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 MERGE MEROVINGIANS 411 rent to Rome in 1848, studied theology, and was ordained priest in 1850. He was im- mediately appointed chamberlain to the pope and canon of St. Peter's, and was rapidly pro- moted, till in the beginning of 1860 he was made " pro-minister of arms." He organized the pontifical army, composed mostly of for- eigners, and induced Gen. Lamoriciere to take the command of it in April. That general having been defeated at Castelfidardo in the following September, Merode asked the French troops in Rome to defend the pontifical au- thority. He soon quarrelled with the French commander, Gen. Goyon, who refused to com- municate with him. In 1865 he resigned his office in consequence of a disagreement with Cardinal Antonelli. He was appointed arch- bishop of Melitene June 22, 1866, and private almoner to the pope. It is said that the in- fluence of his brother-in-law, Count de Mon- talembert, caused him in 1869 to oppose the definition of the papal infallibility; but he accepted in 1870 the decision of the Vatican council. He devoted a large portion of his patrimonial wealth to improve the streets and squares of Rome, and to archaeological exca- vations ; but a far larger portion was employed in founding charitable institutions and agricul- tural and industrial schools. His last public act was to welcome to Rome the American pilgrimsjrom New York. MEROE, a state, with a capital of the same name, forming part of the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia. It is hardly possible to fix the site of the ancient city, much less to define the boundaries of the state at any given period. The whole of Ethiopia was once called Meroe. Greek writers applied the name to an island and a city on the upper Nile. The district is in reality a peninsula, formed by the Nile and its affluents, the Atbara and Bahr-el-Azrek, between lat. 13 and 18 N., and included in modern times in Nubia. At certain seasons it becomes an island by the overflowing of the rivers. Its length from N. W. to S. E. is about 375 m., and its breadth ^about 200; and it con- sists of extensive plains, which formerly were fertile and well cultivated, but are now for the most part desert. This country was very famous in antiquity. It produced gold, iron, copper, and salt; and partly from its natural riches, and partly from its situation between southern Ethiopia and the Red sea, it was from the earliest times the seat of a great com- merce, carried on by caravans from all parts of northern Africa, which made its chief city their central rendezvous. According to Herodotus, the " great city called Meroe, which is said to be the capital of the other Ethiopians," was more than 40 days by land and 12 days by boat (52 days in all) beyond Syene. Later writers give it less than half this distance, placing Syene about midway between Alexandria and Meroe. According to Strabo's statement, the city must have been in the neighborhood of the ruins near the modern Begerawieh ; but when Meroe took an active part in history, the residence of King Tahraka (Tirhakah) stood near the modern Meraweh, below Mt. Barkal. The in- scriptions give it the name of Neb ; the Greeks and Romans called it Napata. During the reigns of the Osortasens and Amenemhes, about 3000 B. C., Egyptian rule extended over Nubia as far as Semneh and Kumneh, under Amenophis III. as far as Soleb, and under Rameses II. to Mt. Barkal. The oldest ruins found here formed part of a temple to Am- mon, built by Rameses II. ; next in age are the ruins of Tahraka's edifices. These, as well as later monuments, especially the 20 or 30 small pyramids, are imitations of Egyptian art. The monuments of Begerawieh have the same style, though somewhat mixed with for- eign elements. It has long been customary to trace the culture of Egypt to that of Ethiopia and Mei'oe ; but Egypt is a well favored land, while Meroe is excessively hot, and fertile only in oases; and the lower valley of the Nile has always been superior in culture and power to the upper ; all of which renders it improbable that the civilization of Egypt was in any sense borrowed from Meroe. The re- verse is much more probable. There are indi- cations in Herodotus and Diodorus that Meroe" had been under the rule of priests, but in the time of Ptolemy II. King Ergamenes estab- lished an independent kingdom. The name Meroe is given in the inscriptions of Begera- wieh as Meru and Merua, which Lepsius and other Egyptologists translate "white rock." Here, as well as near Mt. Barkal, the shores of the Nile are lined with cliffs of white chalk, which probably gave the name to the country. The Assyrian inscriptions of King Sargon men- tion the king of Meroe (Milukhi), and one of Sennacherib says that "the king of Egypt had called for the archers, chariots, and horses of the king of Milukhi." The inscriptions of Esarhaddon speak of " the king of Egypt and Milukhi," whom they call also "the king of Egypt and Cush ;" and Asshur-bani-pal records his campaign against "Tarkuu (Tahraka) of Egypt and Milukhi." Though the majority of Assyriologists translate Milukhi by Meroe, as George Smith in his " History of Asshur-bani- pal translated from the Cuneiform Inscrip- tions" (London, 1871), Lenormant has come to the conclusion that Asshur-bani-pal's Milukhi lay N. of Memphis, and that it was the name of a small independent kingdom which had been established in and near the western por- tion of the Delta. Menant, in his Annales des rois (TAssyrie (Paris, 1874), has adopted Le- normant's opinion. (See ETHIOPIA.) MEROPIS. See Cos. MEROVINGIANS, the name of the first Frank- ish dynasty in Gaul or France. It ^ was so called from Meroveus, king of the Ripuarian Franks (448-'58), who aided in the defeat of Attila in 451. He was succeeded by Childeric I. (458-'81), whose son Clovis, the conqueror of Gaul, and the first Christian monarch of the