Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Cat" to "Celt"

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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Cat" to "Celt"

Author: Various

Release date: July 23, 2010 [eBook #33239]
Most recently updated: January 6, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33239

Credits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "CAT" TO "CELT" ***

Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's notes:

(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.

(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.

(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.

(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.

(5) [oo] stands for the infinity symbol.

(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:

Article CATALONIA: "There is much woodland, but meadows and
pastures are rare." 'There' amended from 'These'.

Article CATALYSIS: "It seems in this, as in other cases, that
additional compounds are first formed which subsequently react with
the re-formation of the catalyst." 'additional' amended from
'addition'.

Article CAVALRY: "... and as this particular branch of the army was
almost exclusively commanded by the aristocracy it suffered most in
the early days of the Revolution." 'army' amended from 'arm'.

Article CECILIA, SAINT: "It was long supposed that she was a noble
lady of Rome 594 who, with her husband and other friends whom she
had converted, suffered martyrdom, c. 230, under the emperor
Alexander Severus." 'martyrdom' amended from 'martydom'.

Article CELT: "Two poets of this period, whom an English writer
describes as 'the two filthy Welshmen who first smoked publicly in
the streets,' ..." 'as' amended from 'a'.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME V, SLICE V

Cat to Celt

ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:

CAT CAUTERETS
CATABOLISM CAUTIN
CATACLYSM CAUTLEY, SIR PROBY THOMAS
CATACOMB CAUVERY
CATAFALQUE CAVA DEI TIRRENI
CATALANI, ANGELICA CAVAEDIUM
CATALEPSY CAVAGNARI, SIR PIERRE NAPOLEON
CATALOGUE CAVAIGNAC, JEAN BAPTISTE
CATALONIA CAVAIGNAC, LOUIS EUGENE
CATALPA CAVAILLON
CATALYSIS CAVALCANTI, GUIDO
CATAMARAN CAVALIER, JEAN
CATAMARCA (province of Argentine) CAVALIER
CATAMARCA (city of Argentine) CAVALIERE, EMILIO DEL
CATANIA CAVALLI, FRANCESCO
CATANZARO CAVALLINI, PIETRO
CATAPHYLL CAVALLO, TIBERIUS
CATAPULT CAVALLOTTI, FELICE
CATARACT CAVALRY
CATARGIU, LASCAR CAVAN (county of Ireland)
CATARRH CAVAN (town of Ireland)
CATARRHINE APE CAVANILLES, ANTONIO JOSE
CATASTROPHE CAVATINA
CATAUXI CAVE, EDWARD
CATAWBAS CAVE, WILLIAM
CATCH THE TEN CAVE
CATECHISM CAVEA
CATECHU CAVEAT
CATECHUMEN CAVEDONE, JACOPO
CATEGORY CAVENDISH, GEORGE
CATENARY CAVENDISH, HENRY
CATERAN CAVENDISH, THOMAS
CATERHAM CAVENDISH, SIR WILLIAM
CATERPILLAR CAVETTO
CATESBY, ROBERT CAVIARE
CAT-FISH CAVITE
CATGUT CAVOUR, CAMILLO BENSO
CATHA CAVOUR
CATHARS CAVY
CATHAY CAWDOR
CATHCART, SIR GEORGE CAWNPORE
CATHCART, WILLIAM SCHAW CATHCART CAXTON, WILLIAM
CATHCART CAYENNE
CATHEDRAL CAYENNE PEPPER
CATHELINEAU, JACQUES CAYEY
CATHERINE, SAINT CAYLEY, ARTHUR
CATHERINE I CAYLUS, ANNE CLAUDE DE LEVIS
CATHERINE II CAYMAN ISLANDS
CATHERINE DE' MEDICI CAZALES, JACQUES ANTOINE DE
CATHERINE OF ARAGON CAZALIS, HENRI
CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA CAZEMBE
CATHERINE OF VALOIS CAZIN, JEAN CHARLES
CATHETUS CAZOTTE, JACQUES
CATHOLIC CEANOTHUS
CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC CHURCH, THE CEARA
CATILINE CEAWLIN
CATINAT, NICOLAS CEBES
CATLIN, GEORGE CEBU
CATO, DIONYSIUS CECCO D'ASCOLI
CATO, MARCUS PORCIUS (statesman) CECIL
CATO, MARCUS PORCIUS (philosopher) CECILIA, SAINT
CATO, PUBLIUS VALERIUS CECROPIA
CATS, JACOB CECROPS
CAT'S-EYE CEDAR
CATSKILL CEDAR CREEK
CATSKILL MOUNTAINS CEDAR FALLS
CATTANEO, CARLO CEDAR RAPIDS
CATTARO CEFALU
CATTEGAT CEHEGIN
CATTERMOLE, GEORGE CEILING
CATTLE CEILLIER, REMY
CATULLUS, GAIUS VALERIUS CELAENAE
CATULUS CELANDINE
CAUB CELANO
CAUCA CELEBES
CAUCASIA CELERY
CAUCASUS CELESTE, MADAME
CAUCHOIS-LEMAIRE, LOUIS AUGUSTE CELESTINA, LA
CAUCHON, PIERRE CELESTINE (popes)
CAUCHY, AUGUSTIN LOUIS CELESTINE (sulphate)
CAUCUS CELESTINES
CAUDEBEC-EN-CAUX CELIBACY
CAUDINE FORKS CELL
CAUDLE CELLA
CAUL CELLARET
CAULAINCOURT, ARMAND LOUIS CELLE
CAULICULUS CELLIER, ALFRED
CAULON CELLINI, BENVENUTO
CAUSATION CELLULOSE
CAUSEWAY CELSIUS, ANDERS
CAUSSES CELSUS
CAUSSIN DE PERCEVAL, ARMAND-PIERRE CELT (ancient people)
CAUSTIC CELT (ancient stone tools)

CAT,[1] properly the name of the well-known domesticated feline animal
usually termed by naturalists _Felis domestica_, but in a wider sense
employed to denote all the more typical members of the family _Felidae_.
According to the _New English Dictionary_, although the origin of the
word "cat" is unknown, yet the name is found in various languages as far
back as they can be traced. In old Western Germanic it occurs, for
instance, so early as from A.D. 400 to 450; in old High German it is
_chazza_ or _catero_, and in Middle German _kattaro_. Both in Gaelic and
in old French it is _cat_, although sometimes taking the form of
_chater_ in the latter; the Gaelic designation of the European wild cat
being _cat fiadhaich_. In Welsh and Cornish the name is _cath_. If
Martial's _cattae_ refer to this animal, the earliest Latin use of the
name dates from the 1st century of our era. In the work of Palladius on
agriculture, dating from about the year A.D. 350, reference is made to
an animal called _catus_ or _cattus_, as being useful in granaries for
catching mice. This usage, coupled with the existence of a distinct term
in Gaelic for the wild species, leaves little doubt that the word "cat"
properly denotes only the domesticated species. This is confirmed by the
employment in Byzantine Greek of the term [Greek: k'attos] or [Greek:
k'atta] to designate domesticated cats brought from Egypt. It should be
added that the [Greek: a'ilouros] of the Greeks, frequently translated
by the older writers as "cat," really refers to the marten-cat, which
appears to have been partially domesticated by the ancients and employed
for mousing.

