the room in which he worked. He was

afflicted with the stone, and obliged to be particular as to what he

drank. Beer he could not touch. The white wines of Baden or the Rhine

did not suit him; he could only drink those of Burgundy or

Franche-Comte. He could neither eat, nor bear the smell of, fish. "His

heart," he said, "was Catholic, but his stomach was Lutheran." For his

constant journeys he required two horses, one for himself and one for

his attendant. And though he was almost always found in horse-flesh by

his friends, the keep had to be paid for. For his literary labours and

his extensive correspondence he required one or more amanuenses. He

often had occasion, on his own business, or on that of Froben's press,

to send special couriers to a distance, employing them by the way in

collecting the free gifts of his tributaries.

Precarious as these means of subsistence seem, he preferred the

independence thus obtained to an assured position which would have

involved obligations to a patron or professional duties which his weak

health would have made onerous. The duke of Bavaria offered to dispense

with teaching, if he would only reside, and would have named him on

these terms to a chair in his new university of Ingolstadt, with a

salary of 200 ducats, and the reversion of one or more prebendal stalls.

The archduke Ferdinand offered a pension of 400 florins, if he would

only come to reside at Vienna. Adrian VI. offered him a deanery, but the

offer seems to have been of a possible and not an actual deanery.

Offers, flattering but equally vague, were made from France, on the part

of the bishop of Bayeux, and even of Francis I. "Invitor amplissimis

conditionibus; offeruntur dignitates et episcopatus; plane rex essem, si

juvenis essem" (_Ep._ xix. 106; 735). Erasmus declined all, and in

November 1521 settled permanently at Basel, in the capacity of general

editor and literary adviser of Froben's press. As a subject of the

emperor, and attached to his court by a pension, it would have been

convenient to him to have fixed his residence in Louvain. But the

bigotry of the Flemish clergy, and the monkish atmosphere of the

university of Louvain, overrun with Dominicans and Franciscans, united

for once in their enmity to the new classical learning, inclined Erasmus

to seek a more congenial home in Basel. To Froben his arrival was the

advent of the very man whom he had long wanted. Froben's enterprise,

united with Erasmus's editorial skill, raised the press of Basel, for a

time, to be the most important in Europe. The death of Froben in 1527,

the final separation of Basel from the Empire, the wreck of learning in

the religious disputes, and the cheap paper and scamped work of the

Frankfort presses, gradually withdrew the trade from Basel. But during

the years of Erasmus's co-operation the Froben press took the lead of

all the presses in Europe, both in the standard value of the works

published and in style of typographical execution. Like some other

publishers who preferred reputation to returns in money, Froben died

poor, and his impressions never reached the splendour afterwards

attained by those of the Estiennes, or of Plantin. The series of the

Fathers alone contains Jerome (1516), Cyprian (1520), Pseudo-Arnobius

(1522), Hilarius (1523), Irenaeus (Latin, 1526), Ambrose (1527),

Augustine (1528), Chrysostom (Latin, 1530), Basil (Greek, 1532, the

first Greek author printed in Germany), and Origen (Latin, 1536). In

these editions, partly texts, partly translations, it is impossible to

determine the respective shares of Erasmus and his many helpers. The

prefaces and dedications are all written by him, and some of them, as

that to the Hilarius, are of importance for the history as well of the

times as of Erasmus himself. Of his most important edition, that of the

Greek text of the New Testament, something will be said farther on.

In this "mill," as he calls it, Erasmus continued to grind incessantly

for eight years. Besides his work as editor, he was always writing

himself some book or pamphlet called for by the event of the day, some

general fray in which he was compelled to mingle, or some personal

assault which it was necessary to repel. But though painfully conscious

how much his reputation as a writer was damaged by this extempore

production, he was unable to resist the fatal facility of print. He was

the object of those solicitations which always beset the author whose

name upon the title page assures the sale of a book. He was besieged for

dedications, and as every dedication meant a present proportioned to the

circumstances of the dedicatee, there was a natural temptation to be

lavish of them. Add to this a correspondence so extensive as to require

him at times to write forty letters in one day. "I receive daily," he

writes, "letters from remote parts, from kings, princes, prelates and

men of learning, and even from persons of whose existence I was

ignorant." His day was thus one of incessant mental activity; but hard

work was so far from breeding a distaste for his occupation, that

reading and writing grew ever more delightful to him (_literarum

assiduitas non modo mihi fastidium non parit, sed voluptatem; crescit

scribendo scribendi studium_).

Shortly after Froben's death the disturbances at Basel, occasioned by

the zealots for the religious revolution which was in progress

throughout Switzerland, began to make Erasmus desirous of changing his

residence. He selected Freiburg in the Breisgau, as a city which was

still in the dominion of the emperor, and was free from religious

dissension. Thither he removed in April 1529. He was received with

public marks of respect by the authorities, who granted him the use of

an unfinished residence which had been begun to be built for the late

emperor Maximilian. Erasmus proposed only to remain at Freiburg for a

few months, but found the place so suited to his habits that he bought a

house of his own, and remained there six years. A desire for change of

air--he fancied Freiburg was damp--rumours of a new war with France, and

the necessity of seeing his _Ecclesiastes_ through the press, took him

back to Basel in 1535. He lived now a very retired life, and saw only a

small circle of intimate friends. A last attempt was made by the papal

court to enlist him in some public way against the Reformation. On the

election of Paul III. in 1534, he had, as usual, sent the new pope a

congratulatory letter. After his arrival in Basel, he received a

complimentary answer, together with the nomination to the deanery of

Deventer, the income of which was reckoned at 600 ducats. This

nomination was accompanied with an intimation that more was in store for

him, and that steps would be taken to provide for him the income, viz.,

3000 ducats, which was necessary to qualify for the cardinal's hat. But

Erasmus was even less disposed now than he had been before to barter his

reputation for honours. His health had been for some years gradually

declining, and disease in the shape of gout gaining upon him. In the

winter of 1535-1536 he was confined entirely to his chamber, many days

to his bed. Though thus afflicted he never ceased his literary activity,

dictating his tract _On the Purity of the Church_, and revising the

sheets of a translation of Origen which was passing through the Froben

press. His last letter is dated the 28th of June 1536, and subscribed

"Eras. Rot. aegra manu." "I have never been so ill in my life before as

I am now,--for many days unable even to read." Dysentery setting in

carried him off on the 12th of July 1536, in his 70th year.

By his will, made on the 12th of February 1536, he left what he had to

leave, with the exception of some legacies, to Bonifazius Amerbach,

partly for himself, partly in trust for the benefit of the aged and the

infirm, or to be spent in portioning young girls, and in educating young

men of promise. He left none of the usual legacies for masses or other

clerical purposes, and was not attended by any priest or confessor in

his last moments.

Erasmus's features are familiar to all, from Holbein's many portraits or

their copies. Beatus Rhenanus, "summus Erasmi observator," as he is

called by de Thou, describes his person thus: "In stature not tall, but

not noticeably short; in figure well built and graceful; of an extremely

delicate constitution, sensitive to the slightest changes of climate,

food or drink. After middle life he suffered from the stone, not to

mention the common plague of studious men, an irritable mucous membrane.

His complexion was fair; light blue eyes, and yellowish hair. Though his

voice was weak, his enunciation was distinct; the expression of his face

cheerful; his manner and conversation polished, affable, even charming."

His highly nervous organization made his feelings acute, and his brain

incessantly active. Through his ready sympathy with all forms of life

and character, his attention was always alive. The active movement of

his spirit spent itself, not in following out its own trains of thought,

but in outward observation. No man was ever less introspective, and

though he talks much of himself, his egotism is the genial egotism which

takes the world into its confidence, not the selfish egotism which feels

no interest but in its own woes. He says of himself, and justly, "that

he was incapable of dissimulation" (_Ep._ xxvi. 19; 1152). There is

nothing behind, no pose, no scenic effect. It may be said of his letters

that in them "tota patet vita senis." His nature was flexible without

being faultily weak. He has many moods and each mood imprints itself in

turn on his words. Hence, on a superficial view, Erasmus is set down as

the most inconsistent of men. Further acquaintance makes us feel a unity

of character underlying this susceptibility to the impressions of the

moment. His seeming inconsistencies are reconciled to apprehension, not

by a formula of the intellect, but by the many-sidedness of a highly

impressible nature. In the words of J. Nisard, Erasmus was one of those

"dont la gloire a ete de beaucoup comprendre et d'affirmer peu."

