Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/116

Rh 106 M E T M E T on April 25, 1809, he successfully concluded the important treaty securing the independence of the Sikh states between the Sutlej and the Jumna. Four years afterwards he was made principal resident at Delhi, and in 1819 he received the appointments of secretary in the secret and political de partment, and of private secretary to the governor-general (Lord Hastings). From 1820 to 1823 Sir Charles (who succeeded his brother in the baronetcy in 1822) was resident at the court of the nizam, but in the latter year he was com pelled by the state of his health to retire from active service ; in 1825, however, he was so far restored as to undertake the residency of the Delhi territories. Two years after wards he obtained a seat in the supreme council, and in February 1835, after he had for some time been governor of Agra, he, as senior member of council, provisionally succeeded Lord William Bentinck in the governor-general ship. During his brief tenure of office (it lasted only till March 28, 1836) he originated or carried out several important measures, including that for the liberation of the press, which, while almost universally popular, complicated his relation with the directors at home to such an extent that he withdrew from the service of the Company in 1838. In the following year he was appointed by the Melbourne administration to the governorship of Jamaica, where the difficulties created by the recent passing of the Negro Emancipation Act had called for a high degree of tact and ability. Sir Charles Metcalfe s success in this delicate position was very marked (see vol. xiii. p. 551). but unfor tunately his health compelled his resignation and return to England in 1842. Six months afterwards he was appointed by the Peel ministry to the governor-generalship of Canada, and his success in carrying out the policy of the home Government was rewarded with a peerage shortly after his return in 1845. He died at Malshanger, near Basingstoke, September 5, 1846. See J. W. Kaye s Life and Corre spondence of Charles Lord Metcalfe, London, 1854. METELLUS, the name of the most important family of the Roman plebeian gens Csecilia. They rose to distinction during the Second Punic War, and Nasvius satirized them. QUINTUS C^ECILIUS METELLUS MACEDONICUS, praetor 148 B.C. in Macedonia, defeated Andriscus in two battles, and forced him to surrender. He then superintended the conversion of Macedonia into a Roman province. He tried unsuccessfully to mediate between the Achaean league and Sparta, but, when the Achaeans advanced, he defeated them easily near Scarpheia ; Mummius soon after super seded him, and returning to Italy he triumphed in 146. Consul in 143, he reduced northern Spain to obedience. In 131 censor with Q. Pompeius (the first two plebeian censors), he proposed that all citizens should be compelled to marry. He was a moderate reformer, and was con sidered the model of a fortunate man ; before his death in 115 three of his sons had been consuls, one censor, and the fourth was a candidate for the consulship. QUINTUS C^CILIUS METELLUS NUMIDICUS, whose repu tation for integrity was such that when he was accused of ex tortion the jury refused to examine his accounts, was selected to command against Jugurtha in 109 B.C. He subjected the army to rigid discipline, and aimed solely at seizing Jugurtha himself; he defeated the king by the river Muthul, and next year, after a difficult march through the desert, took his stronghold Thala. Marius, however, accused Metellus of protracting the war, and received the consulate for 107. Metellus returned to Rome and triumphed. Saturninus, whom as censor he tried to remove from the senate, passed in 100 an agrarian law, inserting a provision that all senators should swear to it within five days. All complied but Metellus, who retired to Asia. After Saturninus was killed, he returned, but died shortly after under suspicion of poison. QUINTUS C^CILIUS METELLUS Pius, so called from his efforts to restore his father Numidicus, commanded in tlte Social War, defeating Q. Pompaedius (88 B.C.). Sulla on departing gave him proconsular command over South Italy. When Marius returned, the soldiers, who had no confidence in Octavius, wished Metellus to command, but he refused. Metellus retired to Africa and afterwards to Liguria, resuming his former command on Sulla s return. In 86 he gained a decisive victory over Norbanus at Faventia. In Sulla s proscriptions he pleaded in favour of moderation. Consul in 80 with Sulla, he went to Spain next year against Sertorius, who pressed him hard till the arrival of Pompeius in 76. Next year Metellus defeated Sertorius s lieutenant Hirtuleius at Italica and Segovia, and joining Pompeius rescued him from the consequences of a check at Sucro. From this time Sertorius grew weaker till his murder in 72. Metellus had previously set a price on his head. In 71 he returned to Rome and triumphed. He was an upright man, of moderate ability. QUINTUS C^CILIUS METELLUS Pius SCIPIO, son of Scipio Nasica, was adopted by the preceding. He was accused of bribery in 60 B.C., and defended by Cicero. In August 52 Pompeius procured him the consulate. Scipio in return supported Pompeius, now his son-in-law. On war being resolved on, Scipio was sent to Syria. His extor tions were excessive, and he was about to plunder the temple of Artemis at Ephesus when he was recalled by Pompeius. He commanded the centre at Pharsalus, and afterwards went to Africa, where by Cato s influence he received the command. In 46 he was defeated at Thapsus ; in his flight to Spain he was stopped by a cor sair, and stabbed himelf. His connexion with two great families gave him importance ; but he was selfish and licentious, and his violence drove many from his party. QUINTUS C^ECILIUS METELLUS CELER, praetor 63 B.C., was sent to cut off Catiline s retreat northward. Consul in 6 1 , his personal influence prevented the holding of the Com- pitalia, which the senate had forbidden and the tribunes permitted. He opposed the agrarian law of the tribune L. Flavius, and stood firm even though imprisoned ; the law had to be given up. He also tried, though fruitlessly, to obstruct Caesar s agrarian law in 59. He died that year under suspicion of poison given by his wife Clodia. METEMPSYCHOSIS, the transmigration of the soul, as an immortal essence, into successive bodily forms, either human or animal. This doctrine, famous in antiquity, and one of the characteristic doctrines of Pythagoras, appears to have originated in Egypt. This indeed is affirmed by Herodotus (ii. 123) : &quot;The Egyptians are, moreover, the first who propounded the theory that the human soul is im mortal, and that when the body of any one perishes it enters into some other creature that may be born ready to receive it, and that, when it has gone the round of all created forms on land, in water, and in air, then it once more enters a human body born for it ; and this cycle of existence for the soul takes place in three thousand years.&quot; Plato, in a well-known passage of the Ph&drm, adapts, as was his wont, the Pythagorean doctrine to his myth or allegory about the soul of the philosopher. That soul, he says, though it may have suffered a fall in its attempt to contemplate celestial things, still is not condemned, in its first entrance into another form, to any bestial existence, but, according to its attainments, i.e., to the progress which it has made in its aspiration for celestial verities, it passes, in nine distinct grades, into the body of some one destined to become a philosopher, a poet, a king, a general, a seer, &amp;lt;fec. ; or, if very inferior, it will animate a sophist or an autocrat (Tvpawos). Plato extends the cycle of existence to ten thousand years, which is subdivided into periods of a thousand years, after the lapse of which the souls undergo