As regards the origin of the domesticated cats of western Europe, it is
well known that the ancient Egyptians were in the habit of domesticating
(at least in some degree) the Egyptian race of the African wild cat
(_Felis ocreata maniculata_), and also of embalming its remains, of
which vast numbers have been found in tombs at Beni Hasan and elsewhere
in Egypt. These Egyptian cats are generally believed by naturalists to
have had a large share in the parentage of the European breeds, which
have, however, in many cases been crossed to a greater or less extent
with the European wild cat (_F. catus_).

One of the features by which the Egyptian differs from the European wild
cat is the longer and less bushy tail; and it has been very generally
considered that the same feature is characteristic of European
domesticated cats. According, however, to Dr E. Hamilton, "the
measurement of a number of tails of the [European] wild cat and of the
domestic cat gives a range between 11 in. and 14-1/2 in., the longer
length being quite as often found in the wild cats as in the domestic.
The bushy appearance depends entirely on the length of the fur, and
accords with the thick fur of the rest of the body of the wild cat,
while in the domestic race the fur both on the body and tail is thinner
and softer."

Possibly those domesticated cats with unusually short and bushy tails
may have a larger share of European wild-cat blood; while, conversely,
such wild cats as show long tails may have a cross of domesticated
blood.

More importance was attached by Dr A. Nehring of Berlin (_SB. Ges.
Naturfor._, Berlin, 1887) to the colour of the soles of the hind-feet as
a means of determining the relationship of the domesticated cat of
Europe. According to his observations, in the Egyptian wild cat the pads
of the toes are wholly black, while the black extends back either
continuously or in long stripes as far as the calcaneum or heel-bone. In
the European wild cat, on the other hand, the black is limited to a
small round spot on the pads, while the colour of the hair as far back
as the heel-bone is yellowish or yellowish-grey. Since in all
domesticated cats retaining the colouring of the wild species the soles
of the hind-feet correspond in this particular with the Egyptian rather
than with the European wild cat, the presumption is in favour of their
descent from the former rather than from the latter.

Later, Dr Nehring (_op. cit._ 1889) came to the conclusion that the
domesticated cat has a dual parentage, one stock coming from
south-eastern Asia and the other from north-eastern Africa; in other
words, from a domesticated Chinese cat (itself derived from a wild
Chinese species) on the one hand, and from the Egyptian cat on the
other. The ordinary domesticated cats of Europe are, however, mainly of
African origin, although they have largely crossed, especially in
Germany (and probably also in Great Britain), with the wild cat. The
same author was likewise of opinion that the domestication or taming of
various species of wild cats took place chiefly among nationalities of
stationary or non-nomadic habits who occupied themselves with
agricultural pursuits, since it would be of vital importance that their
stores of grain should be adequately protected from the depredations of
rats and mice.

The foregoing opinion as to the dual parentage of our domesticated cats
receives support from observations made many years ago by E. Blyth,
which have recently been endorsed and amplified by R.I. Pocock (_Proc.
Zool. Soc. London_, 1907). According to these observations, two distinct
types of so-called tabby cats are recognizable. In the one the pattern
consists of narrow vertical stripes, and in the other of longitudinal or
obliquely longitudinal stripes, which, on the sides of the body, tend
to assume a spiral or sub-circular arrangement characteristic of the
blotched tabby. This latter type appears to be the true "tabby"; since
that word denotes a pattern like that of watered silk. One or other of
these types is to be found in cats of almost all breeds, whether
Persian, short-haired or Manx; and there appear to be no intermediate
stages between them. Cats of the striped type are no doubt descended
from the European and North African wild cats; but the origin of cats
exhibiting the blotched pattern appears to be unknown. As it was to a
cat of the latter kind that Linnaeus gave the name of _Felis catus_,
Pocock urges that this title is not available for the European wild cat,
which he would call _Felis sylvestris_. Without accepting this proposed
change in nomenclature, which is liable to lead to confusion without any
compensating advantage, it may be suggested that the blotched tabby type
represents Dr Nehring's presumed Chinese element in the cat's parentage,
and that the missing wild stock may be one of the numerous phases of the
leopard-cat (_F. bengalensis_), in some of which an incipient spiral
arrangement of the markings may be noticed on the shoulder.

As to the introduction of domesticated cats into Europe, the opinion is
very generally held that tame cats from Egypt were imported at a
relatively early date into Etruria by Phoenician traders; and there is
decisive evidence that these animals were established in Italy long
before the Christian era. The progeny of these cats, more or less
crossed with the indigenous species, thence gradually spread over
Europe, to become mingled at some period, according to Dr Nehring's
hypothesis, with an Asiatic stock. The earliest written record of the
introduction of domesticated cats into Great Britain dates from about
A.D. 936, when Hywel Dda, prince of South Wales, enacted a law for their
protection. "The Romans," writes Dr Hamilton, "were probably the
original introducers of this cat, and as the final evacuation of Britain
by that nation took place under the emperor Valentinian about A.D. 436,
the period of its introduction may certainly be dated some 500 years
previous to the Welsh chronicle and even much earlier." It is added that
the remains of cats from Roman villas at Silchester and Dursley are
probably referable to the domesticated breed.

