Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/90

 S I L S I L quently 1100 millions, or nearly four-fifths, have been consumed in the arts, lost, &c., or exported to Asia. There are estimated to be about 50 or 60 million pounds sterling worth of silver coins in India, 1 and some trifling amounts each in China, Japan, Persia, &c. On the whole it appears quite safe to estimate the average annual con- sumption of silver in the arts and through wear, tear, and loss as fully equal to three-fourths of the production. Lowe in 1822 estimated it at two-thirds. Silver is princi- pally used for plate and jewellery ; it is also consumed in photography, and in numerous chemical preparations, such as lunar caustic, indelible ink, hair dyes, fulminating powder, etc. (A. DE.) SILVERIUS, the successor of Pope Agapetus L, was a legitimate son of Pope Hormisdas, born before his father entered the priesthood. He was consecrated on June 8, 536, having purchased his elevation to the see of St Peter from the Gothic king Theodotus. Six months afterwards (Dec. 9) he was one of those who admitted Belisarius into the city. He opposed the restoration of the patriarch Anthimus, whom Agapetus had deposed, and thus brought upon himself the hatred of Theodora, who desired to see Vigilius made pope. He was deposed accordingly by Belisarius in March 537 on a charge (not improbably well founded) of treasonable correspondence with the Goths, and degraded to the rank of a simple monk. He found his way to Constantinople, and Justinian, who entertained his complaint, sent him back to Rome, but Vigilius was ultimately able to banish his rival to Pandataria, where the rest of his life was spent in obscurity. The date of his death is unknown. SILVESTER L, bishop of Rome from January 314 to December 335, succeeded Melchiades and was followed by Marcus. The accounts of his papacy preserved in the Liber Pontificalis (7th or 8th century) and in Anastasius are little else than a record of the gifts said to have been conferred on the Roman Church by Constantine the Great. He was represented at the council of Nice, and is said to have held a council at Rome to condemn the heresies of Arius and others. The story of his having baptized Con- stantine is pure fiction, as almost contemporary evidence shows the emperor to have received this rite near Nico- media at the hands of Eusebius, bishop of that city. According to Dollinger, the entire legend, with all its details of the leprosy and the proposed bath of blood, cannot have been composed later than the close of the 5th century, while it is certainly alluded to by Gregory of Tours (ob. 594) and Bede. The so-called Donation of Constantine was long ago shown to be spurious, but the document is of very considerable antiquity and, in Dollinger's opinion, was forged in Kome between 752 and 777. It was certainly known to Pope Hadrian in 778, and was inserted in the false decretals towards the middle of the next century. SILVESTER II., pope from 999 till 1003, and previ- ously famous, under his Christian name of Gerbert, first as a teacher and afterwards as archbishop successively of Rheims and Ravenna, was an Aquitanian by birth, and was educated from his boyhood at the abbey of St Gerold in Aurillac. Here he seems to have had Gerald for his abbot and Raymond for his instructor, both of whom were among the most trusted correspondents of his later life. From Aurillac, while yet a young man (adolescens), he was carried off to the Spanish march by "Borrell, duke of Hither Spain " for the sake of prosecuting his studies in a district where learning, at that time, flourished more luxuriantly than in Aquitania. Borrell entrusted his young protege to the care of a certain Bishop Hatto, under whose instruc- tion Gerbert made great progress in mathematics. In 1 R. B. Chapman, Financial Department of Government of India. this duke we may certainly recognize Borel, who, accord- ing to the Spanish chroniclers, was count of Barcelona from 967 to 993, while the bishop may probably be identified with Hatto, bishop of Vich or Ausona from c. 960 to 971 or 972. In company with his two patrons Gerbert visited Rome, where the pope, hearing of the young student's proficiency in music and astronomy, induced him to remain in Italy, and before long intro- duced him to the emperor Otto I. A papal diploma, still extant, shows that Count Borel and Bishop Octo or Otho of Ausona were at Rome in January 971, and, as all the other indications point to a corresponding year, enables us to fix the chronology of Gerbert's later life. When brought before the emperor, Gerbert admitted his skill in all branches of the quadrivium, but lamented his comparative ignorance of logic. Eager to supply this deficiency he seized the opportunity of following Lothaire's ambassador Garamnus, archdeacon of Rheims, to this city, for the sake of studying under so famous a dialec- tician in the episcopal schools which were then (c. 972 ?) rising into reputation under the care of Archbishop Adalbero (969-989). So promising a scholar soon attracted the attention of Adalbero himself, and Gerbert was speedily invited to exchange his position of learner for that of teacher. At Rheims he seems to have studied and lectured for many years, having amongst his pupils, now or at a later time, Hugh Capet's son Robert, after- wards king of France, and Richer, to whose history we owe almost every detail of his master's early life. Accord- ing to this writer Gerbert's fame began to spread over western Europe, throughout Gaul, Germany, and Italy, till it roused the envy of a rival teacher, Otric of Saxony, in whom we may doubtless recognize Octricus of Magde- burg, the favourite scholar of Otto I., and, in earlier days, the instructor of St Adalbert, the apostle of the Bohemians. Otrio, suspecting that Gerbert erred in his classification of the sciences, sent one of his own pupils to Rheims to take notes of his lectures, and, finding his suspicions correct, accused him of his error before Otto II. The emperor, to whom Gerbert was well known, appointed a time for the two philosophers to argue before him ; and Richer has left a long account of this dialectical tourna- ment at Ravenna, which lasted out a whole day and was only terminated towards evening at the imperial bidding. The date of this controversy seems to have been about Christmas 980, and it was probably followed almost imme- diately by Otric's death, October 1, 981. It must have been about this time (c. 982) that Gerbert received the great abbey of Bobbio from the emperor. That it was Otto II., and not, as formerly supposed, Otto I., who gave him this benefice, seems evident from a diploma quoted by Mabillon (Annales, iv. 121). Richer, however, makes no mention of this event ; and it is only from allusions in Gerbert's letters that we learn how the new abbot's attempts to enforce his dues waked a spirit of discontent which at last drove him in November 983 to take refuge with his old patron Adalbero. It was to no purpose that he appealed to the emperor and empress for restitution or redress; and it was perhaps the hope of extorting his reappointment to Bobbio, as a reward for his services to the imperial cause, that changed the studious scholar of Rheims into the wily secretary of Adalbero. It was a time of great moment in the history of Western Europe. Otto II. died in December 983, leaving the empire to his infant heir Otto III. Lothaire claimed the guardianship, and attempted to make use of his position to serve his own purposes in Lorraine, which would in all probability have been lost to the empire had it not been for the indefatigable efforts of Adalbero and Gerbert. Into the obscure details of the succeeding years,