This equal openness to every vibration of his environment is the key to

all Erasmus's acts and words, and among them to the middle attitude

which he took up towards the great religious conflict of his time. The

reproaches of party assailed him in his lifetime, and have continued to

be heaped upon his memory. He was loudly accused by the Catholics of

collusion with the enemies of the faith. His powerful friends, the pope,

Wolsey, Henry VIII., the emperor, called upon him to declare against

Luther. Theological historians from that time forward have perpetuated

the indictment that Erasmus sided with neither party in the struggle for

religious truth. The most moderate form of the censure presents him in

the odious light of a trimmer; the vulgar and venomous assailant is sure

that Erasmus was a Protestant at heart, but withheld the avowal that he

might not forfeit the worldly advantages he enjoyed as a Catholic. When

by study of his writings we come to know Erasmus intimately, there is

revealed to us one of those natures to which partisanship is an

impossibility. It was not timidity or weakness which kept Erasmus

neutral, but the reasonableness of his nature. It was not only that his

intellect revolted against the narrowness of party, his whole being

repudiated its clamorous and vulgar excesses. As he loathed fish, so he

loathed clerical fanaticism. Himself a Catholic priest--"the glory of

the priesthood and the shame"--the tone of the orthodox clergy was

distasteful to him; the ignorant hostility to classical learning which

reigned in their colleges and convents disgusted him. In common with all

the learned men of his age, he wished to see the power of the clergy

broken, as that of an obscurantist army arrayed against light. He had

employed all his resources of wit and satire against the priests and

monks, and the superstitions in which they traded, long before Luther's

name was heard of. The motto which was already current in his lifetime,

"that Erasmus laid the egg and Luther hatched it," is so far true, and

no more. Erasmus would have suppressed the monasteries, put an end to

the domination of the clergy, and swept away scandalous and profitable

abuses, but to attack the church or re-mould received theology was far

from his thoughts. And when out of Luther's revolt there arose a new

fanaticism--that of evangelism, Erasmus recoiled from the violence of

the new preachers. "Is it for this," he writes to Melanchthon (_Ep._

xix. 113; 703), "that we have shaken off bishops and popes, that we may

come under the yoke of such madmen as Otto and Farel?" Passages have

been collected, and it is an easy task, from the writings of Erasmus to

prove that he shared the doctrines of the Reformers. Passages equally

strong might be culled to show that he repudiated them. The truth is

that theological questions in themselves had no attraction for him. And

when a theological position was emphasized by party passion it became

odious to him. In the words of Drummond: "Erasmus was in his own age the

apostle of common sense and of rational religion. He did not care for

dogma, and accordingly the dogmas of Rome, which had the consent of the

Christian world, were in his eyes preferable to the dogmas of

Protestantism.... From the beginning to the end of his career he

remained true to the purpose of his life, which was to fight the battle

of sound learning and plain common sense against the powers of ignorance

and superstition, and amid all the convulsions of that period he never

once lost his mental balance."

Erasmus is accused of indifference. But he was far from indifferent to

the progress of the revolution. He was keenly alive to its pernicious

influence on the cherished interest of his life, the cause of learning.

"I abhor the evangelics, because it is through them that literature is

everywhere declining, and upon the point of perishing." He had been born

with the hopes of the Renaissance, with its anticipation of a new

Augustan age, and had seen this fair promise blighted by the irruption

of a new horde of theological polemics, worse than the old scholastics,

inasmuch as they were revolutionary instead of conservative. Erasmus

never flouted at religion nor even at theology as such, but only at

blind and intemperate theologians.

In the mind of Erasmus there was no metaphysical inclination; he was a

man of letters, with a general tendency to rational views on every

subject which came under his pen. His was not the mind to originate,

like Calvin, a new scheme of Christian thought. He is at his weakest in

defending free will against Luther, and indeed he can hardly be said to

enter on the metaphysical question. He treats the dispute entirely from

the outside. It is impossible in reading Erasmus not to be reminded of

the rationalist of the 18th century. Erasmus has been called the

"Voltaire of the Renaissance." But there is a vast difference in the

relations in which they respectively stood to the church and to

Christianity. Voltaire, though he did not originate, yet adopted a moral

and religious scheme which he sought to substitute for the church

tradition. He waged war, not only against the clergy, but against the

church and its sovereigns. Erasmus drew the line at the first of these.

He was not an anticipation of the 18th century; he was the man of his

age, as Voltaire of his; though Erasmus did not intend it, he

undoubtedly shook the ecclesiastical edifice in all its parts; and, as

Melchior Adam says of him, "pontifici Romano plus nocuit jocando quam

Lutherus stomachando."

But if Erasmus was unlike the 18th century rationalist in that he did

not declare war against the church, but remained a Catholic and mourned

the disruption, he was yet a true rationalist in principle. The

principle that reason is the one only guide of life, the supreme arbiter

of all questions, politics and religion included, has its earliest and

most complete exemplar in Erasmus. He does not dogmatically denounce the

rights of reason, but he practically exercises them. Along with the

charm of style, the great attraction of the writings of Erasmus is this

unconscious freedom by which they are pervaded.

It must excite our surprise that one who used his pen so freely should

have escaped the pains and penalties which invariably overtook minor

offenders in the same kind. For it was not only against the clergy and

the monks that he kept up a ceaseless stream of satiric raillery; he

treated nobles, princes and kings with equal freedom. No 18th century

republican has used stronger language than has this pensioner of Charles

V. "The people build cities, princes pull them down; the industry of

the citizens creates wealth for rapacious lords to plunder; plebeian

magistrates pass good laws for kings to violate; the people love peace,

and their rulers stir up war." Such outbursts are frequent in the

_Adagia_. These freedoms are part cause of Erasmus's popularity. He was

here in sympathy with the secret sore of his age, and gave utterance to

what all felt but none dared to whisper but he. It marks the difference

between 1513 and 1669 that, in a reprint of the _Julius Exclusus_

published in 1669 at Oxford, it was thought necessary to leave out a

sentence in which the writer of that dialogue, supposed by the editor to

be Erasmus, asserts the right of states to deprive and punish bad kings.

It is difficult to say to what we are to ascribe his immunity from

painful consequences. We have to remember that he was removed from the

scene early in the reaction, before force was fully organized for the

suppression of the revolution. And his popular works, the _Adagia_, and

the _Colloquia_ (1524), had established themselves as standard books in

the more easy going age, when power, secure in its unchallenged

strength, could afford to laugh with the laughers at itself. At the date

of his death the Catholic revival, with its fell antipathy to art and

letters, was only in its infancy; and when times became dangerous,

Erasmus cautiously declined to venture out of the protection of the

Empire, refusing repeated invitations to Italy and to France. "I had

thought of going to Besancon," he said, "ne non essem in ditione

Caesaris" (_Ep._ xxx. 74; 1299). In Italy a Bembo and a Sadoleto wrote a

purer Latin than Erasmus, but contented themselves with pretty phrases,

and were careful to touch no living chord of feeling. In France it was

necessary for a Rabelais to hide his free-thinking under a disguise of

revolting and unintelligible jargon. It was only in the Empire that such

liberty of speech as Erasmus used was practicable, and in the Empire

Erasmus passed for a moderate man. Upon the strength of an established

character for moderation he enjoyed an exceptional licence for the

utterance of unwelcome truths; and in spite of his flings at the rich

and powerful, he remained through life a privileged person with them.

But though the men of the keys and the sword let him go his way

unmolested, it was otherwise with his brethren of the pen. A man who is

always launching opinions must expect to be retorted on. And when these

judgments were winged by epigram, and weighted by the name of Erasmus,

who stood at the head of letters, a widespread exasperation was the

consequence. Disraeli has not noticed Erasmus in his _Quarrels of

Authors_, perhaps because Erasmus's quarrels would require a volume to

themselves. "So thin-skinned that a fly would draw blood," as the prince

of Carpi expressed it, he could not himself restrain his pen from

sarcasm. He forgot that though it is safe to lash the dunces, he could

not with equal impunity sneer at those who, though they might not have

the ear of the public as he had, could yet contradict and call names.

And when literary jealousy was complicated with theological differences,

as in the case of the free-thinkers, or with French vanity, as in that

of Budaeus, the cause of the enemy was espoused by a party and a nation.

The quarrel with Budaeus was strictly a national one. Cosmopolitan as

Erasmus was, to the French literati he was still the Teuton. Etienne

Dolet calls him "enemy of Cicero, and jealous detractor of the French

name." The only contemporary name which could approach to a rivalry with

his was that of Budaeus (Bude), who was exactly contemporary, having

been born in the same year as Erasmus. Rivals in fame, they were unlike

in accomplishment, each having the quality which the other wanted.

Budaeus, though a Frenchman, knew Greek well; Erasmus, though a

Dutchman, very imperfectly. But the Frenchman Budaeus wrote an execrable

Latin style, unreadable then as now, while the Teuton Erasmus charmed

the reading world with a style which, though far from good Latin, is the

most delightful which the Renaissance has left us.

The style of Erasmus is, considered as Latin, incorrect, sometimes even

barbarous, and far removed from any classical model. But it has

qualities far above purity. The best Italian Latin is but an echo and an

imitation; like the painted glass which we put in our churches, it is

an anachronism. Bembo, Sadoleto and the rest write purely in a dead

language. Erasmus's Latin was a living and spoken tongue. Though Erasmus

had passed nearly all his life in England, France and Germany, his

conversation was Latin; and the language in which he talked about common

things he wrote. Hence the spontaneity and naturalness of his page, its

flavour of life and not of books. He writes from himself, and not out of

Cicero. Hence, too, he spoiled nothing by anxious revision in terror

lest some phrase not of the golden age should escape from his pen. He

confesses apologetically to Christopher Longolius (_Ep._ iii. 63; 402)

that it was his habit to extemporize all he wrote, and that this habit

was incorrigible; "effundo verius quam scribo omnia." He complains that

much reading of the works of St Jerome had spoiled his Latin; but, as

Scaliger says (_Scalig^a 2^a_), "Erasmus's language is better than St

Jerome's." The same critic, however, thought Erasmus would have done

better "if he had kept more closely to the classical models."