Before proceeding to notice some of the different types of domesticated
cats, a few lines may be devoted to the wild European species, _F.
catus_. Beyond stating that in colour it conforms very closely to the
striped phase of domesticated tabby, it will be unnecessary to describe
the species. Its geographical range was formerly very extensive, and
included Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany,
Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, Transylvania, Galicia, the Caucasus as far as
the Caspian, southern Russia, Italy, Spain, Greece, Rumania, Bulgaria,
Servia, and portions of central and northern Asia. "At the present
time," observes Dr Hamilton, "the wild cat has become almost extinct in
many of the above districts. Examples may perhaps occasionally still be
found in the uninhabited forests of Hungary and Transylvania, and
occasionally in Spain and Greece, as well as in the Caucasus and in some
of the Swiss cantons, but the original race has in most countries
interbred with the domestic cat wherever the latter has penetrated." In
Great Britain wild cats survive only in some of the Scottish forests,
and even there it is difficult to decide whether pure-bred specimens are
extant. Remains of the wild cat occur in English caverns; while from
those of Ireland (where the wild species has apparently been unknown
during the historic period) have been obtained jaws and teeth which it
has been suggested are referable to the Egyptian rather than to the
European wild cat. Such a determination is, however, extremely
hazardous, even if it be admitted that the remains of cats from the
rock-fissures of Gibraltar pertain to _Felis ocreata_.

PLATE I.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--SKINS OF THE BLOTCHED DOMESTIC CAT, SHOWING
SOME OF THE VARIATIONS TO WHICH THE PATTERN IS LIABLE. (Cf. Fig. 5 on
Plate II.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--SKINS OF THE STRIPED DOMESTIC CAT, GIVING THE
"TICKED" BREED AND A PARTIALLY ALBINO SPECIMEN. (Cf. Fig. 4 on Plate
II.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--SKINS OF THE EUROPEAN WILD CAT, FROM
ROSS-SHIRE, SCOTLAND. (Cf. Fig. 1 on Plate II.)]

_Note_--Of the two types of colouration found in modern domestic cats,
the striped type obviously corresponds to the original wild cat as
seen in various parts of North Europe to-day. The origin of the
blotched as a special type is wholly unknown.

(Photos from Plates VIII., IX., and X., _P.Z.S._, 1907, by permission
of the Zoological Society of London.)

PLATE II.

[Illustration: _Photo, W.G. Berridge_. FIG. 1.--EUROPEAN WILD CAT.]

[Illustration: _Photo, W.G. Berridge_. FIG. 2.--PALLAS'S CAT.]

[Illustration: _Photo, R.C. Ryan_. FIG. 3.--ROYAL SIAMESE CAT.]

[Illustration: _Photo, Topical Press Agency_. FIG. 4.--STRIPED
DOMESTIC CAT.]

[Illustration: _Photo, Topical Press Agency_. FIG. 5.--BLOTCHED
DOMESTIC CAT.]

[Illustration: _Photo, R.C. Ryan_ FIG. 6.--TAIL-LESS CAT.]

[Illustration: _Photo, Topical Press Agency_. FIG. 7.--WHITE PERSIAN
KITTEN.]

[Illustration: _Photo, Topical Press Agency_. FIG. 8.--BLUE PERSIAN
CAT.]

[Illustration: _Photo, Topical Press Agency_. FIG. 9.--BLACK PERSIAN
KITTEN.]

The favourite haunts of the wild cat are mountain forests where masses
or rocks or cliffs are interspersed with trees, the crevices in these
rocks or the hollow trunks of trees affording sites for the wild cat's
lair, where its young are produced and reared. In the Spanish plains,
however, the young are often produced in nests built in trees, or among
tall bamboos in cane-brakes. "To fight like a wild cat" is
proverbial, and wild cats are described as some of the most ferocious
and untamable of all animals. How far this untamable character lends
support to the view of the origin of our domesticated breeds has not yet
been determined. Hares, rabbits, field-mice, water-rats, rats,
squirrels, moles, game-birds, pigeons, and small birds, form the chief
food of the wild cat.

Apart from the above-mentioned division of the striped members of both
groups into two types according to the pattern of their markings, the
domesticated cats of western Europe are divided into a short-haired and
a long-haired group. Of these, the former is the one which bears the
closest relationship to the wild cats of Africa and of Europe, the
latter being an importation from the East. The striped (as distinct from
the blotched) short-haired tabby is probably the one most nearly allied
to the wild ancestors, the stripes being, however, to a great extent due
to the European wild cat. In one direction the tabby shows a tendency to
melanism which culminates in complete blackness, while in the other
direction there is an equally marked tendency to albinism; grey cats,
which may be regarded as tabbies whose stripes have disappeared, forming
the connecting link between the tabby and the white cat. A mixture of
the melanistic with the albinistic type will of course give rise to
parti-coloured cats. A third colour-phase, the "erythristic" or red, is
represented by the sandy cat, the female of which takes the form of the
"tortoise-shell," characterized, curiously enough, by the colour being a
blend of black, white, and sandy. The so-called orange tabby is one
phase of the erythristic type.

As to long-haired cats, there appear originally to have been two
closely-allied strains, the Angora and the Persian, of which the former
has been altogether replaced in western Europe by the latter. That these
long-haired cats have an ancestry, to some extent at any rate distinct
from the ordinary short-haired breeds, is practically certain, and it
has been suggested that they are derived from the "manul" cat, or
Pallas's cat (_Felis manul_), of the deserts of central Asia, which is a
long-haired and bushy-tailed species with comparatively slight striping.
The fact that in tabby Persians the body-markings are never so strong as
in the short-haired breeds is in some degree confirmatory of this, as
suggesting descent from a nearly whole-coloured type. At the present
day, however, Persians exhibit nearly all the colour and pattern types
of the short-haired breeds, the "orange Persian" representing the
erythristic phase.

Turning to the tailless or so-called Manx cats, in which the tail should
be represented merely by a tuft of hair without any remnant of bone, it
seems that the strain is to be met with in many parts of Russia, and
there is a very general opinion that it originally came from Japan or
some other far eastern country. Throughout Japan, China, Siam, and the
Malay countries, normal long-tailed cats are indeed seldom seen. Instead
of these are cats with more or less abbreviated tails, showing in
greater or less degree a decided kink or bend near the tip. In other
cases the tail is of the short curling type of that of a bulldog;
sometimes it starts quite straight, but divides in a fork-like manner
near the tip; and in yet other instances it is altogether wanting, as in
the typical Manx cats. These kink-tailed or tailless cats are moreover
smaller in size than the ordinary short-tailed breeds, with rather
longer hair, whose texture approaches that of rabbit-fur, and a cry said
to be like that of the jungle-cat (_F. chaus_) of India and Africa, and
more dog-like habits. Unless the jungle-cat, which is a nearly
whole-coloured species, can claim the position, the ancestry of these
Manx-Malay cats is still unknown. Kink-tailed cats, it should be added,
are also known from Madagascar.

