Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/286

Rh 262 V I S V I T commonly hereditary; after a while it was granted for several successive years to the same personage at the king s pleasure ; and, finally, the modern practice obtained of appointing a new high-sheriff every year. A viscount is &quot;Eight Honourable,&quot; and is styled &quot;My Lord.&quot; His wife, also &quot; Right Honourable,&quot; is a &quot;Viscountess,&quot; and is styled &quot;My Lady.&quot; All their sons and daughters are &quot;Honourable.&quot; The coronet first granted by James I. has on the golden circlet a row of fourteen small pearls set in contact, of which number in representations nine are shown. The scarlet parliamentary robe of a viscount has two and a half doublings of ermine. VISHNU. See BRAHMANISM, vol. iv. p. 207. VISTULA. See POLAND, vol. xix. p. 307. VITALIANUS, bishop of Rome from 657 to 672, succeeded Eugenius I. and was followed by Adeodatus. In the monothelite controversy then raging he acted with cautious reserve, refraining at least from express condem nation of the Ttjpus of Constans II. (see vol. xvi. p. 758). The chief episode in his uneventful pontificate was the visit of Constans to Rome ; the pope received him &quot; almost with religious honours,&quot; a deference which he requited by stripping all the brazen ornaments of the city even to the tiles of the Pantheon and sending them to Constantinople. Archbishop Theodore was sent to Canterbury by Vitalian. VITEBSK, a government of western Russia, with Livonia and Pskoff on the N., Smolensk on the E., Moghileff, Minsk, and Vilna on the S., and Courland on the W., has an area of 17,440 square miles. Except on its south-eastern and northern borders, where there are low hills, deeply eroded by the rivers, its surface is mostly flat, or slightly undulating, and more than a million of acres are occupied by immense marshes, with as many as 2500 small lakes. The Devonian limestones and red sand stones of which it is built up are covered with thick layers of Glacial and Lacustrine deposits, the Glacial boulder- clay, with immense numbers of boulders, covering extensive areas. The rest consists of Lacustrine clays or sands. The soil is thus for the most part unproductive. The Diina, or &quot;West Dwina, rises not far from the north-eastern angle of the government, and flows through it, or along its southern boundary, for 530 miles. From its junction with the Kasplya, i.e., for more than 450 miles, it is navigable ; and, through a tributary, the Ulla, it is connected with the Dnieper by the Berezina Canal. The Mezha and Kasplya, tributaries of the Diina, are navigable in spring. The climate is relatively mild, the average yearly temperature at Vitebsk being 40 F. (January, 16 &quot;4; July, 64 &quot;3). The population, 1,204,950 in 1884, is chiefly White Eussian (61 per cent.) and Lettish (21 per cent.); Jews come next (10 per cent.). The Poles make only about 2 3 per cent, of the population, and there are moreover about 10,000 Germans in the north-west. The Great Russians number only a few thousands. Nearly two- thirds of the inhabitants are Orthodox or Raskolnik, the remainder being Catholics, Jews, or Lutherans. Agriculture is the chief industry, but the yearly produce rarely suffices for the wants of the population, and corn has to be imported from Smolensk. Rye, oats, and potatoes are the chief crops, occupy ing about a third of the area. Flax is an important crop for export. Cattle-breeding is only moderately prosperous. Manufactures in 1884 occupied only some 3000 persons, and their aggregate pro duction reached only about 788,700 (as against 84,000 in 1860); the most important branches are represented by distilleries, flour- mills, and tanneries. As a rule, the White Russian population of the villages is very poor, and great numbers of the peasants are compelled every year to leave their homes in search of work. Of domestic trades, the manufacture of wooden wares, as well as some boat-building and flax-combing, may be mentioned. The principal exports are flax, linseed, timber, and hides. There is a brisk water-traffic on the Diina by boats to Riga, Vitebsk loading-places contributing 1,128,500 cwts. (483,000 roubles value) loaded and 630,000 cwts. discharged in 1883. Vitebsk is divided into twelve districts, the chief towns of