Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/893

Rh O R E O R E 827 The territory of the Orenburg Cossacks, which extends as a narrow strip up the Ural river, occupies the whole of the govern ment east of the Ural mountains, and joins, by a narrow line of posts, the former line of blockhouses of the Siberian Cossacks, has an area of 35,820 square miles, with a population in 1880 of 290,800 Cossacks and 16,460 peasants ; 25, 000 were Moslem Bashkirs. ORENBURG, capital of the above government, is situ ated on the right bank of the Ural river, 933 miles by rail south-east from Moscow. The fortress, which has eleven bastions and a circumference of 6300 yards, has lost its importance since the recent advances of Russia towards the south-east, and is falling into decay. The town, on the other hand, is rapidly increasing, and now includes the former suburbs of Golubinaya and Novaya. The population is 35,600. Orenburg has a military cadet school, two lower military schools, a lyceum, and various primary schools, one of them for Kirghiz children. The inhabitants are chiefly occupied in agriculture and trade. The manufactures are few, but the trade is steadily increasing ; the imports include cotton, silk, furs, wool, cattle, and horses, while cotton and woollen stuffs, cotton yarn, leather, colours, sugar, and grain are exported. Orenburg is connected, by rail with Samara on the Volga and with Moscow. The government of Orenburg was formerly inhabited by the Kirghiz in the south and the Bashkirs in the north. The latter were brought under the rule of Russia in 1557, and the fort of Ufa was erected a few years later in order to protect them against the raids of the Kirghiz. The frequent risings of the Bashkirs and the continuous attacks of the Kirghiz led the Russian Govern ment in the 18th century to erect a line of forts and blockhouses on the Ural and Sakmara rivers, which was afterwards extended south - westwards towards the Caspian, and eastwards towards Omsk. The central point of these military lines was the fort of Orenburg, originally founded at the confluence of the Or with the Ural (now Orsk), and afterwards removed (in 1740) 120 miles lower down the Ural river to its present site. In 1773 it was besieged by Pugatchoff, the leader of the great revolt of the
 * easaiitry, supported by the Bashkirs. The government of Oivn-

urg was created in 1774, embracing a wide territory which reached to the Volga, to the Caspian, and to Perm, the limits to the eastward being undefined. In 1865 this was divided into two governments, Ufa in the north and Orenburg in the south. The steppe of the Kirghiz, which extends south of the Ural river towards the Caspian and the Sea of Aral, continued under the jurisdiction of the governor -general of Orenburg. Recently the steppe of the Orenburg Kirghiz has been incorporated with the newly-created provinces of Turgay and Uralsk ; and the territory of the Orenburg Cossacks, formerly independent, has -been brought within the government of Orenburg, and subdivided into districts. ORENSE, an inland province of Spain, is bounded on the N. by Pontevedra and Lugo, on the E. by I. eon and Zamora, on the S. by Portugal (Traz oz Montes), and on the W. by Portugal (Entre Douro e Minho) and Pontevedra, and has an area of 2738 square miles. Its general char acter is mountainous, and its products are those common to all GALICIA (q.v. of which historical province it formed a part. The principal rivers are the Minho and the Sil. The population in 1877 was 388,835; only one town (Orense) had a population exceeding 10,000. OKENSE, capital of the above province, and the see of a bishop, suffragan to Santiago, stands on the western slope of Montealegre, on the left bank of the Minho. The river is here crossed by a bridge one of the most remarkable in Spain of seven arches, 1319 feet in length, and at its highest point 135 feet above the bed of the river, built by Bishop Lorenzo in 1230 and repaired about the middle of the 1 5th century. The principal feature of the town is the Gothic cathedral, also dating from Bishop Lorenzo s time (1 230) ; it is a comparatively small and unimportant build ing, but has a miraculous image, &quot; El Santo Cristo,&quot; of wide celebrity in Spain, which was brought from Cape Finisterre in 1330. The three warm springs to the west of the town, known as Las Burgas, attract a considerable number of