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Rh Latin, is chiefly found in scientific applications, of processes or phenomena which are continued through the ages and are not regularly recurrent or periodical, e.g. the secular cooling of the earth, secular change of the mean annual change of the temperature. The word is thus used widely of that which is lasting or permanent. In medieval and Late Latin, saecularis was particularly used of that which belongs to this world, hence non-spiritual, lay. It is thus used, first to distinguish the “regular” or monastic clergy from those who were not bound by the rule (regula) of a religious order, the parish priests, the “seculars,” who were living in the world, and secondly in the wide sense of anything which is distinct, opposed to or not connected with religion or ecclesiastical things, temporal as opposed to spiritual or ecclesiastical. Thus property transferred or alienated from spiritual to temporal hands is said to be “secularized”; “” (q.v.) is the term applied in general to the separation of state politics or administration from religious or church matters; “ secular education ” is a system of training in which definite religious teaching is excluded.

SECULAR GAMES (Ludi Saeculares, originally Terentini). These were celebrated at Rome for three days and nights to mark the commencement of a new saeculum or generation. It is important to note that there was a saeculum civile, the length of which was definitely fixed at 100 years, and a saeculum naturale, which, under Greek and Etruscan influence, came to be accepted by the quindecimviri as 110 years. According to tradition, the secular games had their origin in certain sacrificial rites of the gens Valeria, which were performed at the Terentum, a volcanic cleft in the Campus Martius. According to the Roman antiquarians themselves, they were derived from the Etruscans, who, at the end of a mean period of 100 years (as representing the longest human life in a generation), presented to the chthonian deities an expiatory offering on behalf of the coming generation. The first definitely attested celebration of the games took place in 249, on which occasion a vow was made that they should be repeated every hundredth year (their name being also changed to Saeculares), a regulation which seems to have been immediately disregarded, for they were next held in 146 (not 149, although the authorities are not unanimous); in 49 the civil wars prevented any celebration. They would probably have fallen entirely into oblivion, had not Augustus revived them in 17, for which occasion the Carmen Saeculare was composed by Horace. In explanation of the selection of this year it is supposed that the quindecimviri invented celebrations for the years 456, 346, 236, 126, the saeculum being taken as lasting 110 years.

 SECULARISM, a term applied specially (see ) to the system of social ethics associated with the name of G. J. Holyoake (q.v.). As the word implies, secularism is based solely on considerations of practical morality with a view to the physical, social and moral improvement of society. It neither affirms nor denies the theistic premises of religion, and is thus a particular variety of utilitarianism. Holyoake founded a society in London which subsequently under the leadership of Charles Bradlaugh advocated the disestablishment of the Church, the abolition of the Second Chamber and other political and economic reforms.

SECUND (Lat. seconds, following), a botanical term used of plants when similar parts are directed to one side only, as flowers on an axis.

 SECUNDERABAD, one of the chief British military stations in India, situated in the state of Hyderabad or the Nizam’s Dominions, 1830 ft. above sea-level, and 6 m. N.E. of Hyderabad city. Pop. (1901) 83,550. It is now the headquarters of the 9th division of the southern army. Secunderabad includes Bolaram, the former cantonment of the Hyderabad contingent (now merged in the Indian army), and also Trimulgherry, the artillery cantonment, covering a total area of 22 sq. m. These two places have an additional population of 12,888.

 SECUNDUS, JOHANNES, whose real name was (1511–1536), Latin poet, was born at The Hague on the 10th of November 1511. He was descended from an ancient family in the Netherlands; his father, Nicholas Everts, or Everard, seems to have been high in the favour of the emperor Charles V. On what account the son was called Secundus, is not known. His father intended him for the law; but though he took his degree at Bourges it does not appear that he devoted much time to legal pursuits. Poetry, painting and sculpture engaged his mind at a very early period. In 1533 he went to Spain, and soon afterwards became secretary to the cardinal archbishop of Toledo, in a department of business which required no other qualification than that of writing Latin with elegances. During this period he composed his most famous work, the Basia, a series of amatory poems, of which the fifth, seventh, and ninth Carmina of Catullus seem to have given the hint. In 1534 he accompanied Charles V. to the siege of Tunis. After quitting the service of the archbishop, Secundus was employed as secretary by the 'bishop of Utrecht; and so much did he distinguish himself by his compositions that he was called upon to fill the important post of private Latin secretary to the emperor, who was then in Italy. But, having arrived at St Arnand; near Tournay, he died of fever on the 8th of October 1536.

SECUNDUS, PUBLIUS POMPONIUS, Roman general and tragic poet, lived during the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius. He was on intimate terms with the elder Pliny, who wrote a biography of him (now lost). The chief authority for his life is Tacitus, according to whom Secundus was a man of refinement and brilliant intellect. His friendship with Sejanus and his brother made him politically suspect, and he only escaped death by remaining practically a prisoner in his own brother’s house until the accession of Caligula. During his enforced retirement he composed tragedies, which were put on the stage during the reign of Claudius. In 50 he distinguished himself against the Chatti and obtained the honour of the triumphal insignia. Quintilian asserts that he was far superior to any writer of tragedies he had known, and Tacitus expresses a high opinion of his literary abilities. Secundus devoted much attention to the niceties of grammar and style, on which he was recognized as an authority. Only a few lines of his work remain, some of which belong to the tragedy Aeneas.

See O. Ribbeck, Geschichte der römischen Dichtung, iii.(1892),