Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/688

 674 ORCHOMENUS ORDEAL one plant 59 17., the returns for the whole collection being 4,361. At the few sales which have been held in this country, very good prices have been paid. Some orchids are remarkable for the duration of their flowers, which renders them especially valuable in floral decorations. The finest collection of these plants in this country (and one of the finest anywhere) is that of Mr. George Such, South Amboy, N". J. ORCHOMEMS, a city of ancient Greece, in N. W. Boaotia, at the mouth of the Cephis- sus in Lake Copais, not far from the site of the modern village of Skripu. It was said to have been the capital of the kingdom of the Minyae, being named from Orchomenus, the son of Minyas. Homer mentions it as send- ing 30 ships to the Trojan war. When the Minysa were overthrown, Orchomenus joined the Boeotian confederacy. Its government was aristocratical, and after the Peloponnesian war it assisted Lysander the Spartan in his in- vasion of Bceotia (395 B. 0.), and in the fol- lowing year joined Agesilaus against Thebes and Athens, and took part in the battle of Coronea. By the peace of Antalcidas (387) the Thebans acknowledged the independence of Orchomenus. They gained control of it after the battle of Leuctra (371), and were per- suaded by Epaminondas to admit it as a mem- ber of the Boeotian confederation ; but in 367 they accused it of conspiring against the democratical constitution, and burnt the city, putting the men to the sword and selling the women and children into slavery. It was re- built during the Phocian war, and made a Phocian stronghold; but at the end of the sacred war (346) it again fell into the hands of the Thebans, and was destroyed as before. After the overthrow of the Thebans and Athe- nians at Ohaeronea (338) it was once more re- built, under the protection of Macedon ; but it never regained any historic importance. Or- chomenus was famous for its musicians, and for a festival in honor of the Graces in which poets and musicians from all parts of Greece took part. Remains have been discovered of the treasury of Atreus, and the pedestal of a tri- pod dedicated to the Graces, besides some an- cient inscriptions in the Orchomenian-^Eolic dialect, containing the digamma, which are now in the British museum. ORDEAL (Ang. Sax. ordcel, from or, primi- tive, and dcel, judgment ; Ger. UrtheiT), an an- cient form of trial for persons accused of crime, designed to determine their guilt or innocence by a supposed reference to the judgment of God. The earliest mention of such a practice is in the laws of Moses (Numbers v.), accord- ing to which the Hebrew woman suspected of adultery is to drink the " waters of jealousy." Trial by ordeal seems to have been known in Greece, as in the " Antigone " of Sophocles a sentinel who had failed in fulfilling a trust is represented as declaring that he is ready to " handle hot iron and walk over fire " to prove his innocence. In modern Europe trials by fire and by water were most usual. "Fire ordeal," says Blackstone, "was performed either by taking up in the hand, unhurt, a piece of red- hot iron of one, two, or three pounds weight ; or else by walking barefoot and blindfold over nine red-hot ploughshares, laid lengthwise at unequal distances ; and if the party escaped be- ing hurt, he was adjudged innocent ; but if it happened otherwise, as without collusion it generally did, he was then condemned as guil- ty." The trial by fire was the one commonly in use among the higher orders, and several instances are recorded in which noble females by means of it vindicated their chastity. The trial by water, the origin of which is usually ascribed to Pope Eugenius II., was of two kinds, that by boiling water and that by cold water. In the former, the individual thrust into a vessel of hot water his arm, which when withdrawn was bound up and sealed, and at the end of three days examined. If no trace of scald appeared he was declared innocent. In the cold water ordeal the individual was thrown into the water, and if he floated with- out swimming he was considered guilty ; but if he sank he was deemed innocent and drawn out. A trace of this practice lasted until a late period in the case of persons suspected of witchcraft, in which the victim, with the right arm bound to the left leg and the left arm to the right leg, was cast into a pond, and if the body floated the charge was thought to be proved. In Malabar the suspected criminal was obliged to swim across a large stream abounding in crocodiles. As, according to Blackstone, the ordeal could be performed by deputy, the principal answering for the result, and the deputy only venturing on some cor- poreal pain for hire or for friendship, language has preserved a relic of the practice in the expression " to go through fire and water to serve one." The corsned, or trial by the hallowed bread and cheese, was chiefly prac- tised by ecclesiastics. A morsel of bread or of cheese, loaded with imprecations, was given the accused to eat along with the eucharist ; and if the person were guilty, it was believed he could not swallow it. The ordeal of the bier, which was common in cases of murder, existed from a very early period and as late as the 18th century. The murdered man was laid upon a bier, and the suspected criminal was obliged to touch his body, and particu- larly the wound. If blood flowed, if foam ap- peared at the mouth, or if the body moved, the charge was deemed to be proved. The ordeal of battle (see APPEAL, vol. i., p. 596) seems to have been unknown among the ancients, except by a Spanish tribe mentioned in Livy (xxviii. cap. 21). William the Conqueror in- troduced it into England. Decretals were is- sued against this method of deciding disputes by Pope Alexander III. in 1179 and by In- nocent III. in 1215, and Louis IX. abolished it in the ordinance of 1260. From this time