Among the domesticated cats of India a spotted type of colouring, with a
more or less decided tendency for the spots to coalesce into stripes, is
very noticeable; and it is probable that these cats are derived from the
spotted Indian desert-cat (_F. ornata_), with a certain amount of
crossing from other species. The so-called _F. torquata_ of India is
probably based on cats of this type which have reverted to the wild
state. Other Indian cats with a tawny or fulvous type of colouring are
probably the more or less modified descendants of the jungle-cat. From
the same stock may be derived the Abyssinian breed, in which the ears
are relatively large and occasionally tipped with long hairs (thus
recalling the tufted ears of the jungle-cat). The colour is typically
reddish-brown, each individual hair being "ticked" like that of a wild
rabbit, whence the popular name of "bunny cat." Another African breed is
the Mombasa cat, in which the hair is reported to be unusually short and
stiff.

By far the most remarkable of all the Old World domesticated breeds is,
however, the royal Siamese cat, which almost certainly has an origin
quite distinct from that of the ordinary European breeds; this being
rendered evident not only by the peculiar type of colouring, but
likewise by the cry, which is quite unmistakable. Siamese cats may have
the tail either straight or kinked, but whether the latter feature
belongs of right to the breed, or has been acquired by crossing with the
ordinary black and tabby kink-tailed cats of the country, is not known.
In the royal Siamese breed the head is rather long and pointed, the body
also elongated with relatively slender limbs, the coat glossy and close,
the eyes blue, and the general colour some shade of cream or pink, with
the face, ears, feet, under-parts, and tail chocolate or seal-brown.
There is however a wholly chocolate-coloured strain in which the eyes
are yellow. The most remarkable feature about the breed is that the
young are white. "The kittens," observes a lady writer, "are born
absolutely white, and in about a week a faint pencilling comes round the
ears, and gradually all the points come. At four or five months they are
lovely, as generally they retain their baby whiteness, which contrasts
well with their almost black ears, deep-brown markings, and blue eyes."
In constitution these cats are extremely delicate. The blue eyes and the
white coat of the kitten indicate that the Siamese breed is a
semi-albino, which when adult tends towards melanism, such a combination
of characters being apparently unknown in any other animal. If the
frequent presence of a kink in the tail be an inherent feature, the
breed is evidently related to the other kink-tailed Malay cats which, as
already stated, have a cry differing from that of European cats. Should
this be so, then if the ordinary Malay cats are the descendants of the
jungle-cat, we shall have to assign the same ancestry to the Siamese
breed.

Although definite information on this point is required, it seems
probable that the southern part of North America and South America
possessed certain native domesticated breeds of cats previous to the
European conquest of the country; and if this be so, it will be obvious
that these breeds must be derived from indigenous wild species. One of
these breeds is the Paraguay cat, which when adult weighs only about
three pounds, and is not more than a quarter the size of an ordinary
cat. The body is elongated, and the hair, especially on the tail, short,
shiny and close. This small size and elongated form suggest origin from
the jaguarondi (_F. jaguarondi_), a chestnut-coloured wild species; but
information appears to be lacking with regard to the colouring of the
domesticated breed. Another South American breed is said to be free from
the hideous "caterwauling" of the ordinary cat. In old days New Mexico
was the home of a breed of hairless cats, said to have been kept by the
ancient Aztecs, but now well-nigh if not completely extinct. Although
entirely naked in summer, these cats developed in winter a slight growth
of hair on the back and the ridge of the tail.

LITERATURE.--St George Mivart, _The Cat_ (London, 1881); R. Lydekker,
"Cats," in _Allen's Naturalists' Library_ (1888); F. Hamilton, _The
Wild Cat of Europe_ (London. 1896); Frances Simpson, _The Book of the
Cat_ (London, 1903). (R. L.*)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The word "cat" is applied to various objects, in all cases an
application of the name of the animal. In medieval siegecraft the
"cat" (Med. Lat. _chattus_ or _gattus_, _chatta_ or _gatta_, in Fr.
_chat_ or _chat-chasteil_) was a movable pent-house used to protect
besiegers when approaching a wall or gateway, for the purpose of
sapping, mining or direct attack, or to cover a ram or other
battering-engine. The word is also sometimes applied to a heavy
timber fitted with iron spikes or projections to be thrown down upon
besiegers, and to the large work known as a "cavalier." "Cat" or
"cat-head," in nautical usage, is the projecting beam on the bows of
a ship used to clear the anchor from the sides of the vessel when
weighed. The stock of the anchor rests on the cat-head when hung
outside the ship. The name is also used of a type of a vessel, now
obsolete, and formerly used in the coal and timber trade on the
north-east coast of England; it had a deep waist and narrow stem; it
is still applied to a small rig of sailing boats, with a single mast
stepped far forward, with a fore and aft sail. Among other objects
also known by the name of "cat" is the small piece of wood pointed at
either end used in the game of tip-cat, and the instrument of
punishment, generally known as the "cat o' nine tails." This consists
of a handle of wood or rope, about 18 in. long, with nine knotted
cords or thongs. The multiplication of thongs for purposes of
flogging is found in the old Roman _flagellum_, a scourge, which had
sometimes three thongs with bone or bronze knots fastened to them.
The "cat" was the regular instrument with which floggings were
performed in the British army and navy. Since the abolition of
flogging in the services, the use of the cat is now restricted to
certain classes of offenders in military prisons (Army Act 1881, S
133). In the English criminal law, where corporal punishment is
ordered by the court for certain criminal offences, the "cat" is used
only where the prisoner is over sixteen years of age. It may not be
used except when actually ordered in the sentence, and must be of a
pattern approved by a secretary of state. Further floggings are
inflicted with the "cat" upon convicted prisoners for breaches of
discipline in prison. They must be ordered by the visitors of the
prison and confirmed by the home secretary.

CATABOLISM, or KATABOLISM (Gr. [Greek: kata], down, [Greek: Bole], a
throw), the biological term for the reverse of anabolism, namely the
breaking down of complex into simpler substances, destructive metabolism
(see PHYSIOLOGY).

CATACLYSM (Gr. [Greek: kataklusmos], a deluge), a great flood or deluge
(q.v.). The term is used in geology to denote an overwhelming
catastrophe which has produced sudden changes in the earth's surface;
and also, figuratively, of any great and violent change which sweeps
away the existing social or political order.