In the annals of classical learning Erasmus may be regarded as

constituting an intermediate stage between the humanists of the Latin

Renaissance and the learned men of the age of Greek scholarship, between

Angelo Poliziano and Joseph Scaliger. Erasmus, though justly styled by

Muretus (_Varr. Lectt._ 7, 15) "eruditus sane vir, ac multae lectionis,"

was not a "learned" man in the special sense of the word--not an

"erudit." He was more than this; he was the "man of letters"--the first

who had appeared in Europe since the fall of the Roman empire. His

acquirements were vast, and they were all brought to bear upon the life

of his day. He did not make a study apart of antiquity for its own sake,

but used it as an instrument of culture. He did not worship, imitate and

reproduce the classics, like the Latin humanists who preceded him; he

did not master them and reduce them to a special science, as did the

French Hellenists who succeeded him. He edited many authors, it is true,

but he had neither the means of forming a text, nor did he attempt to do

so. In editing a father, or a classic, he had in view the practical

utility of the general reader, not the accuracy required by the gild of

scholars. "His Jerome," says J. Scaliger, "is full of sad blunders"

(_Scalig^a 2^a_). Even Julien Garnier could discover that Erasmus "falls

in his haste into grievous error in his Latin version of St Basil,

though his Latinity is superior to that of the other translators" (Pref.

in _Opp. St. Bas._, 1721). It must be remembered that the commercial

interests of Froben's press led to the introduction of Erasmus's name on

many a title page when he had little to do with the book, e.g. the Latin

_Josephus_ of 1524 to which Erasmus only contributed one translation of

14 pages; or the _Aristotle_ of 1531, of which Simon Grynaeus was the

real editor. Where Erasmus excelled was in prefaces--not philological

introductions to each author, but spirited appeals to the interest of

the general reader, showing how an ancient book might be made to

minister to modern spiritual demands.

Of Erasmus's works the Greek Testament is the most memorable. It has no

title to be considered as a work of learning or scholarship, yet its

influence upon opinion was profound and durable. It contributed more to

the liberation of the human mind from the thraldom of the clergy than

all the uproar and rage of Luther's many pamphlets. As an edition of the

Greek Testament it has no critical value. But it was the first, and it

revealed the fact that the Vulgate, the Bible of the church, was not

only a second-hand document, but in places an erroneous document. A

shock was thus given to the credit of the clergy in the province of

literature, equal to that which was given in the province of science by

the astronomical discoveries of the 17th century. Even if Erasmus had

had at his disposal the MSS. subsidia for forming a text, he had not the

critical skill required to use them. He had at hand a few late Basel

MSS., one of which he sent straight to press, correcting them in places

by collations of others which had been sent to him by Colet in England.

In four reprints, 1519, 1522, 1527, 1535, Erasmus gradually weeded out

many of the typographical errors of his first edition, but the text

remained essentially such as he had first printed it. The Greek text

indeed was only a part of his scheme. An important feature of the

volume was the new Latin version, the original being placed alongside as

a guarantee of the translator's good faith. This translation, with the

justificatory notes which accompanied it, though not itself a work of

critical scholarship, became the starting-point of modern exegetical

science. Erasmus did nothing to solve the problem, but to him belongs

the honour of having first propounded it.

Besides translating and editing the New Testament, Erasmus paraphrased

the whole, except the Apocalypse, between 1517 and 1524. The paraphrases

were received with great applause, even by those who had little

appreciation for Erasmus. In England a translation of them made in 1548

was ordered to be placed in all parish churches beside the Bible. His

correspondence is perhaps the part of his works which has the most

permanent value; it comprises about 3000 letters, which form an

important source for the history of that period. For the same purpose

his _Colloquia_ may be consulted. They are a series of dialogues,

written first for pupils in the early Paris days as formulae of polite

address, but afterwards expanded into lively conversations, in which

many of the topics of the day are discussed. Later in the century they

were read in schools, and some of Shakespeare's lines are direct

reminiscences of Erasmus.

His complete works have been printed twice; by the Froben firm under

the direction of his literary executors (9 vols., Basel, 1540); and by

Leclerc at Leiden (11 vols., 1703-1706). For his life the chief

contemporary sources are a _Compendium vitae_ written by himself in

1524, and a sketch prefixed by Beatus Rhenanus to the Basel edition of

1540. Of his writings he gives an account in his _Catalogus

lucubrationum_, composed first in January 1523 and enlarged in

September 1524; and also in a letter to Hector Boece of Aberdeen,

written in 1530. An elaborate bibliography, entitled _Bibliotheca

Erasmiana_, was undertaken by the officials of the Ghent University

Library; it is divided into three sections, for Erasmus's writings,

the books he edited, and the literature about him. _Listes sommaires_

were issued in 1893; and since 1897 the completed volumes have been

appearing at intervals. There is an excellent sketch of Erasmus's life

down to 1519 in F. Seebohm's _Oxford Reformers_ (3rd ed., 1887); and

of the many biographies those by S. Knight (1726), J. Jortin (2 vols.,

1758-1760) and R.B. Drummond (2 vols., 1873) may be mentioned. There

are also two volumes (1901-1904) of translations by F.M. Nichols from

Erasmus's letters down to 1517, with an ample commentary which amounts

almost to a biography; and an edition of the letters, in Latin, was

begun by the Oxford University Press in 1906 (vol. ii., 1910).

(M. P.; P. S. A.)

ERASTUS, THOMAS (1524-1583), German-Swiss theologian, whose surname was

Luber, Lieber, or Liebler, was born of poor parents on the 7th of

September 1524, probably at Baden, canton of Aargau, Switzerland. In

1540 he was studying theology at Basel. The plague of 1544 drove him to

Bologna and thence to Padua as student of philosophy and medicine. In

1553 he became physician to the count of Henneberg, Saxe-Meiningen, and

in 1558 held the same post with the elector-palatine, Otto Heinrich,

being at the same time professor of medicine at Heidelberg. His patron's

successor, Frederick III., made him (1559) a privy councillor and member

of the church consistory. In theology he followed Zwingli, and at the

sacramentarian conferences of Heidelberg (1560) and Maulbronn (1564) he

advocated by voice and pen the Zwinglian doctrine of the Lord's Supper,

replying (1565) to the counter arguments of the Lutheran Johann Marbach,

of Strassburg. He ineffectually resisted the efforts of the Calvinists,

led by Caspar Olevianus, to introduce the Presbyterian polity and

discipline, which were established at Heidelberg in 1570, on the Genevan

model. One of the first acts of the new church system was to

excommunicate Erastus on a charge of Socinianism, founded on his

correspondence with Transylvania. The ban was not removed till 1575,

Erastus declaring his firm adhesion to the doctrine of the Trinity. His

position, however, was uncomfortable, and in 1580 he returned to Basel,

where in 1583 he was made professor of ethics. He died on the 31st of

December 1583. He published several pieces bearing on medicine,

astrology and alchemy, and attacking the system of Paracelsus. His name

is permanently associated with a posthumous publication, written in

1568. Its immediate occasion was the disputation at Heidelberg (1568)

for the doctorate of theology by George Wither or Withers, an English

Puritan (subsequently archdeacon of Colchester), silenced (1565) at Bury

St Edmunds by Archbishop Parker. Withers had proposed a disputation

against vestments, which the university would not allow; his thesis

affirming the excommunicating power of the presbytery was sustained.

Hence the treatise of Erastus. It was published (1589) by Giacomo

Castelvetri, who had married his widow, with the title _Explicatio

gravissimae quaestionis utrum excommunicatio, quatenus religionem

intelligentes et amplexantes, a sacramentorum usu, propter admissum

facinus arcet, mandato nitatur divino, an excogitata sit ab hominibus_.

The work bears the imprint Pesclavii (i.e. Poschiavo in the Grisons) but

was printed by John Wolfe in London, where Castelvetri was staying; the

name of the alleged printer is an anagram of Jacobum Castelvetrum. In

the Stationers' Register (June 20, 1589) the printing is said to have

been "alowed" by Archbishop Whitgift. It consists of seventy-five

_Theses_, followed by a _Confirmatio_ in six books, and an appendix of

letters to Erastus by Bullinger and Gualther, showing that his _Theses_,

written in 1568, had been circulated in manuscript. An English

translation of the _Theses_, with brief life of Erastus (based on

Melchior Adam's account), was issued in 1659, entitled _The Nullity of

Church Censures_; it was reprinted as _A Treatise of Excommunication_

(1682), and, as revised by Robert Lee, D.D., in 1844. The aim of the

work is to show, on Scriptural grounds, that sins of professing

Christians are to be punished by civil authority, and not by withholding

of sacraments on the part of the clergy. In the Westminster Assembly a

party holding this view included Selden, Lightfoot, Coleman and

Whitelocke, whose speech (1645) is appended to Lee's version of the

_Theses_; but the opposite view, after much controversy, was carried,

Lightfoot alone dissenting. The consequent chapter of the Westminster

Confession ("Of Church Censures") was, however, not ratified by the

English parliament. "Erastianism," as a by-word, is used to denote the

doctrine of the supremacy of the state in ecclesiastical causes; but the

problem of the relations between church and state is one on which

Erastus nowhere enters. What is known as "Erastianism" would be better

connected with the name of Grotius. The only direct reply made to the

_Explicatio_ was the _Tractatus de vera excommunicatione_ (1590) by

Theodore Beza, who found himself rather savagely attacked in the

_Confirmatio thesium_; e.g. "Apostolum et Mosen adeoque Deum ipsum audes

corrigere."

