Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/553

Rh E R Z E S A 533 See Curzon, Erzcroum and Armenia; Flandin and Coste, Voyage en Perse, Paris, 1851 ; Monteith, Erzeroum and Kurs, 156 ; Williams, War Diary, 1877; C. B. Norman, Armenia and the Campaign 0/1877. ERZGEBIRGE, a mountain chain of Germany, forming the boundary between Saxony and Bohemia, and extending in a W.S.W. direction from the Elbe to the Fichtelgebirge, where the White Elster has its source. Its length from E.N.E. to W.S.W. is over 100 miles, and its average breadth about 25 miles. The southern declivity is generally steep and rugged, forming in some places an almost perpendicular wall of the height of from 2000 to 2500 feet; while the northern, divided at intervals into valleys, sometimes of great fertility and sometimes wildly romantic, slopes gradu ally towards the great plain of Northern Germany. The central part of the chain forms a plateau of an average height of more than 3000 feet. At the extremities of this plateau are situated the highest summits of the range : in the south-east, Keilberg (4000 feet); in the north-east, Fichtelberg (3980 feet) ; and in the south-west, Spitzberg (3650 feet). Near Spitzberg, at the height of about 3300 feet, is situated Gottesgabe, the highest town in Germany. Geologically, the Erzgebirge range consists mainly of gneiss, mica, and phyllite. As its name indicates, it is famous for its mineral ores. These are chiefly silver and lead, the layers of both of which are very extensive, tin, nickel, copper, and iron. Gold is found in several places, and some arsenic, antimony, bismuth, manganese, mercury, and sulphur. ESA11HADDON (Assur-akhi-iddina, &quot;Assur gave brothers &quot;) succeeded his father Sennacherib as king of Assyria, January 680 B.C. He had had to fight a battle a few weeks previously against his elder brothers, Adrammelech and Nergal-sharezer, who had murdered their father, and after their defeat fled to Armenia. The murder had probably been occasioned by the partiality shown by Sennacherib for Esarhaddon, a curious record of which has been preserved to us in a kind of will in which he bequeaths to Esarhaddon various private property. Esarhaddon seems to have been the ablest of the Assyrian monarchs ; he was distinguished equally as a general and an organizer, and under him the Assyrian empire attained almost its furthest limits. His character, too, seems to have been milder than that of most other Assyrian kings, and his policy was one of conciliation. Babylon, which had been destroyed by Sennacherib in 691 B.C., was rebuilt, and made the southern capital. It was to Babylon, therefore, that Manasseh was brought (2 Chr. xxxiii. 11). Esarhaddon s first object was to strengthen his empire by overthrowing the rival monarchy of Egypt, and diverting the trade of Phoenicia to Nineveh. Zidon was accordingly razed to the ground, and the Assyrian arms carried as far as Cyprus ; Tyre and Carchemish, how ever, rather than Nineveh, profited by the event. Egypt, then under the Ethiopian Tirhakah, was invaded, the Assyrians being supplied with water during their march across the desert by the king of the Arabians. Memphis and its treasures were captured, and Egypt as far as Thebes was made an Assyrian province, and divided into twenty satrapies. These twenty satrapies Herodotus has turned into a dodecarchy, and connected with the twelve courts of the Labyrinth built centuries before. The conquest of Egypt had been preceded by two important campaigns. One was against the Minni and the Medes, which secured the north-eastern frontier of the empire ; the other was an expedition which penetrated into the heart of Arabia, and reflected the highest credit on the enterprise and military genius of the Assyrian monarch. His armies marched a distance of about 900 miles into the desert, traversing Uz and Buz (Khuzn and flaw), and reducing a large number of Arab tribes to subjection. The object of both these campaigns was clearly the same, to spread terror among the barbarous tribes on the frontiers, and to prevent them from harassing the Assyrian provinces. Early in his reign Esarhaddon had checked the southward march of theGimir- rai, or Cimmerians, who had been driven from their old seats on the Volga by the Scyths. He defeated them under a chief named Teuspa (? Teispes) in Khupuscia (near Colchis), and drove them westward across the Halys towards Sinope. About the same time Cilicia and the Dalia; were subdued, as well as Eden, or Tel-Assur, south-east of Assyria. Egypt had been aided in its struggle against Esarhaddon by Tyre, which had revolted from Assyria in spite of the favour shown to it. The town was at once blockaded ; and the siege was still continuing when Esarhaddon died, in 668 B.C., after a reign of thirteen years, leaving behind him four sons and one daughter. Two years previously, just after his return from the Egyptian campaign, he had associated his son Assur-bani-pal, or Sardanapalus, in the government The fact was announced to an assembly of the people on the 12th day of lyyar, or April. ESAU, or EDOM, the father of the Edomitcs, was the son of Isaac and Rebecca, and the elder twin brother of Jacob. According to the narrative contained in Genesis, the name Esau (hairy) was given to him on account of his hairy appearance at his birth, and the name Edom (red) when he sold his birthright to Jacob for a meal of red lentile pottage. Esau, who was a hunter, having returned famished from the chase, found Jacob enjoying a savoury dish, and besought him to be allowed to share it. Jacob refused this, unless Esau made over to him the privileges of the elder son; and, prompted by the pangs of hunger, the latter immediately consented. Notwithstanding this, and although by marriage with two Canaanitish women Esau had sepa rated himself from the pure blood of Abraham, he would have received the covenant blessing from his father, had not Jacob secured it through the deceit of personating Esau, which, as his father was blind, he was able to accomplish by imitating the hairy appearance of his brother by means of goat skins. Esau, on hearing what Jacob had done, vowed to kill him, and the latter found it necessary to flee to Mesopotamia. Soon afterwards Esau, to propitiate his parents, married the daughter of Ishmael, but as they con tinued to be offended by the idolatrous practices of his Canaanitish wives, he retired from his father s house and took up his residence in Mount Seir. Here he learned that Jacob was returning from Padanaram with his wives, children, and flocks; but, whether propitiated by the humble bearing of the latter or not, he not only refrained from exe cuting the vengeance he had sworn against bun. but even offered to escort him on his way. The two brothers after wards united in burying their father; but after that Esau &quot; took all his substance which he had got in the land of Canaan, and went into the country from the face of his brother Jacob.&quot; Some modern critics regard the history of Jacob and Esau as in a great degree, if not altogether, mythical, and the recorded life of Esau as suggested very much by the nature of the country inhabited by his descendants, its history, and the relation of its inhabitants to those of Canaan. The words &quot;Esau&quot; and &quot;Seir&quot; ety- mologically suggest a shaggy mountain-land. According to Ewald (Gesch. d. V. Isr. i. 336, 430, 494), the three names Seir, Edom, Esau, indicate that an aboriginal race calling itself Seir was first subjugated by Canaanites bearing the name of Edom, and then both Seir and Edom by Hebrews bearing the name of Esau. Esau in its turn was compelled to yield to a younger branch of the same race, inferior in physical strength but superior in cer tain moral qualities. The Phoenicians have a parallel legend about their progenitor Hypsuranius and the abori ginal Usous (Esau).