Part 150 (2/2)
CUZCO (20), a town in Peru, about 11,440 ft. above the sea-level, the ancient capital of the Incas; still retains traces of its former extent and greatness, the inhabitants reckoned as then numbering 200,000, and the civilisation advanced.
CYBELE, a nature-G.o.ddess wors.h.i.+pped in Phrygia and W. Asia, whose wors.h.i.+p, like that of the nature divinities generally, was accompanied with noisy, more or less licentious, revelry; identified by the Greeks with RHEA (q. v.), their nature-G.o.ddess.
CYCLADES, islands belonging to Greece, on the East or the aegean Sea, so called as forming a circle round Delos, the most famous of the group.
CYCLIC POETS, poets who after Homer's death caught the contagion of his great poem and wrote continuations, additions, &c.
CYCLOPEAN WALLS, a name given to structures found in Greece, Asia Minor, Italy, and Sicily, built of large ma.s.ses of unhewn stone and without cement, such as it is presumed a race of gigantic strength like the Cyclops (3) must have reared.
CYCLOPS, a name given to three distinct cla.s.ses of mythological beings: (1) a set of one-eyed savage giants infesting the coasts of Sicily and preying upon human flesh; (2) a set of t.i.tans, also one-eyed, belonging to the race of the G.o.ds, three in number, viz., Brontes, Steropes, and Arges--three great elemental powers of nature, subjected by and subject to Zeus; and (3) a people of Thrace, famed for their skill in building.
CYMBELINE, a legendary British king, and the hero of Shakespeare's romance play of the name.
CYNaeGIRUS, a brother of aeschylus; distinguished himself at Marathon; is famed for his desperate attempt to seize a retreating s.h.i.+p.
CYNEWULF, a Saxon poet, flourished at the second half of the 8th century; seems to have pa.s.sed through two phases, first as a glad-hearted child of nature, and then as a devout believer in Christ; at the former stage wrote ”Riddles” and ”Ode to the West Wind,” at the latter his themes were the lives of Christ and certain Saints.
CYNICS, a sect of Greek philosophers, disciples of Antisthenes, who was a disciple of Socrates, but carried away with him only part of Socrates' teaching and enforced that as if it were the whole, dropped all regard for humanity and the universal reason, and taught that ”virtue lay wholly in the avoidance of evil, and those desires and greeds that bind us to enjoyments,” so that his disciples were called the ”Capuchins of the Old World.” These in time went further than their master, and conceived a contempt for everything that was not self-derived; they derived their name from the gymnasium in Athens, where their master taught.
CYPRIAN, ST., one of the Fathers of the Church, born at Carthage, about the year 200, converted to Christianity in 245; devoted himself thereafter to the study of the Bible, with the help of Tertullian his favourite author; became bishop of Carthage in 248; on the outbreak of the Decian persecution had to flee for his life, ministering to his flock the while by subst.i.tutes; on his return, after two years, he was involved in the discussion about the reception of the lapsed; under the Valerian persecution was banished; being recalled, he refused to sacrifice to the G.o.ds, and suffered martyrdom in 258; he was a zealous bishop of the High Church type, and the father of such, only on broader lines. Festival, Sept. 16.
CYPRUS (21), a fertile, mountainous island in the Levant, capital Nicosia (12); geographically connected with Asia, and the third largest in the Mediterranean, being 140 m. long and 60 m. broad; government ceded to Great Britain in 1878 by the Sultan, on condition of an annual tribute; is a British colony under a colonial governor or High Commissioner; is of considerable strategic importance to Britain; yields cereals, wines, cotton, &c., and has 400 m. of good road, and a large transit trade.
CYRENAICS, a sect of Greek philosophers, disciples of Aristippus, who was a disciple of Socrates, but who broke away from his master by divorcing virtue from happiness, and making ”pleasure, moderated by reason, the ultimate aim of life, and the supreme good.”
CYRE'NE, a town and Greek colony in Africa, E. of Egypt, extensive ruins of which still exist, and which was the capital of the State, called Cyrenaica after it, and the birthland of several ill.u.s.trious Greeks.
CYRIL, ST., surnamed the PHILOSOPHER, along with his brother Methodius, the ”Apostle of the Slavs,” born in Thessalonica; invented the Slavonic alphabet, and, with his brother's help, translated the Bible into the language of the Slavs; _d_. 868. Festival, March 9.
CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, ST., born at Alexandria, and bishop there; an ecclesiastic of a violent, militant order; persecuted the Novatians, expelled the Jews from Alexandria, quarrelled with the governor, excited a fanaticism which led to the seizure and shameful murder of Hypatia; had a lifelong controversy with Nestorius, and got him condemned by the Council of Ephesus, while he himself was condemned by the Council at Antioch (608), and both cast into prison; after release lived at peace (376-444). Festival, Jan. 28.
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