Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/710

Rh 684 S E R S E R the old fortress, situated on a promontory formed by a bend of the Nara, a few heaps of stones are the only remains. The population in 1884 was 22,420. Serpukhoff is one of the oldest towns of the principality of Moscow ; it is mentioned in the will of Ivan Daislovicn (1328), at which time it was a nearly independent principality under the protectorate of Moscow. Its fortress, protecting Moscow on the south, was often attacked by the Tatars ; Toktamish plundered it in 1382, and the Lithuanian prince Svidrigaito in 1410. In 1556 the town was strongly fortified, so that fifteen years later it was able to resist the Mongol invasion. Its commercial importance dates from the 18th century. SEETORIUS, QTJINTUS. The life and career of the Roman Sertorius, a man of remarkable genius both as a general and as a statesman, may be said to be comprised between the years 105 and 72 B.C., a period of civil war and revolution in the Roman world, when every man of any mark had to be an adherent either of Sulla or of Marius. Sertorius, who came from a little Sabine village under the Apennines and was a self-made man, attached himself to the party of the latter, and served under him in 102 B.C. at the great battle of Aquae Sextiae (Aix), in which the Teutones were decisively defeated. Three years before he had witnessed the rout of a Roman army by the Cimbri on the Rhone. In 97 he was serving in Spain and thus had a good opportunity of making himself acquainted with the country with which his fame is chiefly associated. In 91 he was quaestor in Cisalpine Gaul, and on his return to Rome he met with such a hearty welcome that he would have been elected to the tribuneship but for the decided opposition of Sulla. He now declared himself for Marius and the democratic party, though of Marius himself as a man he had the worst opinion. He must have been a con- senting party to those hideous massacres of Marius and Cinna in 87, though he seems to have done what he could to mitigate their horrors by putting a stop to the outrages perpetrated by the scum of Marius's soldiery. On Sulla's return from the East and the war with Mithradates in 83, Sertorius left Rome for Spain, where he represented the Marian or democratic party, but, it would appear, without receiving any definite commission or appointment. Here he passed the remainder of his life, with the exception of some cruises in the Mediterranean in conjunction with Cilician pirates, and of a campaign in Mauretania, in which he defeated one of Sulla's generals and captured Tingis (Tangier). This success recommended him to the Spaniards, more particularly to the Lusitanian tribes in the west, whom Roman generals and governors of Sulla's party had plun- dered and oppressed. Brave and kindly and gifted with a rough telling eloquence, Sertorius was just the man to impress Spaniards favourably, and the native militia, which he organized, spoke of him as the "new Hannibal." Many Roman refugees and deserters joined him, and with these and his Spanish volunteers he completely defeated one of Sulla's generals and droVe Metellus, who had been specially sent against him from Rome, out of Lusitania, or Further Spain as the Romans called it. Sertorius owed much of his success to his statesmanlike ability, and it seems that he aspired to be in Spain what the great Agricola after- wards was in Britain. His object was to build up a stable government in the country with the consent and co-opera- tion of the people, whom he wished to civilize after the Latin model. He established a senate of 300 members, drawn from Roman emigrants, with probably a sprinkling of the best Spaniards. For the children of the chief native families he provided a school at Osca (Huesca), where they received a Roman education and even adopted the dress of Roman youths. Strict and severe as he was with his soldiers, he was particularly considerate to the people generally and made their burdens as light as possible. It seems clear that he had a peculiar gift for evoking the enthusiasm of rude tribes, and we can well understand how the famous white fawn, which was his constant com- panion, may have promoted his popularity. For six year.s he may be said to have really ruled Spain. In 77 he was joined by Perpenna, one of the officers of Lepidus, from Rome, with a following of Roman nobles, and in the same year the great Pompey, then quite a young man and merely, f a knight, was sent by the senate to take the command in Spain and with Metellus to crush Sertorius. The war was waged with varying success, but on the whole Sertorius proved himself more than a match for his adversaries, utterly defeating their united forces on one occasion near Saguntum. Pompey wrote to Rome for reinforcements, without which, he said, he and Metellus would be driven out of Spain. Rome's position was very critical, the more so as Sertorius was in league with the pirates in the Medi- terranean, was negotiating with the formidable Mithradates, and was in communication with the insurgent slaves in Italy. But owing to jealousies among the Roman officers who served under him and the Spaniards of higher rank he could not maintain his position, and his influence over the native tribes slipped away from him, though he won vic- tories to the last. In 72 he was assassinated at a banquet, Perpenna, it seems, being the chief instigator of the deed. What we know of Sertorius is mainly drawn from Plutarch's Lives, from Appian, and from the fragments of Sallust. There is a good life of him by G. Long in Smith's Class. Diet. SERVANT. See MASTER AND SERVANT. SERVETUS, MICHAEL, orMiGUELSERVETo(1511-1553), physician and polemic, was born in 151 1 1 at Tudela in Navarre (according to his Vienne deposition), his father being Hernando Villanueva, a notary of good family in Aragon. His surname is given by himself as Serveto in his earliest works, "per Michaelem Serueto, alias Reues." Later he Latinized it into Servetus, and even when writing in French (1553) he signs "Michel Seruetus." 2 It is not certain that he was related to his contemporary Andres Serveto of Anifion, the Bologna jurist ; but it is probable that he was of the same family as the Spanish ecclesiastic Marco Antonio Serveto de Reves (d. 1598), born at Villa- nueva de Sigena in the diocese of Huesca (Latassa, Biblio- teca Jfueva, 1798, i. 609). Servetus, who at Geneva makes " Villeneufve " his birthplace, fixes it in the adjoining dio- cese of Lerida, in which there are three villages named Vilanova. Having apparently had his early training at the university of Saragossa, he was sent by his father to study law at Toulouse, where he first became acquainted with the Bible (1528). From 1525 he had found a patron in Juan de Quintaiia (d. 1534), a Franciscan promoted in 1530 to be confessor to Charles V. In the train of Quintana he witnessed at Bologna the coronation of Charles in February 1530, visited Augsburg, and perhaps saw Luther at Coburg. The spectacle of the adoration of the pope at Bologna had strongly impressed his mind in an anti-papal direction. He left Quintana, and, after visiting Lyons and Geneva, repaired to CEcolampadius at Basel, whence he pushed on to Bucer and Capito at Strasburg. A crude, but very original and earnest, theological essay, De Trinitatis Errori- 6ws, printed at Hagenau in 1531, attracted considerable attention ; Melanchthon writes " Servetum multum lego." It was followed in 1532 by a revised presentation of its argument. We next find Servetus at Lyons, in 1535, as an editor of scientific works for the printing firm of Trechsel, under the name of Michel de Villeneufve or Michael Villa- novanus, which he used without interruption till the year 1 This date rests upon his own testimony as to his age (both at Vienne and Geneva) and that of Calvin. An isolated passage of his Geneva testimony may be adduced in support of 1509. 2 The form " Servet " first appears in a letter of CEcolampadius to the senate of Basel (1531), and is never used by himself. "Servede" is an imaginary form.