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 GLABRIO

575

6LAG0LITIC

Suza in Italy. Yielding again to his roving disposi- tion, Glaber quietly ran away and entered the monas- tery of St-Germain d'Auxerre. Thanks to his learn- ing, he was sure of a refuge, as he tells us, wherever he chose to go. Judging, then, by the mediocre talent displayed in his writings, this fact alone shows us to what depths literary culture had sunk in his time. The monks at St-Germain got him to restore or com- pose the inscriptions on the numerous altars in their church, and on the tombs of the saints who were buried in it. When this w-as done his wanderings be- gan again, and he tried the religious life at Beza, and at Cluny under St. Odilo. He seems at this time to have acquired with increasing years a disposition more in keeping with his profession, and he died at Cluny about 1050. His was a proud, indocile, rest- less spirit. From his writings we learn that he always had a lively faith, but was extraordinarily supersti- tious. Of his works there remain: " Wilhelmi abbatis gestorum liber", the life of his superior at Dijon, printed in Acta SS., 1 Jan., 57 sqc).; and his "Chroni- cle", for which he is chiefly remembered. This is a his- tory of the world, as he knew it, from the year 900 till 1045. It was written in Latin, partly at Cluny and partly at St-Germain. Glaber is quite devoid of liter- ary style; and critical spirit he has none, the most tri\aal events and tales being put on exactly the same plane as the most important facts. His chronology and geography are quite deficient; yet, despite all its faults, the work is interesting and useful, as it gives us an in- sight into the customs and morals of an age when Chris- tianity on the continent had reached a very low ebb.

Prou, Raoul Glaber (Paris, 1887); Sackur, Sludien iiber Glaber in Neu. Archiv Ges. alt. deu. Gesch. (1888), XIV. 377-418; GuizOT, Coll. des mem., VI (Paris. 1823); Petit. Raoul Glaber in Rev. historique (1892), XLVIII, 283-300; Gebhart, Moines et papes (Paris, 1896), 1-62.

A. A. MacErlban.

Glabrio, Manius Acilius, consul at Rome during A. D. 91, with Trajan. He belonged to one of the noblest families of Rome, no fewer than nine of his name having held the consular office, the first being that Acilius Glabrio who was consul in A. u. c. 563 (191 B. c), conquered the Macedonians at the battle of TherraopyliE, and in whose honour the Temple of Piety, now the church of S. Nicola in Carcere, was erected. The family attained great wealth and power, and their gardens, in the early imperial period, cov- ered the whole of what is now the Pineian Hill. The subject of the present memoir was put to death by Domitian in the year 95. Suetonius (Domit., c. x) tells us that the emperor caused several senators and ex-consuls to be e.xecuted on the charge of conspiring against the empire — quasi molitorcs rerum novarum, " as contrivers of novelty" — and among them he names " Acilius Glabrio, who had previously been banished from Rome". The charge of "contriving novelties" seems in this particular case — not, however, in the others which are mentioned with it — to denote adhe- sion to the Christian religion. Dio Cassius (Ixvii, 12, 14) tells us, "as also does Juvenal (Sat., iv, 94), that, during his consulship and before his banishment, Glabrio was forced by Domitian to fight with a lion and two bears in the amphitheatre adjoining the em- peror's villa at Albanum. This amphitheatre still exists, and was excavated in 1887. It is partly hol- lowed out of the side of the mountain, and commands a remarkable view. Xiphilinus, speaking of the exe- cutions of 95, says that some members of the imperial family and other persons of importance were con- demned for atheism, as having embraced " the cus- toms and persuasions of the Jews", that is, of course, the Christian Faith. Among these he mentions Clem- ens and Domitilla, of whose Christianity there is no doubt. Glabrio was involved in this trial and suffered under this indictment, so that we could have little doubt that he too was a Christian, even if we had not

the archaeological evidence of which we shall now speak.

Glabrio was put to death in his place of exile, con- cerning the location of which we have no knowledge. But his body was brought to Rome, and buried on the Via Salaria, in the catacomb of Priscilla. Here the crypt, in which he with many of his family and de- pendents was laid to rest, w'as discovered in 1888. Henceforth there can be no doubt of his religion, or concerning the cause of his execution. Unfortunately, the crypt had been wrecked by treasure-seekers, the date of whose vandalistic action can be fixed as the time of Clement VIII (1G67-70). The hypogsura was of very unusual form, consisting of a single lar^e ambulacrum or " cryptoporticus in gamma", that is turned at right angles with its own staircase. The places for tombs were all large "arcosolia", or niches for sarcophagi ; there was not a single loculus of the usual cemeterial pattern in the walls. At the end of the longer arm of the gamma a passage was opened into a large hall, nine yards by four and a half, barrel- vaulted and with a square "lucernarium", which had apparently originally been a cistern for water. It had contained an altar, raised over a tomb, with spiral col- umns of giallo antico, and was at one time beautifully decorated, but had been entirely wrecked. In it, how- ever, were found fragments of a marble sarcophagus, with the inscription acilio glabrio. . . filio still legible. Other fragments were afterwards discovered, which placed it beyond doubt that here was a burying- place of the Acilian family, round one of their race who apparently had been a martyr. The lettering of the cliief inscription being of the time of Domitian or thereabouts, and the fact that the hypoga;um itself belongs to the earliest age of Christianity, is sufficient to enable us to feel certain that we have here the tomb of the famous consul. The date and the circumstances connected with the translation of his relics to Rome from the place where he suffered are not known.

De Rossi, Bulletlino di arch. Crist. (1888-9). p. 15; (1890). p. 97; Lanciani. Pagan or Christian Rome (London, 1892), p. 4; Idem, in Atlantic Monthly (Boston, July. 1891); Frotting- HAM. in Arneriean Journal of Archceology (Boston, June, 1888); Le Blan't, Comptes rendus de V Acad, des InscHpt. (Paris, 1888), p. 113; Marucchi, Le Catacombe Romane (Rome, 1903), pp. 459-66; Armellixi, Gli antichi cimiteri (Rome, 1893); Allard, Les catacombes de Rome (Paris, 1896).

Arthur S. Barnes.

Glagolitic (or Glagolitsa; Slavonic gJojoZ, a word; glagolati, to speak). An ancient alphabet of the Slavic languages, also called in Russian bukvitsa. The ancient Slavonic when reduced to writing seems to have been originally wTitten with a kind of runic letters, which, when formed into a regular alphabet, were called the Glagolitic, that is the signs which spoke. St. Cyril, who, together with his brother St. Methodius, translated the Greek liturgy into Slavonic when he converted the Bulgarians and Moravians, invented the form of letters tlerived from the Greek alphabet with which the church Slavonic is usually written. This is known as the Cyrillic alphabet or Kirillitsa. The Cyrillic form of letters is used in all the liturgical books of the Greek Churches, whether Catholic or schismatic, which use the Slavonic language in their liturgy, and even the present Russian alpha- bet, the Grazhdanska, is merely a modified form of the Cyrillic with a few letters omitted. The order of the letters of the alphabet in the Cilagolitic and in the Cyrillic is nearly the same, but the letters bear no resemblance to each other, except possibly in one or two instances. Jagic upholds the theory that St. Cyril himself invented the Glagolitic, and that his disciple St. Clement transformed it into Cyrillic by imitating the Greek uncial letters of his day. There is a tradition, however, that St. Jerome, who was a Dalmatian, was the inventor. Some of the earliest Slavic manu.scripts are written in the Cilagolitic charac- ters. The Cyrillic alphabet continued to be used for