CATACOMB, a subterranean excavation for the interment of the dead or
burial-vault. In this sense the word "catacomb" has gained universal
acceptance, and has found a place in most modern languages. The original
term, _catacumbae_, however, had no connexion with sepulture, but was
simply the name of a particular locality in the environs of Rome. It was
derived from the Greek [Greek: kata] and [Greek: kumbe], "a hollow," and
had reference to the natural configuration of the ground. In the
district that bore this designation, lying close to the Appian Way, the
basilica of San Sebastiano was erected, and the extensive burial-vaults
beneath that church--in which, according to tradition, the bodies of the
apostles St Peter and St Paul rested for a year and seven months
previous to their removal to the basilicas which bear their names--were,
in very early times, called from it _coemeterium ad catacumbas_, or
_catacumbas_ alone. From the celebrity of this cemetery as an object of
pilgrimage its name became extensively known, and in entire
forgetfulness of the origin of the word, _catacumbae_ came to be
regarded as a generic appellation for all burial-places of the same
kind. This extension of the term to Christian burial-vaults generally
dates from the 9th century, and obtained gradual currency through the
Christian world. The original designation of these places of sepulture
is _crypta_ or _coemeterium_.

The largest number of Christian catacombs belong to the 3rd and the
early part of the 4th centuries. The custom of subterranean interment
gradually died out, and entirely ceased with the sack of Rome by Alaric,
A.D. 410. "The end of the catacomb graves," writes Mommsen (_Cont.
Rev._, May 1871), "is intimately connected with the end of the powerful
city itself.... Poverty took the place of wealth, ... the traditions of
the Christian tomb-architects sank into utter insignificance, and the
expanse of the wasted Campagna now offered room enough to bury the few
bodies, without having to descend as once far down below the surface of
the earth." The earliest account of the catacombs, that of St Jerome
narrating his visits to them when a schoolboy at Rome, about A.D. 354,
shows that interment in them was even then rare if it had not been
altogether discontinued; and the poet Prudentius's description of the
tomb of the Christian martyr Hippolytus, and the cemetery in which it
stood, leads us to the same conclusion. With the latter part of the 4th
century a new epoch in the history of the catacombs arose--that of
religious reverence. In the time of Pope Damasus, A.D. 366-384, the
catacombs had begun to be regarded with special devotion, and had become
the resort of large bands of pilgrims, for whose guidance catalogues of
the chief burial-places and the holy men buried in them were drawn up.
Some of these lists are still extant.[1] Pope Damasus himself displayed
great zeal in adapting the catacombs to their new purpose, restoring the
works of art on the walls, and renewing the epitaphs over the graves of
the martyrs. In this latter work he employed an engraver named Furius
Philocalus, the exquisite beauty of whose characters enables the
smallest fragment of his work to be recognized at a glance. This gave
rise to extensive alterations in their construction and decoration,
which has much lessened their value as authentic memorials of the
religious art of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Subsequent popes manifested
equal ardour, with the same damaging results, in the repair and
adornment of the catacombs, and many of the paintings covering their
walls, which have been assigned to the period of their original
construction, are really the work of these later times. The catacombs
shared in the devastation of Rome by the Goths under Vitiges in the 6th
century and by the Lombards at a later period; and partly through the
spoliation of these barbarian invaders, partly through the neglect of
those who should have been their guardians, they sank into such a state
of decay and pollution that, as the only means of preserving the holy
remains they enshrined from further desecration, Pope Paul I., in the
latter part of the 8th century, and Pope Paschal, at the beginning of
the 9th, entered upon the work of the translation of the relics, which
was vigorously carried on by successive pontiffs until the crypts were
almost entirely despoiled of their dead. The relics having been removed,
the visits of pilgrims naturally ceased, and by degrees the very
existence of those wonderful subterranean cemeteries was forgotten. Six
centuries elapsed before the accidental discovery of a sepulchral
chamber by some labourers digging for _pozzolana_ earth (May 31, 1578)
revealed to the amazed inhabitants of Rome "the existence," to quote a
contemporary record, "of other cities concealed beneath their own
suburbs." Baronius, the ecclesiastical historian, was one of the first
to visit the new discovery, and his _Annals_ in more than one place
evidence his just appreciation of its importance. The true "Columbus of
this subterranean world," as he has been aptly designated, was the
indefatigable Antonio Bosio (d. 1629), who devoted his life to the
personal investigation of the catacombs, the results of which were given
to the world in 1632 in a huge folio, entitled _Roma sotterranea_,
profusely illustrated with rude but faithful plans and engravings. This
was republished in a Latin translation with considerable alterations and
omissions by Paolo Aringhi in 1651; and a century after its first
appearance the plates were reproduced by Giovanni Bottari in 1737, and
illustrated with great care and learning. Some additional discoveries
were described by Marc Antonio Boldetti in his _Osservazioni_, published
in 1720; but, writing in the interests of the Roman Church with an
apologetic, not a scientific object, truth was made to bend to polemics,
and little addition to our knowledge of the catacombs is to be gained
from his otherwise important work. The French historian of art, Seroux
d'Agincourt, 1825, by his copious illustrations, greatly facilitated the
study of the architecture of the catacombs and the works of art
contained in them. The works of Raoul Rochette display a comprehensive
knowledge of the whole subject, extensive reading, and a thorough
acquaintance with early Christian art so far as it could be gathered
from books, but he was not an original investigator. The great pioneer
in the path of independent research, which, with the intelligent use of
documentary and historical evidence, has led to so vast an increase in
our acquaintance with the Roman Catacombs, was Padre Marchi of the
Society of Jesus. His work, _Monumenti delle arti christiane primitive_,
is the first in which the strange misconception, received with
unquestioning faith by earlier writers, that the catacombs were
exhausted sand-pits adapted by the Christians to the purpose of
interment, was dispelled, and the true history of their formation
demonstrated. Marchi's line of investigation was followed by the
Commendatore De Rossi, and his brother Michele, the former of whom was
Marchi's fellow-labourer during the latter part of his explorations; and
it is to them that we owe the most exhaustive scientific examination of
the whole subject. The Catacombs of Rome are the most extensive with
which we are acquainted, and, as might be expected in the centre of the
Christian world, are in many respects the most remarkable. No others
have been so thoroughly examined and illustrated. These may, therefore,
be most appropriately selected for description as typical examples.

Catacombs of Rome.

Our description of the Roman Catacombs cannot be more appropriately
introduced than by St Jerome's account of his visits to them in his
youth, already referred to, which, after the lapse of above fifteen
centuries, presents a most accurate picture of these wonderful
subterranean labyrinths. "When I was a boy," he writes, "receiving my
education in Rome, I and my schoolfellows used, on Sundays, to make the
circuit of the sepulchres of the apostles and martyrs. Many a time did
we go down into the catacombs. These are excavated deep in the earth,
and contain, on either hand as you enter, the bodies of the dead buried
in the wall. It is all so dark there that the language of the prophet
(Ps. lv. 15) seems to be fulfilled, 'Let them go down quick into hell.'
Only occasionally is light let in to mitigate the horror of the gloom,
and then not so much through a window as through a hole. You take each
step with caution, as, surrounded by deep night, you recall the words of
Virgil--

"Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent."[2]

[Illustration FIG. 1.--Plan of part of the Cemetery of Sant' Agnese.
(From Martigny.)