which, with populations in 1885, are Vitebsk (54,680), Drissa (3490), Diina- burg, a fortress on the Diina (69,030), Gorodok (5620), Lepel (6000), Lutsin (5460), Kevel (7310), Polotsk (19,130), Ryezhitsa (10,150), Sebezh (3820), Surazh (5085), and Velizh (16,370). VITEBSK, capital of the above government, stands on both banks of the Diina, on the railway from Smolensk to Riga, 345 miles west of Moscow. It is an old town, with decaying mansions of the old nobility, and dirty Jewish quarters, half of its 54,680 inhabitants being Jews. Its manufactures are insignificant, and the poorer classes support themselves by gardening, boat-building, and the flax trade, while the merchants carry on an active business with Riga in corn, flax, hemp, tobacco, sugar, and timber. Vitebsk (Dbesk, Vitbesk, and Vitepcsk) is mentioned for the first time in 1021, when it made part of the Polotsk principality. Eighty years later it became the chief town of a separate princi pality, and so continued until 1320, when, after having taken an active part in the internal wars of the Russian princes, it came under the dominion of the Lithuanians. In the 16th century it fell to Poland. Under the privileges given to the city by the Polish sovereigns it flourished, but it soon began to suffer from the wars between Russia and Poland, during which it was thrice taken by the Russians and burned. Russia annexed it finally in 1772. VITELLIUS, ATJLTJS, the ninth of the twelve Ctesars, and Roman emperor during the greater part of 69 A.IX, vas the son of Lucius Vitellius, who had been consul and governor of Syria under Tiberius, and distinguished for his gross and ridiculous flattery under Caius (Caligula) and Claudius, which the senate, who gave him a public funeral, recognized by a statue with the inscription &quot; Pietatis immobilis erga principem.&quot; He was one of the intimate companions of Tiberius at Capreae; he had driven chariots in the circus with Caius, had played dice with Claudius, had induced the young Nero to sing at a public entertainment, and had been a censor once and a consul three times. He had been governor of Africa, and had there, according to Suetonius ( Vitellius, 5), acquitted him self creditably. Under Galba, to the general astonishment, he was chosen to command the army of Lower Germany, and here he made himself popular with his subalterns and with the soldiers by an outrageous prodigality and an excessive good nature, which soon proved quite fatal to order and discipline. Far from being an ambitious or scheming man, he was lazy and self-indulgent, fond of eating and drinking, and he was in fact drifted into empire by the promptings of Cascina and Valens, commanders of two legions on the Rhine. Through these two men a military revolution was speedily accomplished, and early in 69 Vitellius was pro claimed emperor at Cologne, or, to speak more accurately, emperor of the armies of Upper and Lower Germany. In fact, he was never acknowledged as emperor by the entire Roman world, though at Rome the senate accepted him and decreed to him the usual imperial honours. But after all he was only emperor in name. It was noted as a bad omen that he received the title of supreme pontiff on the anniversary of the day of Allia, 390 B.C., on which Rome was all but utterly overthrown by the Gauls. His advance into Italy at the head of a licentious and ruffianly soldiery was as horrible and calamitous as civil war could possibly be ; there was fighting and bloodshed within 7 miles of Rome, and amid riot and massacre and gladiatorial shows and extravagant feasting and a waste of seven millions of money (Tacitus, Hist., ii. 95) the capital of the empire was a scene of horror and infamy such as had never been witnessed in the most savage revolutions of past days. As soon as it was known that the armies of the East, Dalmatia, and Illyricum had declared for Vespasian, Vitellius, finding himself deserted by many of his adherents, was for resigning the title of emperor ; so crestfallen was he, so dull and lethargic, that, to quote Tacitus (Hist., iii. 63), &quot; had not others remembered he had been an emperor, he would have forgotten it himself.&quot; On the entrance into Rome of Vespasian s troops he was dragged out of some miserable hiding-place, and, with his hands tied behind him, insulted unpitied, driven to the fatal Gernonian