Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/258

* BOETHITJS. 226 BOG. BOETHIUS, or BOETIUS, Anicius JIax- LirS TORQI-ATUS 8EVERINTS (480-524). A Roman statesman and pliilosophor. The family to which lie helonjjeil had been distinfiuislied for botli its wealth and dij,'nlty for two <'cnturies. His father, who held the olliec of consul, died when Anicins was still a boy. and consequently the latter was brought up under the care of Symmachus, whose daughter. Itusticiana, became his wife. It is known that he studied philosophy, mathematics, and jioetry. translated and eluci- dated with laborious care the writings of Aris- totle, and of the old niathenuiticians, Euclid, Archimedes. Ptolemy, and others; but the story of his eighteen years' stay in Athens is entirely unhistorieal. Boethius soon attracted notice; he became a patrician before the usual age, a consul in 510, and also princeps aeiiatux. Having, moreover, gained the esteem and confi- dence of Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, who had fixed the seat of his government at Rome in the year 500, he was ajipointed by that monarch magister officiorum in his Court. His inlluence was invariably exercised for the good of Italy, and his countrymen owed it to him that the Gothic rule was so little oppressive. His good fortune culminated in the prosperity of his two sons, who were made consuls in 522. But his bold uprightness of conduct, springing from what seemed to have been the essential characteristics of the man — viz., a strong faith in the truth of his philosophic ethics, and a courage to regulate his ollicial conduct by them — at last brought down upon his head the unscrupulous vengeance of those who7n he had checked in their oppres- sions and provoked by his virtues. He was ac- cused of treasonable designs against Theodoric; and the King, having become despondent and dis- trustful in his old age, was induced to listen to the charges. Boethius was stripped of his dig- nities, his property Avas confiscated, and after imprisonment at Pavia, he was executed about 524, according to one accoimt, under circum- stances of horrible cruelty. During his imprison- ment Boethius wrote his famous T)c Consolafione PhilofiojihicF, divided into five books, and com- posed in the form of a dialogue, in which Boe- thius himself holds a conversation with Philoso- phy, who shows him the mutability of all earthly fortune, and the insecurity of everything save vir- tue. The work is composed in a style which hap- pily imitates the best models of the Augustan Age. and the frequent fragments of poetry' which are interspersed throughout the dialogaie are dis- tinguished by their truthfulness of feeling and metrical accuracy. The ('iinf<idii1io is piously the- istic in its language, but affords no indication that Boethius was a Christian; and if the doctrinal treatises ascribed to him are. as the aeutest criticism maintains, not genuine, we must class him in religion rather with Marcus Aurelius than with his alleged friend Saint Benedict. He was the last Roman writer of any mark who understood the (Jreek language and literature. During the Middle Ages he was re- garded with profound reverence, as th<! Augustine of [ihilosophy. but on the introduction of the Aristotelian metaphysics in the Thirteenth Cen- tury his reputation gradually sank. The fir.st edition of Boethius's entire works appeared at Venice, 1491-92; standard edition of the entire works in ^ligne, Palroloqin Lnlina, Vols. LXIIl.- LXIV. (I'aris, 1800). The oldest edition of the Consohilio is that published at Nuremberg, 1473, but many manuscript translations into various languages had appeared long before the invention of printing. Among these may be mentioned that by King .lfred into . glo-Saxon. and by Cliaucer an<l (^ueen Elizabeth into English. Best edition by Peiper, Lcii)zig (Teubner). 1875; a new translation by James (London, 18!)7). Con- sult also Stewart, Boi'thiiits: An Essai/ (Edin- burgh. 1891). The most interesting qtiestion in connection with Boethius's mathematical works relates to his knowledge of Hindu numerals, char- acters evidently derived from them appearing on the apices or small cones used on the abacus. A discussion of this question may be found in Cantor's llcfif-hichte dcr Malhrmatik. Consult also A. Hildebrand, lioctius tiiid seine Stelhing zum ('hristenthum (Regensburg, 1885). BOETTI, bC.-et'tA, Giovanni Battista (174.'?- 98). An Italian adventurer whose place of birth is unknown. After a scries of remarkalilc ad- ventures Boetti, under the title of an emissary of Jlohamnied, put himself at the head of a small army, and within a year subdued Kurdistan. He afterwards engaged in war with the Russians, by whom he was finally taken prisoner. He died in captivity on the island of Solovetsk, in the White Sea. BOETTICHER, be'tiK-er, P. A. de Lagarde. Sec Jj.VGARDE. B(EUF BAYOXJ, bef bi'oo. An overflow stream in Arkansas and Louisiana, fed in time of inundation by the Jlississippi. It unites with the Washita River, and at high water atl'ords 100 miles of steamboat navigation. BOF'FIN, NicoDEMfS. A character in (hir Muluul Friend, by Dickens. He is residuary legatee of his employer, but gives up the £100,- 000 when Harmon marries Bella Wilier. BOFFIN'S BOWER. The name given by Mrs. Botlin. in Dickens's Our Mutual Friend, to the place she made her home, as being more cheer- ful than its original of Harmon's Jail. BOG (Gael, horian, quagmire. Ir. and Gael. hori. soft, moist). Wet land covered with moss, and often underlain l)v it to a variable depth. Owing to the spongy character of the material, bogs are often saturated with water and converted into a kind of quagmire. The term 'peat-bog* is especially applied to those swamps or bogs which are underlain by an acciunulation of peat, a vegetable gathering caused largely by the growth and decay of s))hagnum. or bog-moss. Peat bogs are especially abundant in the north temperate regions, nuich of Ireland and por- tions of England, as well as iiortheni Germany, Nova Scotia, and Canada being covered by them. Tradition reports that at the battle of Solway, in 1542. a fugitive troop of horse plunged into the moss, which instantly closed in upon them: and in the end of the Eighteenth Century this tradition was confinned by the discovery, made during peat-digging, of a man and horse in com- plete arnuir. Bogs often originate by a process of lake-fill- ing, ))onds or even estuaries being partly filled by the inwash of sediment and partly by the spread of bog-mosses from the shore into the ever-shallowing water. As soon as one layer of bog-nioss decays another growtli springs up. A distinction is sometimes made between red