summer visitors ; the waters are similar to those of Carlsbad. The trade and manufactures of the place are unimportant. i: Orense the Aqux Oriyinis, or perhaps Salientis, of the Romans in 1877 had a population, within the ayunta- miento, of 12,586. ORESTES, son of Agamemnon and Clytsemnestra. According to the legend in Homer, he was absent from Mycenae when his father returned from the Trojan War, and was murdered by ^Egisthus. Eight years later Orestes returned, and revenged his father s death by slaying his mother and her paramour. Pindar mentions that his nurse saved him and conveyed him out of the coun try when Clytsemnestra wished to kill him. The tale is told much more fully and with many variations in the tragedians. He was preserved by his sister Electra, and conveyed to Phanote on Mount Parnassus, where king Strophius took charge of him. In his twentieth year he was ordered by the oracle to return home and revenge his father s death. According to J^schylus, he met his sister Electra before the tomb of Agamemnon, whither both had gone to perform rites to the dead ; a recognition takes place, and they arrange how Orestes shall accomplish his revenge. Orestes, after the deed, goes mad, and is pur sued by the Erinnyes, whose duty it is to punish any violation of the ties of family piety. He takes refuge in the temple at Delphi ; but, though Apollo had ordered him to do. the deed, he is powerless to protect his suppliant from the consequences. At last Athena receives him on the acropolis of Athens and arranges a formal trial of the case before twelve Attic judges. The Erinnyes demand their victim ; he pleads the orders of Apollo ; the votes of the judges are equally divided, and Athena gives her cast ing vote for acquittal. The Erinnyes are propitiated by a new ritual, in which they are worshipped as Eumenides (the Kindly), and Orestes dedicates an altar to Athena Areia. Such is the account in which authorities generally agree, but Euripides introduces a different series of adven tures after Orestes has taken refuge at Delphi. Apollo orders him to go to Tauris, carry off the statue of Artemis which had fallen from heaven, and bring it to Athens. He repairs to Tauris with Pylades, and the pair are at once imprisoned by the people, among whom the custom is to sacrifice all strangers to Artemis. The priestess of Artemis, whose duty it is to perform the sacrifice, is Iphigeneia, the daughter of Agamemnon, who had been transported hither by the goddess when her father was about to offer her (see IPHIGENEIA). She offers to release Orestes if he will carry home a letter from her to Greece ; he refuses to go, but bids Pylades take the letter while he himself will stay and be slain. After a conflict of mutual affection, Pylades at last yields, but the letter brings about a recognition between brother and sister, and all three escape together, carrying with them the image of Artemis. Orestes appears also as a central figure in the legends of many other places. In C appadocia he introduced the worship of Artemis Taui opolos at Comana and Castabala. Near Gythium in Laconia was a stone called Zeus Cappotas ; here the madness left Orestes. In Trcezen there was before the temple of Artemis a stone on which Orestes was purified, and a hut in front of the temple of Apollo Thearius in which he stayed till the purification was accomplished. Seven stadia from Megalopolis, on the left of the road to Messene, was a shrine of the Mania-, i.e., the Erinnyes. Immediately beyond it was a tumulus, on the summit of which was an upright stone like a finger, AO.KTVOV ~MVT)/M, where Orestes bit off his own finger in his madness. Beyond the mound was another shrine of the Erinnyes, worshipped now as Eumenides in association with the Charites (see GRACES). Here the Erinnyes, who had hitherto appeared black to Orestes, appeared white to him, and the madness left him. Then he cut off his hair as an offering at a place Kovpelov. The name of the tumulus is clearly connected with the belief still frequently occurring that a hand appears out of the tomb of any person who has murdered a mother or been murdered by her. The tumulus itself was obviously one of those graves, which were especi ally common in Lydia, a tumulus with a pillar on the apex ; such tumuli were found in Laconia, where, as AtheiMeus says, they were called &quot;the graves of the Phrygians who came with Pelops.&quot;