A. Entrance from the Basilica of St Agnes.
1, 2. Ancient staircases leading to the first storey.
3. Corridors from the staircases.
4. Two ruined staircases leading to the lower storey.
5. Steps of the rock.
6. Air-shafts, or luminaria.
7. Ruined vault.
8. Blind ways.
9. Passages built up or ruined.
10. Passages obstructed by landslips.
11. Unfinished passage.
12. Passages destitute of tombs.
13. Narrow apertures between adjoining galleries.
14-17. Arcosolia.
18-32. Cubicula.
33. Chapel with vestibule and apse, and two chairs.
34. Double chapel with three chairs.
35. Large chapel in five divisions.]

In complete agreement with Jerome's vivid picture the visitor to the
Roman Catacombs finds himself in a vast labyrinth of narrow galleries,
usually from 3 to 4 ft. in width, interspersed with small chambers, all
excavated at successive levels, in the strata of volcanic rock subjacent
to the city and its environs, and constructed originally for the
interment of the Christian dead. The galleries are not the way of access
to the cemeteries, but are themselves the cemeteries, the dead being
buried in long low horizontal recesses, excavated in the vertical walls
of the passages, rising tier above tier like the berths in a ship, from
a few inches above the floor to the springing of the arched ceiling, to
the number of five, six or even sometimes twelve ranges. These galleries
are not arranged on any definite plan, but, as will be seen from the
plan (fig. 1), they intersect one another at different angles, producing
an intricate network which it is almost impossible to reduce to any
system. They generally run in straight lines, and as a rule preserve the
same level. The different storeys of galleries lie one below the other
(fig. 2) to the number of four or five (in one part of the cemetery of
St Calixtus they reach seven storeys), and communicate with one another
by stairs cut out of the living rock. Light and air are introduced by
means of vertical shafts (_luminaria_) running up to the outer air, and
often serving for several storeys. The drawing (fig. 3) from Northcote
gives a very correct idea of these galleries, with the tiers of graves
pierced in the walls. The doorways which are seen interrupting the lines
of graves are those of the family sepulchral chambers, or _cubicula_, of
which we shall speak more particularly hereafter.

The graves, or _loculi_, as they are commonly designated, were, in the
Christian cemeteries, with only a few exceptions (Padre Marchi produces
some from the cemetery of St Ciriaca, _Monum. primitiv._ tav. xiv.
xliii. xliv.), parallel with the length of the gallery. In the pagan
cemeteries, on the other hand, the sepulchral recess as a rule entered
the rock like an oven at right angles to the corridor, the body being
introduced endways. The plan adopted by the Christians saved labour,
economized space, and consulted reverence in the deposition of the
corpse. These _loculi_ were usually constructed for a single body only.
Some, however, were formed to contain two, three, or four, or even more
corpses. Such recesses were known respectively as _bisomi, trisomi,
quadrisomi_, &c., terms which often appear in the sepulchral
inscriptions. After the introduction of the body the _loculi_ were
closed with the greatest care, either with slabs of marble the whole
length of the aperture, or with huge tiles, three being generally
employed, cemented together with great exactness so as to prevent the
escape of the products of decomposition (fig. 4). Where any epitaph was
set up--an immense number are destitute of any inscription at all--it is
always painted or engraved on these slabs or tiles. In the earlier
interments the epitaph is usually daubed on the slab in red or black
paint. In later examples it is incised in the marbles, the letters being
rendered clearer by being coloured with vermilion. The enclosing slab
very often bears one or more Christian symbols, such as the dove, the
anchor, the olive-branch, or the monogram of Christ (figs. 5, 6). The
palm branch, which is also of frequent occurrence, is not an
indisputable mark of the last resting-place of a martyr, being found in
connexion with epitaphs of persons dying natural deaths, or those
prepared by persons in their lifetime, as well as in those of little
children, and even of pagans. Another frequent concomitant of these
catacomb interments, a small glass vessel containing traces of the
sediment of a red fluid, embedded in the cement of the _loculus_ (fig.
7), has no better claim. The red matter proves to be the remains of
wine, not of blood; and the conclusion of the ablest archaeologists is
that the vessels were placed where they are found, after the eucharistic
celebration or _agape_ on the day of the funeral or its anniversary, and
contained remains of the consecrated elements as a kind of religious
charm. Not a few of the slabs, it is discovered, have done double duty,
bearing a pagan inscription on one side and a Christian one on the
other. These are known as _opisthographs_. The bodies were interred
wrapped in linen cloths, or swathed in bands, and were frequently
preserved by embalming. In the case of poorer interments the destruction
of the body was, on the contrary, often accelerated by the use of
quicklime.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Section of Galleries at different levels. (From
Seroux d'Agincourt)]

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--View of a Gallery.]

[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Loculi. (From de Rossi.)]

[Illustration: FIGS. 5 and 6.--Loculi. (From de Rossi.)]

Interment in the wall-recess or _loculus_, though infinitely the most
common, was not the only mode employed in the catacombs. Other forms of
very frequent recurrence are the _table tomb_ and _arched tomb_, or
_arcosolium_. From the annexed woodcuts it will be seen that these only
differ in the form of the surmounting recess. In each case the arched
tomb was formed by an oblong chest, either hollowed out of the rock, or
built of masonry, and closed with a horizontal slab. But in the
table-tomb (fig. 8) the recess above, essential for the introduction of
the corpse, is square, while in the arcosolium (fig. 9), a form of later
date, it is semicircular. Sarcophagi are also found in the catacombs,
but are of rare occurrence. They chiefly occur in the earlier
cemeteries, and the costliness of their construction confined their use
to the wealthiest classes--e.g. in the cemetery of St Domitilla, herself
a member of the imperial house. Another unfrequent mode of interment was
in graves like those of modern times, dug in the floor of the galleries
(Marchi, _u.s._, tav. xxi. xxvi.). Table-tombs and arcosolia are by no
means rare in the corridors of the catacombs, but they belong more
generally to the _cubicula_, or family vaults, of which we now proceed
to speak.

[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Glass Bottles. (From Bosio.)]