See A. Bonnard, _Thomas Eraste et la discipline ecclesiastique_

(1894); Gass, in _Allgemeine deutsche Biog._ (1877); G.V. Lechler and

R. Stahelin, in A. Hauck's _Realencyklop. fur prot. Theol. u. Kirche_

(1898). (A. Go.*)

ERATOSTHENES OF ALEXANDRIA (c. 276-c. 194 B.C.), Greek scientific

writer, was born at Cyrene. He studied grammar under Callimachus at

Alexandria, and philosophy under the Stoic Ariston and the Academic

Arcesilaus at Athens. He returned to Alexandria at the summons of

Ptolemy III. Euergetes, by whom he was appointed chief librarian in

place of Callimachus. He is said to have died of voluntary starvation,

being threatened with total blindness. Eratosthenes was one of the most

learned men of antiquity, and wrote on a great number of subjects. He

was the first to call himself Philologos (in the sense of the "friend of

learning"), and the name Pentathlos was bestowed upon him in honour of

his varied accomplishments. He was also called _Beta_ as being second in

all branches of learning, though not actually first in any. In

mathematics he wrote two books _On means_ ([Greek: Peri mesoteton])

which are lost, but appear, from a remark of Pappus, to have dealt with

"loci with reference to means." He devised a mechanical construction for

two mean proportionals, reproduced by Pappus and Eutocius (Comm. on

Archimedes). His [Greek: koskinon] or _sieve_ (_cribrum Eratosthenis_)

was a device for discovering all prime numbers. He laid the foundation

of mathematical geography in his _Geographica_, in three books. His

greatest achievement was his measurement of the earth. Being informed

that at Syene (Assuan), on the day of the summer solstice at noon, a

well was lit up through all its depth, so that Syene lay on the tropic,

he measured, at the same hour, the zenith distance of the sun at

Alexandria. He thus found the distance between Syene and Alexandria

(known to be 5000 stadia) to correspond to 1/50th of a great circle, and

so arrived at 250,000 stadia (which he seems subsequently to have

corrected to 252,000) as the circumference of the earth. He is credited

by Ptolemy and his commentator Theon with having found the distance

between the tropics to be 11/83 rds. of the meridian circle, which gives

23 deg. 51' 20" for the obliquity of the ecliptic. His astronomical poem

_Hermes_ began apparently with the birth and exploits of Hermes, then

passed to the legend of his having ordered the heavens, the zones and

the stars, and gave a history of the latter. His _Erigone_, of which a

few fragments are also preserved, is sometimes spoken of as a separate

poem, but it may have belonged to the _Hermes_, which appears also to

have been known by other names such as _Catalogi_. The still extant

_Catasterismi_, containing the story of certain stars in prose, is

probably not by Eratosthenes.

Eratosthenes was the founder of scientific chronology in his [Greek:

chronographia] in which he endeavoured to fix the dates of the chief

literary and political events from the conquest of Troy. An important

work was his treatise on the old comedy, dealing with theatres and

theatrical apparatus generally, and discussing the works of the

principal comic poets themselves. Works on moral philosophy, history,

and a number of letters were also attributed to him.

There is a complete edition of the fragments of Eratosthenes by

Bernhardy (1822); poetical fragments, Hillier (1872); geographical,

Seidel (1799) and Berger (1880); [Greek: katasterismoi], Schaubach

(1795) and Robert (1878). See Sandys, _Hist. Class. Schol._ i. (1906).

(T. L. H.)

ERBACH, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, on the

Mumling, 22 m. S.E. of Darmstadt. It has cloth mills and ivory-turning,

for which last branch it possesses a technical school. Wool and cattle

fairs are held twice a year. Pop. 2800. The castle contains an

interesting collection of weapons and pictures, and in the chapel are

the coffins of Einhard, the friend and biographer of Charlemagne, and

his wife, Emma.

Erbach has long been the residence of the counts of Erbach, who trace

their descent back to the 12th century, and who held the office of

cupbearer to the electors palatine of the Rhine until 1806. In 1532 the

emperor Charles V. made the county a direct fief of the Empire, on

account of the services rendered by Count Eberhard during the Peasants'

War. Since 1717 the family has been divided into the three lines of

Erbach-Furstenau, Erbach-Erbach and Erbach-Schonberg, who rank for

precedence, not according to the age of their descent, but according to

the age of the chief of their line. In 1818 the counts of Erbach-Erbach

inherited the county of Wartenberg-Roth, and in 1903 the count of

Erbach-Schonberg was granted the title of prince. The county was

mediatized in 1806, and is now incorporated with the duchy of

Hesse-Darmstadt.

See Simon, _Die Geschichte der Dynasten und Grafen zu Erbach_

(Frankfort, 1858).

ERBIUM (symbol, Er; atomic weight, 165-166), one of the metals of the

rare earths. The first of the rare earth minerals was discovered in 1794

by J. Gadolin and was named gadolinite from its discoverer. In 1797

Ekeberg showed that gadolinite contained another rare earth, which was

given the name yttria. Yttria is an exceedingly complex mixture, which

has been decomposed, yielding as an intermediate product terbia. This

latter substance in its turn has been split by J.L. Soret, P.T. Cleve,

Lecoq de Boisbaudran and others into erbia, holmia, thulia and

dysprosia, but it is still doubtful whether any one of these four

splitting products is a single substance. The rare earth metals are

found in the minerals gadolinite, samarskite, fergusonite, euxenite and

cerite. They are separated from the minerals by converting them into

oxalates, which by ignition give the corresponding oxides. The oxides

are then converted into double sulphates which are separated from each

other by repeated fractional crystallization or by fractional

precipitation with ammonia or some other base. Erbium forms

rose-coloured salts and a rose-coloured oxide. The oxide dissolves

slowly in acids; it is not reduced by hydrogen and is infusible. The

salts show a characteristic absorption spectrum.

See J.F. Bahr and R. Bunsen (_Ann._, 1866, 137, p. 1); A. v. Welsbach

(_Monats._, 1883, 4, p. 641; 1884, 5, p. 508; 1885, 6, p. 477); P.T.

Cleve (_Comptes rendus_, 1879, 89, p. 478; 1880, 91, pp. 328, 381;

1882, 95, p. 1225; _Bull. de la soc. chim._, 1874, 21, p. 196; 1883,

39, p. 287); C. Marignac (_Ann. Chim. phys._, 1849 [3] 27, p. 226); B.

Brauner (_Monats._, 1882, 3, p. 13); W. Crookes (_Proc. Roy. Soc._,

1886, 40, p. 502); Lecoq de Boisbaudran (_Comptes rendus_, 1886, 102,

p. 1005); A. Bettendorf (_Ann._, 1892, 270, p. 376); M. Muthmann

(_Ber._, 1898, 31, p. 1718; 1900, 33, p. 42); G. Kruss (_Zeit. f.

anorg. Chem._, 1893, 3, p. 108).

ERCILLA Y ZUNIGA, ALONSO DE (1533-1595), Spanish soldier and poet, was

born in Madrid on the 7th of August 1533. In 1548 he was appointed page

to the heir-apparent, afterwards Philip II. In this capacity Ercilla

visited Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, and was present in 1554 at

the marriage of his master to Mary of England. Hearing that an

expedition was preparing to subdue the Araucanians of Chile, he joined

the adventurers. He distinguished himself in the ensuing campaign; but,

having quarrelled with a comrade, he was condemned to death in 1558 by

his general, Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza. The sentence was commuted to

imprisonment, but Ercilla was speedily released and fought at the battle

of Quipeo (14th of December 1558). He returned to Spain in 1562, visited

Italy, France, Germany, Bohemia, and in 1570 married Maria de Bazan, a

lady distantly connected with the Santa Cruz family; in 1571 he was made

knight of the order of Santiago, and in 1578 he was employed by Philip

II. on a mission to Saragossa. He complained of living in poverty but

left a modest fortune, and was obviously disappointed at not being

offered the post of secretary of state. His principal work is _La

Araucana_, a poem based on the events of the wars in which he had been

engaged. It consists of three parts, of which the first, composed in

Chile and published in 1569, is a versified narrative adhering strictly

to historic fact; the second, published in 1578, is encumbered with

visions and other romantic machinery; and the third, which appeared in

1589-1590, contains, in addition to the subject proper, a variety of

episodes mostly irrelevant. This so-called epic lacks symmetry, and has

been over-praised by Cervantes and Voltaire; but it is written in

excellent Spanish, and is full of vivid rhetorical passages. An analysis

of the poem was given by Hayley in his _Essay on Epic Poetry_ (1782).

A good biography precedes the _Morceaux choisis_ (Paris, 1900) by Jean

Ducamin.

ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN, the joint names of two French writers whose

collaboration made their work that of, so to speak, one personality.

EMILE ERCKMANN (1822-1899) was born on the 20th of May 1822 at

Phalsbourg, and LOUIS GRATIEN CHARLES ALEXANDRE CHATRIAN (1826-1890) on

the 18th of December 1826 at Soldatenthal, Lorraine. In 1847 they began

to write together, and continued doing so till 1889. Chatrian died in

1890 at Villemomble near Paris, and Erckmann at Luneville in 1899. The

list of their publications is a long one, ranging from the _Histoires et

contes fantastiques_ (1849; reprinted from the _Democrate du Rhin_),

_L'Illustre Docteur Matheus_ (1859), _Madame Therese_ (1863), _L'Ami

Fritz_ (1864), _Histoire d'un conscrit de 1813_ (1864), _Waterloo_

(1865), _Le Blocus_ (1867), _Histoire d'un paysan_ (4 vols., 1868-1870),

_L'Histoire du plebiscite_ (1872), to _Le Grand-pere Lebigue_ (1880);

besides dramas like _Le Juif polonais_ (1869) and _Les Rantzau_ (1882).

Without any special literary claim, their stories are distinguished by

simplicity and genuine descriptive power, particularly in the battle

scenes and in connexion with Alsatian peasant life. They are marked by a

genuine democratic spirit, and by real patriotism, which developed after

1870 into hatred of the Germans. The authors attacked militarism by

depicting the horrors of war in the plainest terms.

See also J. Claretie, _Erckmann-Chatrian_ (1883), in the series of

"Celebrites contemporaines."

ERDELYI, JANOS (1814-1868), Hungarian poet and author, was born in 1814

at Kapos, in the county of Ungvar, and educated at the Protestant

college of Sarospatak. In 1833 he removed to Pest, where he was, in

1839, elected member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His literary

fame was made by his collection of Hungarian national poems and

folk-tales, _Magyar Nepkoltesi Gyujtemeny, Nepdalok es Mondak_ (Pest,

1846-1847). This work, published by the Kisfaludy Society, was

supplemented by a dissertation upon Hungarian national poetry,

afterwards partially translated into German by Stier (Berlin, 1851).

Erdelyi also compiled for the Kisfaludy Society an extensive collection

of Hungarian proverbs--_Magyar Kozmondasok konyve_ (Pest, 1851),--and

was for some time editor of the _Szepirodalmi Szemle_ (_Review of Polite

Literature_). In 1848 he was appointed director of the national theatre

at Pest; but after 1849 he resided at his native town. He died on the

23rd of January 1868. A collection of folklore was published the year

after his death, entitled _A Nep Kolteszete nepdalok, nepmesek es

kozmondasok_ (Pest, 1869). This work contains 300 national songs, 19

folk-tales and 7362 Hungarian proverbs.

ERDMANN, JOHANN EDUARD (1805-1892), German philosophical writer, was

born at Wolmar in Livonia on the 13th of June 1805. He studied theology

at Dorpat and afterwards at Berlin, where he fell under the influence of

Hegel. From 1829 to 1832 he was a minister of religion in his native

town. Afterwards he devoted himself to philosophy, and qualified in that

subject at Berlin in 1834. In 1836 he was professor-extraordinary at

Halle, became full professor in 1839, and died there on the 12th of June

1892. He published many philosophical text-books and treatises, and a

number of sermons; but his chief claim to remembrance rests on his

elaborate _Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie_ (2 vols., 1866),

the 3rd edition of which has been translated into English. Erdmann's

special merit is that he does not rest content with being a mere

summarizer of opinions, but tries to exhibit the history of human

thought as a continuous and ever-developing effort to solve the great

speculative problems with which man has been confronted in all ages. His

chief other works were: _Leib und Seele_ (1837), _Grundriss der

Psychologie_ (1840), _Grundriss der Logik und Metaphysik_ (1841), and

_Psychologische Briefe_ (1851).

ERDMANN, OTTO LINNE (1804-1869), German chemist, son of Karl Gottfried

Erdmann (1774-1835), the physician who introduced vaccination into

Saxony, was born at Dresden on the 11th of April 1804. In 1820 he began

to attend the medico-chirurgical academy of his native place, and in

1822 he entered the university of Leipzig where in 1827 he became

extraordinary professor, and in 1830 ordinary professor of chemistry.

This office he held until his death, which happened at Leipzig on the

9th of October 1869. He was particularly successful as a teacher, and

the laboratory established at Leipzig under his direction in 1843 was

long regarded as a model institution. As an investigator he is best

known for his work on nickel and indigo and other dye-stuffs. With R.F.

Marchand (1813-1850) he also carried out a number of determinations of

atomic weights. In 1828, in conjunction with A.F.G. Werther (1815-1869),

he founded the _Journal fur technische und okonomische Chemie_, which

became in 1834 the _Journal fur praktische Chemie_. He was also the

author of _Uber das Nickel_ (1827), _Lehrbuch der Chemie_ (1828),

_Grundriss der Waarenkunde_ (1833), and _Uber das Studium der Chemie_

(1861).

EREBUS, in Greek mythology, son (according to Hesiod, _Theog._ 123) of

Chaos, and father of Aether (upper air) and Hemera (day) by his sister

Nyx (night). The word, which signifies darkness, is in Homer the gloomy

subterranean region through which the departed shades pass into Hades.

The entrance to it was in the extreme west, on the borders of Ocean, in

the mythical land of the Cimmerians. It is to be distinguished from

Tartarus, the place of punishment for the wicked.

ERECH (_Uruk_ in the Babylonian inscriptions; Gr. _Orchoe_), the

Biblical name of an ancient city of Babylonia, situated E. of the

present bed of the Euphrates, on the line of the ancient Nil canal, in a

region of marshes, about 140 m. S.S.E. from Bagdad. It was one of the

oldest and most important cities of Babylonia, and the site of a famous

temple, called E-Anna, dedicated to the worship of Nana, or Ishtar.

Erech played a very important part in the political history of the

country from an early time, exercising hegemony in Babylonia at a period

before the time of Sargon. Later it was prominent in the national

struggles of the Babylonians against Elam (2000 B.C. and earlier), in

which it suffered severely; recollections of these conflicts are

embodied in the Gilgamesh epic, as it has come down to us through the

library of Assur-bani-pal. Erech enjoyed much distinction in the later

times, as a seat of learning and of the worship of Ishtar, and

Assur-bani-pal drew largely on its literary stores for his library at

Nineveh, from which we derive our principal information concerning

ancient Babylonian literature. The inscriptions found here show that it

continued in existence through the Persian and Seleucid periods. The

ruins of the ancient site, known as Warka, which are among the largest

in all Babylonia, forming an irregular circle nearly 6 m. in

circumference, bounded by a wall, still standing in some places to the

height of 40 ft., were explored and partially excavated by W.K. Loftus

in 1850 and 1854. The most conspicuous ruin, now called Abu-Berdi,

"Father of Marsh Grass," or Buwariye, "reed matting," because of the

layers of reeds between each twelve courses of unbaked brick, is the

_ziggurat_ (tower) of the ancient temple of E-Anna. It is about 100 ft.

in height, and strikingly resembles in general appearance the ruins of

the ziggurat of the temple of Enlil at Nippur. Second to this in size

was the ruin called Wuswas, a walled quadrangle, including an area of

more than seven and a half acres, within which was an edifice 246 ft.

long and 174 ft. wide, elevated on an artificial platform 50 ft. in

height. The south-west facade, still standing in some places to the

height of 23 ft., exhibited an interesting use of half columns, and

stepped recesses for purposes of decoration. In another ruin Loftus

found a wall, 30 ft. long, composed entirely of small yellow terra-cotta

nail-headed cones, such as have been discovered in great numbers,

inscribed and uninscribed, used for votive purposes in connexion with

walls at Tello and elsewhere in Babylonia. His excavations being

superficial, the Babylonian inscriptions found by him, about one hundred

in all, exclusive of the ancient Ur-Gur bricks from the temple, belong

in general to the neo-Babylonian, Persian and Seleucid periods. The

older remains are buried deep beneath the huge mass of later debris.

Loftus also discovered at Erech, almost everywhere within and without

the walls, great numbers of clay coffins, piled one above another, to

the height of over 30 ft., forming a vast and, on the whole,

well-ordered cemetery belonging to the Persian, Parthian and later

occupations of Babylonia, during which period Erech, like other cities

of the south, evidently became a necropolis for a large extent of

country. After Loftus's time the mounds were visited by various

travellers, but no further excavations have been conducted. Work on this

important part of the site is attended with very great difficulties,

owing to the inaccessible position of the ruins, the unsettled character

of the country, the frequent sand-storms, and above all, the immense

mass of material of later periods which must be removed before a

systematic excavation of the more ancient and interesting ruins could be

undertaken. A curious feature of the Warka neighbourhood is the

existence of conical sand-hills, rising to a considerable height, so

compact as to be almost like stone. These hills extend from Warka

northward as far as Tel Ede.

See W.K. Loftus, _Chaldaea and Susiana_ (1857); J.P. Peters, _Nippur_

(1897); E. Sachau, _Am Euphrat und Tigris_ (1900). Cf. also NIPPUR and

authorities there quoted. (J. P. Pe.)

