Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/293

 S P S R 275 and vivacity of his compositions from the story that Plato first introduced them to Athens, and studied them in order to give animation to his own dialogues ; and some idea of the general character of his mimes may be derived from the 2d and 15th idyls of Theocritus, which are said to have been imitated from the 'AKeVrpiai and 'Icr0/uaoi;o-cu of his Syracusan predecessor. The fragments of Sophron, most of which have been preserved to illustrate some point of grammar or dialect, are collected in Ahrens, De Grascao Linguae Dialcctis, vol. ii. pp. 464-476. SOPRON. See OEDENBURG. SORA, a city of Italy, at the head of a circondario in the province of Caserta (Terra di Lavoro), is built in a plain on the banks of the Garigliano and on the highway from Rome via Tivoli and Avezzano to Naples. It is the seat of important manufactures, wool-spinning, cloth- weaving, and paper-making, this last industry dating from the time of Murat. The original cathedral, conse- crated by Pope Adrian IV. in 1155, was destroyed by the earthquake of 1634. The population of the city was 8768 in 1861 and 5411 (commune 13,208) in 1881. Sora, an ancient Volscian town, was thrice captured by the Romans, in 345, 314, and 305 B.C., before theymauaged, in 303, by means of a colony 4000 strong, to confirm its annexation. In 209 it was one of the colonies which refused further contributions. By the lex Julia it became a municipium, but under Augustus it was colonized by soldiers of the 4th legion. The castle of Sorella, built on the rocky height above the town, was in the Middle Ages a stronghold of some note ; on one occasion it held out successfully against a whole year's vigorous siege by William II. of Sicily. Alfonso of Aragon made Sora a duchy for the Cautelmi ; it was afterwards seized by Pius II., but, being restored to the Cantelmi by Sixtus IV., it ultimately passed to the Delia Rovere of Urbino. Against Csesar Borgia the city was heroically defended by Giovanni di Montefeltro. Captured by the marquis of Pescara for Charles V., it was by him bestowed on Carlo Ceares, duke of Croy and Arescot, but, Ceares being afterwards bought out, the duchy was restored to the duke of Urbino. By Gregory XIII. it was purchased for 11,000 ducats and bestowed on his son Buoncompagni, the ancestor of the line of Bnoncompagni-Ludovisi. In ancient times Sora was the birthplace of the Decii, Attilius Regains, and Lucius Mummius ; and of its modern celebrities Cardinal Baronius is one. The now ruined abbey church of San Domenico, founded in 1104 on the left bank of the Liri above the town, is believed to occupy the site of Cicero's family villa and birthplace. It consisted of a nave and two aisles, all ending in circular apses. SORAU, an industrial town and railway junction in the south of Brandenburg, Prussia, is situated 54 miles to the south-east of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and not far from the Silesian border. Said to be one of the oldest towns in Lower Lusatia, Sorau contains a number of ancient buildings, among which the most prominent are several of the churches (one dating from 1204), the town-house, built in 1260, and the old palace of 1207. The new palace was erected in 1711. The varied manufactures of the town comprise cloth, linen, wax candles, starch, bone-meal, &c. The population, 3764 in 1816, was 13,668 in 1885, up- wards of 12,000 of them being Lutherans. Sorau is said to have existed in 840 and to have belonged to the abbey of Fulda till the 12th century. It received town-rights in 1260. With the surrounding district, known as the barony of Sorau, it became the seat of successive noble families ; and in 1400 it was united with the barony of Triebel. The last count of Promnitz, whose ancestor had purchased both baronies from Frederick of Bohemia in 1556, sold them to the elector of Saxony for an annuity of 12,000 thalers (1800). In 1815 Saxony had to cede them to Prussia, after holding them for fifty years. SORBONNE, the name formerly borne by the old faculty of theology in Paris, and now applied to the seat of the academic of that city and of the three faculties of theology, science, and literature. (See FRANCE, vol. ix. p. 513; PARIS, vol. xviii. p. 281; and UNIVERSITIES.) The Sorbonne owes its origin and its name to Robert de Sorbon, a poor priest of Champagne, who, arriving in Paris about the beginning of the reign of St Louis, attained high repute by his sanctity and eloquence, and was appointed by the king to be his chaplain. Assisted by royal liberality, he built upon Mont Sainte-Genevieve a modest establishment in which were accommodated seven priests charged with the duty of teaching theology gratuit- ously; to this he added a college of preparatory studies, all under the direction of a provisor, under whom was an annual prior who had the actual management. The new institu- tion was authorized by letters patent of 1255, and canonic- ally sanctioned by Pope Alexander IV. in 1259. Destined originally for poor students, the Sorbonne soon became a meeting-place for all the students of the university of Paris, who resorted thither to hear the lectures of the most learned theologians of the period, Guillaume de Saint Amour, Eudes de Douai, Laurent 1'Anglais, Pierre d'Ailly. At the close of the century it was organized into a full faculty of theology, and under this definitive form it con- ferred bachelor's, licentiate's, and doctor's degrees, and the severity of its examinations gave an exceptional value to its diplomas. The so-called " these Sorbonique, " instituted towards the beginning of the 14th century, became the type of its order by the length and difficulty of its tests. Ultimately the professors of the Sorbonne came to be resorted to, not only for lectures and examinations, but also for dogmatic decisions and judgments in canon law; the clergy of France and of the whole Catholic world had recourse to them in difficult cases, and the Curia Romana itself more than once laid its doubts before them, giving them the title of " Concilium in Gallia subsistens. " The Sorbonne took a leading part in the religious discussions which agitated France during the 16th and 18th centuries, and its influence thus ^inevitably extended to political questions. During the insanity of Charles VI. it helped to bring about the absolution of Jean Sans-Peur for the assassination of the duke of Orleans. Shortly afterwards it demanded and supported the condemnation of Joan of Arc; during the Reformation it was the animating spirit of all the persecutions directed against Protestants and unbelievers : without having advised the massacre of St Bartholomew, it did not hesitate to justify it, and it in- flamed the League by its vigorous anathemas against Henry III. and the king of Navarre, hesitating to recognize the latter even after his abjuration. From this point dates the beginning of its decadence, and, when Richelieu in 1629 ordered the reconstruction of its church and buildings, the following prophetic couplet was circulated Instaurata ruet jamjam Sorbona. Caduca Duni fuit, iuconcussa stetit ; renovata peribit. The declaration of the clergy iu 1682, which it subscribed, proved fatal to its authority with the Curia Romana ; it revived for a short time under Louis XV. during the struggle against Jansenism, but this was its last exploit ; it was suppressed like the old universities in 1790. To the Sorbonne belongs the glory of having introduced printing into France in 1469 : within its precincts it assigned quarters for Ulric Gering and two companions in which to set up their presses. When the university of France was organized in 1808 the Sorbonne became the seat of the academie of Paris ; and between 1816 and 1821 the faculties of theology, science, and literature were installed there with their libraries. All the great university functions are held within its great amphitheatre. Since 1861 there has annually been held in the Sorbonne at Easter an official congress in which are represented the learned societies of the departments ; there are five sections those of archeology, history, the moral and political sciences, the physical sciences, geography, which hold separate sittings. The fine arts form a sixth section, with a special organ- ization. A reconstruction of the buildings of the Sorbonne, pro-