These _cubicula_ are small apartments, seldom more than 12 ft. square,
usually rectangular, though sometimes circular or polygonal, opening out
of the main corridors. They are not unfrequently ranged regularly along
the sides of the galleries, the doors of entrance, as may be seen in a
previous illustration (fig. 3), following one another in as orderly
succession as the bedchamber doors in the passage of a modern house. The
roof is sometimes flat, but is more usually vaulted, and sometimes
rises into a cupola. Both the roof and the walls are almost universally
coated with stucco and covered with fresco paintings--in the earlier
works merely decorative, in the later always symbolical or historical.
Each side of the cubiculum, except that of the entrance, usually
contains a recessed tomb, either a table-tomb or an arcosolium. That
facing the entrance was the place of greatest honour, where in many
instances the remains of a martyr were deposited, whose tomb, according
to primitive usage, served as an altar for the celebration of the
eucharist. This was sometimes, as in the Papal crypt of St Calixtus
(fig. 10), protected from irreverence by lattice work (_transennae_) of
marble. The cubiculum was originally designed for the reception of a
very limited number of dead. But the natural desire to be buried near
one's relatives caused new tombs to be cut in the walls, above and
around and behind the original tombs, the walls being thus completely
honeycombed with _loculi_, sometimes as many as seventy, utterly
regardless of the paintings originally depicted on the walls. Another
motive for multiplying the number of graves operated when the cubiculum
contained the remains of any noted saint or martyr. The Christian
antiquary has cause continually to lament the destruction of works of
art due to this craving. One of the most perfect examples of early
Christian pictorial decoration, the so-called "Dispute with the
Doctors," in the catacomb of Calixtus, the "antique style of beauty" of
which is noticed by Kugler, has thus suffered irreparable mutilation,
the whole of the lower part of the picture having been destroyed by the
excavation of a fresh grave-recess (Bottari, vol. ii. tav. 15). The
plates of De Rossi, Ferret, and, indeed, all illustrations of the
catacombs, exhibit frequent examples of the same destructive
superstition. The illustrations (figs. 11 and 12), taken from De Rossi's
great work, representing two of the cubicula in the cemetery of St
Calixtus, show the general arrangement of the loculi and the character
of the frescoes which ornament the walls and roof. These paintings, it
will be seen, are simply decorative, of the same style as the
wall-paintings of the baths, and those of Pompeii.

[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Table-tomb.]

[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Arcosolia. (From Bosio.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Restoration of the Papal Crypt, Cemetery of St
Calixtus. (From de Rossi.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Cubiculum in Cemetery of St Calixtus. (From de
Rossi.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Cubiculum in the Cemetery of St Calixtus. (From
de Rossi.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Plan of a supposed Church, Catacomb of Sant'
Agnese. (From Marchi.)]

Each _cubiculum_ was usually the burying-place of some one family, all
the members of which were interred in it, just as in the chantry-chapels
connected with medieval churches. In them was celebrated the
funeral-feast on the day of burial and on its anniversary, as well as
the eucharist, which was the invariable accompaniment of funerals in the
primitive church (Bingham, _Orig. Eccl._ bk. xxiii. c. iii. 12). The
funeral-banquet descended to the Christian church from pagan times, and
was too often profaned by heathen licence. St Augustine, in several
passages, inveighs against those who thus by "gluttony and insobriety
buried themselves over the buried," and "made themselves drunk in the
chapels of the martyrs, placing their excesses to the score of religious
reverence for the dead." (August., _De Mor. Eccl. Cathol._, c. 34,
_Contr. Faust_, lib. xx. c. 21, _Confess._, lib vi. c. 2) Some curious
frescoes representing these funeral-feasts, found in the _cubicula_
which were the scene of them, are reproduced by Bosio (pp. 355, 391)
and others. A romantic air has been thrown over these burial chapels by
the notion that they were the places of worship used by the Christians
in times of persecution. This to a certain extent is doubtless true, as
in the case of the chapel of Santa Priscilla, where the altar or stone
coffin of a martyr remains, with a small platform behind it for the
priest or bishop to stand upon. But that they can have been so used to
any large extent is rendered impossible by their limited dimensions, as
none of them could hold more than fifty or sixty persons. In some of the
catacombs, however, there are larger halls and connected suites of
chapels which may possibly have been constructed for the purpose of
congregational worship during the dark periods when the public exercise
of the Christian religion was made penal. The most remarkable of these
is in the cemetery of Sant' Agnese (see plan, fig. 13). It consists of
five rectangular compartments, three on one side of the corridor and two
on the other, connected by a passage intersecting the gallery at right
angles. Two of the five compartments are supposed to have been assigned
to male, and two to female worshippers, the fifth, at the extremity of
the whole, being reserved for the altar and its ministers. In the centre
of the end-wall stands a stone chair (fig. 14), considered to have been
the episcopal cathedra, with a bench for the clergy on each side. There
is no trace of an altar, which may, Marchi thinks, have been portable.
The walls of the compartments are occupied by arched sepulchral
recesses, above and below which are tiers of ordinary graves or
_loculi_. The arrangements are certainly such as indicate a
congregational purpose, but the extreme narrowness of the suite, and
still more of the passage which connects the two divisions, must have
rendered it difficult for any but a small number to take any intelligent
part in the services at the same time. Although the idea of the use of
the catacombs for religious worship may have been pressed too far, there
can be no doubt that the sacred rites of the church were celebrated
within them. We have already spoken of the eucharistic celebrations of
which the _cubicula_ were the scene; and still existing baptisteries
prove that the other sacrament was also administered there. The most
remarkable of these baptisteries is that in the catacomb of San
Pontianus (fig. 15). Ten steps lead down to a basin of sufficient depth
for immersion, supplied by a spring. Some of the subterranean chambers
contain armed seats and benches cut out of the tufa rock. These are
supposed by Marchi and others to indicate schoolrooms, where the
catechumens were instructed by the bishop or presbyters. But this theory
wants verification. It is impossible not to be struck with the
remarkable analogy between these rock-hewn chairs and those discovered
in the Etruscan tombs, of the purpose of which no satisfactory
explanation has been given.

[Illustration: FIG. 14.--Bishop's Chair. Catacomb of Sant' Agnese.]

[Illustration: FIG. 15.--Baptistery of San Pontianus. (From Perret.)]

Theories of the use of the catacombs.

