Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/724

 710 ORNITHOSAURIANS ORPHEUS tilian affinities. It burrows in the banks of streams, where it passes the day in sleep rolled up like a ball, coming out at dusk and during the night in search of food ; it is an excellent swimmer and diver, and feeds upon worms, in- sects, and small aquatic animals, in the man- ner of a duck ; it walks very well, and climbs trees with facility; the burrows, which have an opening below the water, are sometimes 20 or 30 ft. long, extending upward beyond the reach of inundations ; in the highest and dryest part is an enlarged cavity for the nest of them- selves and young. It can remain under water only about seven or eight minutes at a time ; it is cleanly in habit, and fond of warmth and dryness. The young in confinement are play- ful, and will eat rice and egg, soaked bread, and finely chopped meat ; they are rather deli- cate, and die very soon from want of food. They do not lay eggs, but are true mammals ; the fluid secreted by the femoral gland is not poisonous. Skins of this animal are not un- common, but its skeleton is rare. ORNTTHOSAURIANS, extinct flying reptiles of the mesozoic age. (See PTEEODAOTYL.) OROXSAY. See COLONSAY. OROXTES, a river of Syria, which rises not far from Baalbek in Coele-Syria, flows N". be- tween the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and through the plains of northern Syria, passing Horns (ancient Emesa) and Hamah (Hamath or Epiphania), and then turning "W. into the valley of Antioch, falls into the Mediterranean near lat. 36 N". It is about 250 m. long, and remarkably picturesque between Antioch and the sea. Its Arab name is JSTahr el-Aasy. OROOMIAH. See UEUMIAH. OROSIUS, Paulns, a Spanish theologian, born in Tarragona about the end of the 4th century, died probably in Africa. He went to Africa about A. D. 414 to consult St. Augustine on points of doctrine, became his associate in the monastic life, and wrote Consultatio sive Com- monitorium Orosii ad Augustinum de Err ore Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum, to which Augustine replied in the treatise Contra Pris- cillianistas et Origenistas Liber ad Orosium. In 414 or 415 he set out for Palestine, to counteract the influence of Pelagius. He won the confidence of Jerome, who shortly after at- tacked the Pelagian doctrines. In 415 Orosius arraigned Pelagius for heresy before the tri- bunal of John, bishop of Jerusalem ; but the accusation failed both here and in the appeal to the council of Diospolis. Orosius, being himself denounced by John as a blasphemer, wrote Liber Apologeticus de Arbitrii Libertate, in which he defended himself and attacked the doctrines of Pelagius. From Palestine he re- turned to Hippo, and in 416 went thence to Spain. By the advice of Augustine, he com- posed his Historiarum adversus Paganos Libri VII, extending from the creation of the world to the year 417, which, with the exception of the concluding portion, is destitute of historical value. The best edition is that of Havercamp (4to, Leyden, 1738). Of the Anglo-Saxon translation of the work by King Alfred there are three editions with English versions, by Daines Barrington, Benjamin Thorpe, and Dr. Bos worth. ORPHAT. See ARAFAT. ORPHEUS, a mythical Greek personage, the chief of a circle of poets, embracing Linus, Musseus, Eumolpus, and others, to whom were attributed various hymns and poems inculcating religious conceptions different from those of Homer and Hesiod. An ante-Homeric anti- quity was assigned to these apocryphal writings, and they were received by the Greeks as a sort of divine revelation. The name of Orpheus does not appear in Homer or Hesiod. He is mentioned by Ibycus in the 6th century B. 0. as the "renowned Orpheus;" by Pindar as son of (Eagrus, one of the Argonauts, and the father of songs ; by Hellanicus as the ancestor of both Homer and Hesiod; by ^Eschylus as leading the trees after him to the sound of his lyre ; by Eratosthenes as worshipping Apollo rather than Bacchus ; by Euripides as related to the Muses, as charming by his song the rocks, trees, wild beasts, and infernal powers, as connected with the Bacchanalian orgies, as founder of the sacred mysteries, and as living amid the forests of Olympus; and by Aristophanes as one of the oldest poets and the teacher of re- ligious initiations. Though Plato quotes from the Orphic writings, he evidently regarded them as spurious; but he seems not to have doubted the existence of Orpheus or the gen- uineness of his peculiar theogony., Aristotle held that Orpheus was altogether a fictitious personage. Later accounts make him a Thra- cian bard in the era of the Argonauts, to whom Apollo gave a lyre, in the use of which he was instructed by the Muses, and who on account of the miraculous charm of his song was en- gaged as one of the Argonauts. On their ex- pedition the power of his lyre held back the moving Symplegadse, which threatened to crush the ship, lulled the Colchian dragon to sleep, and rendered other important services. On his return he applied himself to the civilization of the rude inhabitants of Thrace, was reputed to have visited Egypt, and according to the legends sought his deceased wife Eurydice in Hades, where the music of his lyre suspended the tortures of the damned, and won back his beloved on condition that he should not look round at her till she reached the upper world. He violated the condition, and saw her vanish. In his despair he treated the Thracian Maenads with contempt, who avenged themselves by tearing him to pieces in their orgies. Accord- ing to another legend, he perished by the thun- derbolts of Jupiter. The remnants of his body were gathered by the Muses, and buried at the foot of Olympus, where a nightingale sang above his tomb. The earliest of the Orphic compositions are now usually ascribed to Ono- macritus, who lived at the court of Hipparchus. About the same time the Orphici, or associa-