ERECHTHEUM, a temple (commonly called after Erechtheus, to whom a

portion of it was dedicated) on the acropolis at Athens, unique in plan,

and in its execution the most refined example of the Ionic order. There

is no clear evidence as to when the building was begun, some placing it

among the temples projected by Pericles, others assigning it to the time

after the peace of Nicias in 421 B.C. The work was interrupted by the

stress of the Peloponnesian War, but in 409 B.C. a commission was

appointed to make a report on the state of the building and to undertake

its completion, which was carried out in the following year.

The peculiar plan of the Erechtheum has given rise to much speculation.

It may be due partly to the natural conformation of the rock and the

differences of level, partly to the necessity of enclosing within a

single building several objects of ancient sanctity, such as the mark of

Poseidon's trident and the spring that arose from it, the sacred olive

tree of Athena, and the tomb of Cecrops. But there are some features

which cannot be so explained, and which have led Professor W. Dorpfeld

and others to believe that the plan, as we now have it, is a

modification or abridgment of the original design, due to the same

conservative influences as led to the curtailment of the plan of the

Propylaea (q.v.).

[Illustration: Plan pf the Erechtheum.]

The building as completed consisted of a temple of the ordinary type,

opening by a door and two windows to the east front, before which stood

a portico of six Ionic columns. This part was the temple of Athena

Polias. Adjoining it on the west was the central chamber, on a lower

level; this chamber was separated by a partition, originally of wood and

later of marble, from the western compartment of the temple, which was

of peculiar construction. The west end was formed by a wall, on which

stood four columns between antae; but the main entrance to this western

compartment was through a large and very ornate doorway on the north;

and a large Ionic portico, consisting of four columns in the front, and

one in the return on each side, was placed in front of this door. At the

south end of the western compartment was a smaller door, with steps

leading up to the higher level, within a projecting space enclosed by a

low wall and covered with a projecting porch carried by six "maidens" or

caryatides. The construction of the building at this south-western

corner shows that there was some sacred object that had to be bridged

over by a huge block of marble; this we know from inscriptions to have

been the Cecropeum or tomb of Cecrops. In the north portico a square

hole in the floor, with a corresponding hole in the roof above it, must

have given access to another sacred object, the mark of Poseidon's

trident in the rock. The sacred olive tree probably stood just outside

the temple to the west in the Pandroseion. The Ionic order, as used in

this temple, is of the most ornate Attic type. The bases of the columns

are either reeded or decorated with a plait-pattern; the capital has the

broad channel between the volutes subdivided by a carefully-profiled

incision; and the top of the shafts is ornamented by a broad band of

palmette or honeysuckle pattern. A similar band of ornament runs round

the top of the walls outside, and at their base is a reeded torus. The

frieze consisted of white marble figures in relief, affixed to a

background of black Eleusinian stone.

The contents of the Erechtheum are described by Pausanias. It contained

the ancient image of Athena Polias, and three altars, one to Poseidon

and Erechtheus, one to Butes and one to Hephaestus; there were portraits

of the family of the Butadae on the walls. Within it was also the gold

lamp of Callimachus, which burnt for a year without refilling, and had a

chimney in the form of a palm-tree.

The Erechtheum was damaged by a fire, soon after its completion, in 406

B.C., but was repaired early in the following century. The west end

appears to have been damaged in Roman times and to have been replaced by

the attached columns with windows between them which appear in old

drawings and are still partially extant. It was used as a church in

Christian times, and under Turkish rule as the harem of the governor of

Athens. Lord Elgin carried off to London, about 1801-1803, one of the

columns of the east portico and one of the caryatides; these were

replaced later by terra-cotta casts. During the siege of the Acropolis

in 1827, the roof of the north portico was thrown down and the building

was otherwise much damaged. It was partially rebuilt between 1838 and

1846; the west front was blown down in a storm in 1852. Since 1900 the

project of rebuilding the Erechtheum as far as possible with the

original blocks has again been undertaken.

See Stuart, _Antiquities of Athens_; Inwood, _The Erechtheum_; H.

Forster in _Papers of American School at Athens_, i. (1882-1883); J.H.

Middleton, _Plans and Drawings of Athenian Buildings_ (1900), pls.

xiv.-xxii.; E.A. Gardner, _Ancient Athens_, chap. viii.; W. Dorpfeld,

"Der ursprungliche Plan des Erechtheion" in _Mitteil. Athen._, 1904,

p. 101, taf. 6; G.P. Stevens, "The East Wall of the Erechtheum," in

_American Journ. Arch._, 1906, pls. vi.-ix. (E. Gr.)

ERECHTHEUS, in Greek legend, a mythical king of Athens, originally

identified with Erichthonius, but in later times distinguished from him.

According to Homer, who knows nothing of Erichthonius, he was the son of

Aroura (Earth), brought up by Athena, with whom his story is closely

connected. In the later story, Erichthonius (son of Hephaestus and

Atthis or Athena herself) was handed over by Athena to the three

daughters of Cecrops--Aglauros (or Agraulos), Herse and Pandrosos--in a

chest, which they were forbidden to open. Aglauros and Herse disobeyed

the injunction, and when they saw the child (which had the form of a

snake, or round which a snake was coiled) they went mad with fright, and

threw themselves from the rock of the Acropolis (or were killed by the

snake). Athena herself then undertook the care of Erichthonius, who,

when he grew up, drove out Amphictyon and took possession of the kingdom

of Athens. Here he established the worship of Athena, instituted the

Panathenaea, and built an Erechtheum. The Erechtheus of later times was

supposed to be the grandson of Erechtheus-Erichthonius, and was also

king of Athens. When Athens was attacked by the Thracian Eumolpus (or by

the Eleusinians assisted by Eumolpus) victory was promised Erechtheus if

he sacrificed one of his daughters. Eumolpus was slain and Erechtheus

was victorious, but was himself killed by Poseidon, the father of

Eumolpus, or by a thunderbolt from Zeus. The contest between Erechtheus

and Eumolpus formed the subject of a lost tragedy by Euripides;

Swinburne has utilized the legend in his _Erechtheus_. The scene of the

opening of the chest is represented on a Greek vase in the British

Museum. The name Erichthonius is connected with [Greek: chthon]

("earth") and the representation of him as half-snake, like Cecrops,

indicates that he was regarded as one of the autochthones, the ancestors

of the Athenians who sprung from the soil.

See Apollodorus iii. 14. 15; Euripides, _Ion_; Ovid, _Metam._ ii. 553;

Hyginus, _Poet. astron._ ii. 13; Pausanias i. 2. 5. 8; E. Ermatinger,

_Die attische Autochthonensage_ (1897); article by J.A. Hild in

Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquites_; B. Powell in

_Cornell Studies_, xvii. (1906), who identifies Erechtheus,

Erichthonius, Poseidon and Cecrops, all denoting the sacred serpent of

Athena, whose cult she first contested, but then amalgamated with her

own. The birth of Erichthonius (as a corn-spirit) is interpreted by

Mannhardt as a mythical way of describing the growth of the corn, and

by J.E. Harrison (_Myths and Monuments of Ancient Athens_,

xxvii.-xxxvi.) as a fiction to explain the ceremony performed by the

two maidens called Arrephori. See also Farnell, _Cults of the Greek

States_, i. 270; and Frazer's _Pausanias_, ii. 169.

ERESHKIGAL, also known as ALLATU, the name of the chief Babylonian

goddess of the nether-world where the dead are gathered. Her name

signifies "lady of the nether-world." She is known to us chiefly through

two myths, both symbolizing the change of seasons, but intended also to

illustrate certain doctrines developed in the temple-schools of

Babylonia. One of these myths is the famous story of Ishtar's descent to

Irkalla or Aralu, as the lower world was called, and her reception by

her sister who presides over it; the other is the story of Nergal's

offence against Ereshkigal, his banishment to the kingdom controlled by

the goddess and the reconciliation between Nergal and Ereshkigal

through the latter's offer to have Nergal share the honours of the rule

over Irkalla. The story of Ishtar's descent is told to illustrate the

possibility of an escape from Irkalla, while the other myth is intended

to reconcile the existence of two rulers of Irkalla--a goddess and a

god.

It is evident that it was originally a goddess who was supposed to be in

control of Irkalla, corresponding to Ishtar in control of fertility and

vegetation on earth. Ereshkigal is therefore the sister of Ishtar and

from one point of view her counterpart, the symbol of nature during the

non-productive season of the year. As the doctrine of two kingdoms, one

of this world and one of the world of the dead, becomes crystallized,

the dominions of the two sisters are sharply differentiated from one

another. The addition of Nergal represents the harmonizing tendency to

unite with Ereshkigal as the queen of the nether-world the god who, in

his character as god of war and of pestilence, conveys the living to

Irkalla and thus becomes the one who presides over the dead. (M. Ja.)

ERETRIA (mod. _Aletria_), an ancient coast town of Euboea about 15 m.

