Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/331

Rh S A R S A R 311 and by Hippocrates (De Aer., 17) that no maiden was allowed to marry till she had slain a foe (or three foes), after which she laid aside her masculine habits. The Scythians, we are told, called the Amazons OlopTrara, winch seems to be an Iranian name and to mean "lords of man," and it is reasonable to think that the word was applied to the Sarmatian viragos by the Scythians, who themselves kept women in great subjection, and thus expressed their surprise at the dominating position of the female sex among their neighbours beyond the Don. But in spite of the difference of their customs in this point Scythians and Sarmatians spoke almost the same language (Herod, iv. 117), and, whatever difficulty still remains as to the race of the Scythians, their language and religion are now generally held to have been of Iranian character (see SCYTHIA). That the Sarmatians, at least, were of Median origin is the express opinion of Diodorus (ii. 43) and Pliny. From their seats east of the Danube the Sarmatians at a later date moved westward into the lands formerly Scythian, one branch, the " transplanted " lazyges (I. /xera- vaorai) being settled between the Danube and the Theiss at the time of the Dacian wars of Rome, while other Sarmatian tribes, such as the Maitae on the eastern shores of Lake Masotis and the Roxolani between the Don and the Dnieper, ranged over the steppes of southern Russia. The country of Sarmatia, however, as that term is used for example by Ptolemy, means much more than the lands of the Sarmatians, comprising all the eastern European plain from the Vistula and the Dniester to the Volga, whether inhabited by nomad Sarmatians, by agricultural Slavs and Letts, or even by Finns. This Sarmatia was arbitrarily divided into an Asiatic and a European part, east and west of the Don respectively. SARNO, a city of Italy, in the province of Salerno, 30 miles east of Naples by rail, lies at the foot of the Apennines near the sources of the Sarno, a stream con- nected by canal with Pompeii and the sea. Besides the cathedral, a basilica erected in 1625 at some distance from the city, Sarno has several interesting churches and the ruins of a mediaeval castle. Paper, cotton, silk, linen, and hemp are manufactured. The population of the town in 1881 was 11,445. Previous to its incorporation with the domains of the crown of Naples, Sarno gave its name to a countship held in succession by the Orsini, Cappola, Suttavilla, and Colonna families. SARPI, PIETRO (1552-1623), was born at Venice, August 14, 1552, and was the son of a small trader, who left him an orphan at an early age. Quiet, serious, devoted to study, endowed with great tenacity of applica- tion and a prodigious memory, the boy seemed born for a monastic life, and, notwithstanding the opposition of his relatives, entered the order of the Servi di Maria, a minor Augustinian congregation of Florentine origin, at the age of thirteen. He assumed the name of Paolo, by which, with the epithet Servita, he was always known to his con- temporaries. In 1570 he sustained no fewer than three hundred and eighteen theses at a disputation in Mantua, with such applause that the duke attached the youthful divine to his service by making him court theologian. Sarpi spent four years at Mantua, applying himself with the utmost zeal to mathematics and the Oriental languages. He there made the acquaintance of Olivo, formerly secre- tary to a papal legate at the council of Trent, from whom he learned much that he subsequently introduced into his History. After leaving Mantua for some unexplained reason, he repaired to Milan, where he enjoyed the pro- tection of Cardinal Borromeo, another authority in the council, but was soon transferred by his superiors to Venice, as professor of philosophy at the Servite convent. In 1579 he was sent to Rome on business connected with the reform of his order, which occupied him several years, and brought him into intimate relations with three successive popes, as well as the grand inquisitor and other persons of influence. The impression which the papal court made upon him may be collected from his sub- sequent history. Having successfully terminated the affairs entrusted to him, he returned to Venice in 1588, and passed the next seventeen years in quiet study, occasionally interrupted by the part he was compelled to take in the internal disputes of his community. In 1601 he was recommended by the Venetian senate for the small bishopric of Caorle, but the papal nuncio, who wished to obtain it for a protege of his own, informed the pope that Sarpi denied the immortality of the soul, and had controverted the authority of Aristotle. An attempt to procure another small bishopric in the following year also failed, Clement VIII. professing to have taken umbrage at Sarpi's extensive correspondence with learned heretics, but more probably determined to thwart the desires of the liberal rulers of Venice. The sense of injury, no doubt, contributed to exasperate Sarpi's feelings towards the court of Rome, but a man whose master passions were freedom of thought and love of country could not have played any other part than he did in the great contest which was impending. For the time, however, he tranquilly pursued his studies, writing those notes on Vieta which establish his proficiency in mathematics, and a metaphysical treatise now lost, which, if Foscarini's account of it may be relied upon, anticipated the sensa- tionalism of Locke. His anatomical pursuits probably date from a somewhat earlier period. They illustrate his versatility and thirst for knowledge, but are far from possessing the importance ascribed to them by the affection of his disciples. His claim to have anticipated Harvey's discovery rests on no better authority than a memorandum, probably copied from Caesalpinus" or Harvey himself, with whom, as well as with Bacon and Gilbert, he maintained a correspondence. The only physiological discovery which can be safely attributed to him is that of the contractility of the iris. It must be remembered, however, that his treatises on scientific subjects are lost, and only known from imperfect abstracts. The prudent Clement died in March 1605; and after one ephemeral succession and two very long conclaves Paul V. assumed the tiara with the resolution to strain papal prerogative to the uttermost. At the same time Venice was adopting measures to restrict it still further. The right of the secular tribunals to take cognizance of the offences of ecclesiastics had been asserted in two remarkable cases ; and the scope of two ancient laws of the city of Venice, forbidding the foundation of churches or ecclesiastical congregations without the consent of the state, and the acquisition of property by priests or religious bodies, had been extended over the entire territory of the republic. In January 1606 the papal nuncio delivered a brief demanding the unconditional sub- mission of the Venetians. The senate having promised protection to all ecclesiastics who should in this emergency aid the republic by their counsel, Sarpi presented a memoir, pointing out that the threatened censures might be met in two ways, de facto, by prohibiting their publication, and dejure, by an appeal to a general council. The document was received with universal applause, and Sarpi was immediately made canonist and theological counsellor to the republic. When in the following April the last hopes of accommodation were dispelled by Paul's excommunica- tion of the Venetians and his attempt to lay their dominions under an interdict, Sarpi entered with the utmost energy into the controversy. He prudently began by republishing the anti-papal opinions of the famous