S.E. of Chalcis, opposite to Oropus. Eretria, like its neighbour Chalcis

(q.v.), early entered upon a commercial and colonizing career. Besides

founding townships in the west and north of Greece, it acquired

dependencies among the Cyclades and joined the great mercantile alliance

of Miletus and Aegina. Since the so-called Lelantine War (7th century

B.C.) against the coming league of Chalcis, it began to be overshadowed

by its rivals. The interference of Eretria in the Ionian revolt (498)

brought upon it the vengeance of the Persians, who captured and

destroyed it shortly before the battle of Marathon (490). The city was

soon rebuilt, and as a member of both the Delian Leagues attached itself

by numerous treaties to the Athenians. The latter, through their general

Phocion, rescued it from the tyrants suborned by Philip of Macedon (354

and 341). Under Macedonian and Roman rule Eretria fell into

insignificance; for a short period under Mark Antony, the triumvir, it

became a possession of Athens. Eretria was the birthplace of the

tragedian Achaeus and of the "Megarian" philosopher Menedemus.

The modern village, which is sometimes called Nea Psara because the

inhabitants of Psara were transferred there in 1821, is on unhealthy

low-lying ground near the sea. The excavation of the site was carried

out by the American School of Athens (1890-1895). At the foot of the

Acropolis Hill, where the ground begins to rise, the theatre lies; and

though the material of which this was built is rough, and only seven

imperfect rows of seats remain, a good part of the scena and of the

chambers behind it is preserved, and beneath these there runs a tunnel,

which, together with other peculiar features, has raised interesting

questions in connexion with the arrangement of the Greek theatre, the

orchestra being at present on a level about 12 ft. below that of the

rooms in the scena. Near by are the substructions of a temple of

Dionysus and a large altar, and also a gymnasium with arrangements for

bathing. Besides these, in 1900 the substructions of a temple of Apollo

Daphnephoros were unearthed. Both the northern and the southern side of

the hill are flanked by walls, which seem to have reached the sea, where

there was a mole and a harbour; and the wall of the acropolis itself

remains in one part to the height of eight courses.

AUTHORITIES.--Strabo x. 447 f.; Herodotus v. 99, vi. 101; _Corpus

Inscr. Atticarum_, i. 339, iv. (2), pp. 5, 10, 22; H. Heinze, _De

rebus Eretriensium_ (Gottingen, 1869); W.M. Leake, _Travels in

Northern Greece_ (London, 1835), ii. 266, 443; B.V. Head, _Historia

numorum_ (Oxford, 1887), pp. 305-308; _Papers of the American School

at Athens_, vol. vi. (E. Gr.)

ERETRIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. This Greek school was the continuation of

the Elian school, which was transferred to Eretria by Menedemus. It was

of small importance, and in the absence of certain knowledge must be

supposed to have adhered to the doctrines of Socrates. (See MENEDEMUS.)

ERFURT, a city of Germany, in Prussian Saxony, on the Gera, and the

railway Halle-Bebra, about midway between Gotha and Weimar, which are 14

m. distant. Pop. (1875) 48,025; (1905) 100,065. The city, which is

dominated on the west by the two citadels of Petersberg and Cyriaxburg,

is irregularly built, the only feature in its plan, or want of plan,

being the Friedrich Wilhelmsplatz, a broad open space of irregular shape

abutting on the Petersberg. On the south-western side of this square,

which contains a monument to the elector Frederick Charles Joseph of

Mainz (1719-1802), is the Domberg, an eminence on which stand, side by

side, the cathedral and the great church of St Severus with its three

spires (14th century). The churches are approached by a flight of

forty-eight stone steps, the grouping of the whole mass of buildings

being exceedingly impressive. The cathedral (_Beatae Mariae Virginis_)

is one of the finest churches in Germany. It was begun in the 12th

century, but the nave was rebuilt in the 13th in the Gothic style. The

magnificent chancel (1349-1372), with the 14th-century crypt below,

rests on massive substructures, known as the _Cavate_. The twin towers

are set between the chancel and nave. The cathedral contains, besides

fine 15th-century glass, some very rich portal sculptures and bronze

castings, among others the coronation of the Virgin by Peter Vischer. In

one of its towers is the famous bell, called Maria Gloriosa, which bears

the date 1497, and weighs 270 cwt. Besides the cathedral and St Severus,

which are Roman Catholic, Erfurt possesses several very interesting

medieval churches, now Evangelical. Among these may be mentioned the

Predigerkirche, dating from the latter half of the 12th century; the

Reglerkirche, a Romanesque building (restored in 1859) with a

12th-century tower; and the Barfusserkirche, a Gothic building

containing fine 14th-century monuments. All these were originally

monastic churches. Of the former religious houses there survive a

Franciscan convent, with a girls' school attached, and an Ursuline

convent. The Augustinian monastery, in which Luther lived as a friar, is

now used as an orphanage, under the name of the _Martinsstift_. The cell

of Luther was destroyed by fire in 1872. A bronze statue of the reformer

was erected in the Anger, the chief street of the town, in 1890. At one

time Erfurt had a university, of which the charter dated from 1392; but

it was suppressed in 1816, and its funds devoted to other purposes,

among these being the endowment of an institution founded in 1758 and

now called the royal academy of sciences, and the support of the royal

library, which now contains 60,000 volumes and over 1000 manuscripts. On

the W. and S.W. extensive new quarters have grown up within recent

years, e.g. Hirschbruhl. The interior of the town hall (1869-1875) is

adorned with legendary and historical frescoes by Kampfer and Peter

Janssen. Erfurt possesses also a picture gallery and an antiquarian

collection.

The educational establishments of the town include a gymnasium, a

realgymnasium, a realschule, technical schools for building and

handicrafts, a high-class commercial school, a school of agriculture,

and an academy of music. The most notable industry of Erfurt is the

culture of flowers and of vegetables, which is very extensively carried

on. This industry had its origin in the large gardens attached to the

monasteries. It has also important and growing manufactures of ladies'

mantles, boots and shoes, machines, furniture, woollen goods, musical

instruments, agricultural machinery and implements, leather, tobacco,

chemicals, &c. Brewing, bleaching and dyeing are also carried on on a

large scale, and there are extensive railway works and a government

rifle factory.

Erfurt (Med. _Erpesfurt_, _Erphorde_, Lat. _Erfordia_) is a town of

great antiquity. Its origin is obscure, but in 741 it was sufficiently

important for St Boniface to found a bishopric here, which was, however,

after the martyrdom of the first bishop, Adolar, in 755, reabsorbed in

that of Mainz. In 805 the place received certain market rights from the

emperor Charlemagne. Later the overlordship was claimed by the

archbishops of Mainz, on the strength of charters granted by the emperor

Otto I., and their authority in Erfurt was maintained by a burgrave and

an _advocatus_, the office of the latter becoming in the 12th century

hereditary in the family of the counts of Gleichen. In spite of many

vicissitudes (from 1109 to 1137, for instance, the town was subject to

the landgraves of Thuringia), and of a charter granted in 1242 by the

emperor Frederick II., the archbishops succeeded in upholding their

claims. In 1255, however, Archbishop Gerhard I. had to grant the city

municipal rights, the burgraviate disappeared, and Erfurt became

practically a free town. Its power was at its height early in the 15th

century, when it joined the Hanseatic League. It had acquired by force

or purchase various countships and other fiefs in the neighbourhood, and

ruled a considerable territory; and its wealth was so great that in 1378

it established a university, the first in Europe that embraced the four

faculties. By the end of the century, however, its prosperity had sunk

owing to the perpetual feud with Mainz, the internecine war in Saxony,

and the consequent dwindling of trade. By the convention of Amorbach in

1483 the overlordship of Erfurt was ultimately transferred by the

electors of Mainz to Saxony. The political and religious quarrels of the

16th century still further depressed the city, in which the reformed

religion was established in 1521. Then came the Thirty Years' War,

during which Erfurt was for a while occupied by the Swedes. After the

peace of Westphalia (1648) the city was assigned by the emperor to the

elector of Mainz, and, on its refusal to submit, it was placed under the

ban of the Empire (1660). In 1664 it was captured by the troops of the

archbishop of Mainz, and remained in the possession of the electorate

till 1802, when it came into the possession of Prussia. In 1808 it was

the scene of the memorable interview between Napoleon and the emperor

Alexander I. of Russia, at which the kings of Bavaria, Saxony,

Westphalia and Wurttemberg also assisted, which is known as the congress

of Erfurt. Here in 1850 the parliament of the short-lived Prussian

Northern Union (known as the Erfurt parliament) held its sittings. In

1902 the 100th anniversary of the city's incorporation with Prussia was

celebrated.

See W.J.A. von Tettau, _Erfurt in seiner Vergangenheit und Gegenwart_

(Erfurt, 1880); C. Beyer, _Geschichte der Stadt Erfurt_ (Erfurt,

1900); and F.W. Kampschulte, _Die Universitat Erfurt in ihrem

Verhaltnisse zu dem Humanismus und der Reformation_ (1856-1858). For a

detailed bibliography see U. Chevalier, _Repertoire des sources.

Topo-bibliographie_ (Montebeliard, 1894-1899), s.v.

ERGOT, or SPURRED RYE, the drug _ergota_ or _Secale cornutum_ (Ger.

_Mutterkorn_; Fr. _seigle ergote_), consisting of the sclerotium (or

hard resting condition) of a fungus, _Claviceps purpurea_, parasitic on

the pistils of many members of the Grass family, but obtained almost

exclusively from rye, _Secale cereale_. In the ear of rye that is

infected with ergot a species of fermentation takes place, and there

exudes from it a sweet yellowish mucus, which after a time disappears.

The ear loses its starch, and ceases to grow, and its ovaries become

penetrated with the white spongy tissue of the mycelium of the fungus

which towards the end of the season forms the sclerotium, in which state

the fungus lies dormant through the winter.

The drug consists of grains, usually curved (hence the name, from the O.

Fr. _argot_, a cock's spur), which are violet-black or dark-purple

externally, and whitish with a tinge of pink within, are between 1/3 and

1-1/2 in. long, and from 1 to 4 lines broad, and have two lateral furrows,

a close fracture, a disagreeable rancid taste, and a faint, fishy odour,

which last becomes more perceptible when the powder of the drug is mixed

with potash solution. Ergot should be kept in stoppered bottles in order

to preserve it from the attacks of a species of mite, and to prevent the

oxidation of its fatty oil.

The extremely complex composition of this drug has been studied in great

detail, and with such important results that instead of giving ergot

itself by the mouth in doses of 20 to 60 grains, it is now possible to

obtain much more rapid and certain results by giving one three-hundredth

of a grain of one of its constituents hypodermically. This constituent

is the alkaloid cornutine, which is the valuable ingredient of the drug.

Other ingredients are a fixed oil, present to the extent of 30%,

ergotinic acid, a glucoside, trimethylamine, which gives the drug its

unpleasant odour, and sphacelinic acid, a non-nitrogenous resinoid body.

Of the numerous preparations only two need be mentioned--the liquid

extract (dose 10 minims to 2 drachms or more), and the hypodermic

injection. The latter does not keep well, and the best way of using

ergot is to dissolve tablets obtained from a reputable maker, and

containing some of the active principles, in pure water, the solution

being injected subcutaneously.

Ergot has no external action. Given internally it stimulates the

intestinal muscles and may cause diarrhoea. After absorption it slows

the pulse by stimulation of the vagus nerves. It has indeed been

asserted that the slow pulse characteristic of the puerperal period is

really due to the common administration of ergot at that time. This is

probably an exaggeration. The important actions of ergot are on the

blood-vessels and the uterus. The drug greatly raises the blood-pressure

by causing extreme contraction of the arteries. This is mainly due to a

direct action on the muscular coats of the vessels, but is also partly

of central origin, since the drug also stimulates the vaso-motor centre

in the medulla oblongata. This action on the vessels is so marked as to

constitute the drug a haemostatic, not only locally but also remotely.

It may arrest bleeding from the nose, for instance, when injected

hypodermically. Nearly all the constituents share in causing this

action, but the sphacelinic acid is probably the most potent. Ergot is

the most powerful known stimulant of the pregnant uterus. The action is

a double one. At least four of its constituents act directly on the

muscular fibre of the uterus, whilst the cornutine acts through the

nerves. Of great practical importance is the fact that the cornutine

causes rhythmic contractions such as naturally occur, whilst the

sphacelinic acid produces a _tonic_ contraction of the uterus, which is

unnatural and highly inimical to the life of the foetus. Ergot is used

in therapeutics as a haemostatic, and is very valuable in haemoptysis

and sometimes in haematemesis. But its great use is in obstetrics. The

drug should regularly be given hypodermically, and it is important to

note that if the injection be made immediately under the skin, an

abscess, or considerable discomfort, may ensue. The injection should be

intra-muscular, the needle being boldly plunged into a muscular mass,

such as that of the deltoid or the gluteal region. The indications for

the use of ergot in obstetrics are highly complex and demand detailed

treatment. It can only be said here that the drug should only in the

rarest possible cases be given whilst the child is still _in utero_.

This rule is necessitated by the sphacelinic acid, which causes an

unnatural state of the organ. When it is possible to obtain pure

cornutine, which is unfortunately very expensive, the precautions

necessary in other cases may be abrogated.

_Chronic poisoning_, or _ergotism_, used frequently to occur amongst the

poor fed on rye infected with the _Claviceps_. As it is practically

impossible to reproduce the symptoms of ergotism nowadays, whether

experimentally in the lower animals, or when the drug is being

administered to a human being for some therapeutic purpose, it is

believed that the symptoms of ergotism were rendered possible only by

the semi-starvation which must have ensued from the use of such

rye-bread; for the grain disappears as the fungus develops. There were

two types of ergotism. In the gangrenous form various parts of the body

underwent gangrene as a consequence of the arrest of blood-supply

produced by the action of sphacelinic acid on the arteries. In the

spasmodic form the symptoms were of a nervous character. The initial

indications of the disease were cutaneous itching, tingling and

formication, which gave place to actual loss of cutaneous sensation,

first observed in the extremities. Amblyopia and some loss of hearing

also occurred, as well as mental failure. With weakness of the voluntary

muscles went intermittent spasms which weakened the patient and

ultimately led to death by implication of the respiratory muscles. The

last-known "epidemic" of ergotism occurred in Lorraine and Burgundy in

the year 1816.

ERIC XIV. (1533-1577), king of Sweden, was the only son of Gustavus Vasa

and Catherine of Saxe-Lauenburg. The news of his father's death reached

Eric as he was on the point of embarking for England to press in person

his suit for the hand of Queen Elizabeth. He hastened back to Stockholm,

after burying his father, summoned a _Riksdag_, which met at Arboga on

the 15th of April 1561, and adopted the royal propositions known as the

Arboga articles, considerably curtailing the authority of the royal

dukes, John and Charles, in their respective provinces. Two months

later Eric was crowned at Upsala, on which occasion he first introduced

the titles of baron and count into Sweden, by way of attaching to the

crown the higher nobility, these new counts and barons receiving

lucrative fiefs adequate to the maintenance of their new dignities.

From the very beginning of his reign Eric's morbid fear of the upper

classes drove him to give his absolute confidence to a man of base

origin and bad character, though, it must be admitted, of superior

ability. This was Goran Persson, born about 1530, who had been educated

abroad in Lutheran principles, and after narrowly escaping hanging at

the hands of Gustavus Vasa for some vile action entered the service of

his son. This powerful upstart was the natural enemy of the nobility,

who suffered much at his hands, though it is very difficult to determine

whether the initiative in these prosecutions proceeded from him or his

master. Goran was also a determined opponent of Duke John, with whom

Eric in 1563 openly quarrelled, because John, contrary to the royal

orders, had married (Oct. 4, 1562) Catherine, daughter of Sigismund I.

of Poland, engaging at the same time to assist the Polish king to

conquer Livonia. This act was a flagrant breach of that paragraph of the

Arboga articles which forbade the royal dukes to contract any political

treaty without the royal assent. An army of 10,000 men was immediately

sent by Eric to John's duchy of Finland, and John and his consort were

seized, brought over to Sweden and detained as prisoners of state in

Gripsholm Castle. But Eric did not stop here. His suspicion suggested to

him that, if his own brother failed him, the loyalty of the great

nobles, especially the members of the ancient Sture family, who had been

notable in Sweden when the Vasas were unknown, could not be depended

upon. The head of the Sture family at this time was Count Svante, who

had married a sister of Gustavus Vasa's second wife, and had by her a

numerous family, of whom two sons, Nils and Eric, still survived. The

dark tragedy, known as the Sture murders, began with Eric XIV.'s strange

treatment of young Count Nils. In 1566 he was summoned before a newly

erected tribunal and condemned to death for gross neglect of duty,

though not one of the frivolous charges brought against him could be

substantiated. The death penalty was commuted into a punishment worse

because more shameful than death. On the 15th of June 1566 the

unfortunate youth, bruised and bleeding from shocking ill-treatment, was

placed upon a wretched hack, with a crown of straw on his head, and led

in derision through the streets of Stockholm. The following night he was

sent a prisoner to the fortress of Orbyhus. A few days later he was

appointed ambassador extraordinary, and despatched to Lorraine to resume

the negotiations for Eric's marriage with the princess Renata. Before he

returned, however, Eric had resolved to marry Karin, or Kitty

Mansdatter, the daughter of a common soldier, who had been his mistress

since 1565. In January 1567 Eric extorted a declaration from two of his

senators that they would assist him to punish all who should try to

prevent his projected marriage; and, in the middle of May, a _Riksdag_

was summoned to Upsala to judge between the king and those of the

aristocracy whom he regarded as his personal enemies. Eric himself

arrived at Upsala on the 16th in a condition of incipient insanity. On

the 19th he opened parliament in a speech which, as he explained, he had

to deliver extempore owing to "the treachery" of his secretary. Two days

later Nils Sture arrived at Upsala fresh from his embassy to Lorraine,

and was at once thrown into prison, where other members of the nobility

were already detained. On the following day Eric murdered Nils in his

cell with his own hand, and by his order the other prisoners were

despatched by the royal provost marshal forthwith. These murders were

committed so promptly and secretly that it is doubtful whether the

estates, actually in session at the same place, knew what had been done

when, on the 26th of May, under violent pressure from Goran Persson,

they signed a document declaring that all the accused gentlemen under

detention had acted like traitors, and confirming all sentences already

passed or that might be passed upon them.