Very exaggerated statements have been made as to the employment of the
catacombs as dwelling-places by the Christians in times of persecution.
We have, however, sufficient evidence that they were used as places of
refuge from the fury of the heathen, in which the believers--especially
the bishops and clergy, who would naturally be the first objects of
attack--might secrete themselves until the storm had blown over. This
was a purpose for which they were admirably adapted both by the
intricacy of their labyrinthine passages, in which any one not
possessing the clue would be inevitably lost, and the numerous small
chambers and hiding-places at different levels which might be passed
unperceived in the dark by the pursuers. As a rule also the catacombs
had more than one entrance, and frequently communicated with an
_arenaria_ or sand-quarry; so that while one entrance was carefully
watched, the pursued might escape in a totally different direction by
another. But, to quote J.H. Parker, "the catacombs were never intended,
nor fit for, dwelling-places, and the stories of persons living in them
for months are probably fabulous. According to modern physicians it is
impossible to live many days in the caves of _pozzolana_ in which many
of the catacombs are excavated." Equally exaggerated are the statements
as to the linear and lateral extent of the catacombs, and their
intercommunication with one another. Without resorting to this
exaggeration, Mommsen can speak with perfect truth of the "enormous
space occupied by the burial vaults of Christian Rome, not surpassed
even by the _cloacae_ or sewers of Republican Rome," but the data are
too vague to warrant any attempt to define their dimensions. Marchi has
estimated the united length of the galleries at from 800 to 900 m., and
the number of interments at between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000; Martigny's
estimate is 587 m.; and Northcote's, lower still, at "not less than 350
m." The idea of general intercommunication is negatived by the fact that
the chief cemeteries are separated by low ground or valleys, where any
subterranean galleries would be at once filled with water.

It now remains to speak of the history of these subterranean
burial-places, together with the reasons for, and mode of, their
construction. From the period of the rediscovery of the catacombs in the
16th century till comparatively recent times a gigantic fallacy
prevailed, repeated by writer after writer, identifying the Christian
burial-places with disused sand-pits. It was accepted as an
unquestionable fact by every one who undertook to describe the
catacombs, that the Christians of Rome, finding in the labyrinthine
mazes of the exhausted _arenariae_, which abounded in the environs of
the city, whence the sand used in building had been extracted, a
suitable place for the interment of their martyred brethren, where also
the sacred rites accompanying the interment might be celebrated without
fear of interruption, took possession of them and used them as
cemeteries. It only needed a comparison of the theory with the visible
facts to refute it at once, but nearly three centuries elapsed before
the independence of the _arenariae_ and the catacombs was established.
The discovery of this independence is due to Marchi. Starting with the
firmest belief in the old traditional view, his own researches by
degrees opened his eyes to the truth, now universally recognized, that
the catacombs were exclusively the work of the Christians, and were
constructed for the interment of the dead. It is true that a catacomb is
often connected with the earlier sand-quarry, and starts from it as a
commencement, but the two are excavated in different strata, suitable to
their respective purposes, and their plan and construction are so
completely unlike as to render any confusion between them impossible.

The igneous formation of which the greater part of the Roman Campagna
is, in its superior portion, composed, contains three strata known under
the common name of _tufa_,--the "stony," "granular," and "sandy"
tufa,--the last being commonly known as _pozzolana_.[3] The _pozzolana_
is the material required for building purposes, for admixture with
mortar; and the sandpits are naturally excavated in the stratum which
supplies it. The stony tufa (_tufa litoide_) is quarried as
building-stone. The granular tufa is useless for either purpose,
containing too much earth to be employed in making mortar, and being far
too soft to be used as stone for building. Yet it is in this stratum,
and in this alone, that the catacombs are constructed; their engineers
avoiding with equal care the solid stone of the _tufa litoide_ and the
friable _pozzolana_, and selecting the stratum of medium hardness, which
enabled them to form the vertical walls of their galleries, and to
excavate the _loculi_ and _cubicula_ without severe labour and also
without fear of their falling in. The annexed illustration (fig. 16)
from Marchi's work, when compared with that of the catacomb of Sant'
Agnese already given, presents to the eye the contrast between the wide
winding irregular passages of the sand-pit, calculated for the admission
of a horse and cart, and the narrow rectilinear accurately-defined
galleries of the catacomb. The distinction between the two is also
plainly exhibited when for some local or private reasons an ancient
_arenaria_ has been transformed into a cemetery. The modifications
required to strengthen the crumbling walls to support the roof and to
facilitate the excavation of _loculi_, involved so much labour that, as
a rule, after a few attempts, the idea of utilizing an old quarry for
burial purposes was abandoned.

[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Arenaria beneath the Cemetery of Calixtus.]

Another equally erroneous idea was that these vast burial-places of the
early Christians remained entirely concealed from the eyes of their
pagan neighbours, and were constructed not only without the permission
of the municipal authorities but without their cognizance. Nothing can
be farther from the truth. Such an idea is justly stigmatized by Mommsen
as ridiculous, and reflecting a discredit as unfounded as it is unjust
on the imperial police of the capital. That such vast excavations should
have been made without attracting attention, and that such an immense
number of corpses could have been carried to burial in perfect secrecy
is utterly impossible. Nor was there any reason why secrecy should have
been desired. The decent burial of the dead was a matter especially
provided for by the Roman laws. No particular mode was prescribed.
Interment was just as legal as cremation, and had, in fact, been
universally practised by the Romans until the later days of the
republic.[4] The bodies of the Scipios and Nasos were buried in still
existing catacombs; and if the Christians preferred to adopt that which
Minucius Felix calls "the better, and more ancient custom of inhumation"
(_Octavius_, c. 2), there was absolutely nothing, to quote the words of
Northcote (_Roma sotterran_. pp. 56, 61), "either in their social or
religious position to interfere with their freedom of action. The law
left them entire liberty,... and the faithful did but use their liberty
in the way that suited them best, burying their dead according to a
fashion to which many of them had been long accustomed, and which
enabled them at the same time to follow in death the example of him who
was also their model in life." Interment in rock-hewn tombs, "as the
manner of the Jews is to bury," had been practised in Rome by the Jewish
settlers for a considerable period anterior to the rise of the Christian
Church. A Jewish catacomb, now lost, was discovered and described by
Bosio (_Rom. sott._ p. 141), and others are still accessible. They are
to be distinguished from Christian catacombs only by the character of
their decorations, the absence of Christian symbols and the language of
their inscriptions. There would, therefore, be nothing extraordinary in
the fact that a community, always identified in the popular heathen mind
with the Jewish faith, should adopt the mode of interment belonging to
that religion. Nor have we the slightest trace of any official
interference with Christian burials, such as would render secrecy
necessary or desirable. Their funerals were as much under the protection
of the law, which not only invested the tomb itself with a sacred
character, but included in its protection the area in which it stood,
and the _cella memoriae_ or chapel connected with it, as those of their
heathen fellow-citizens, while the same shield would be thrown over the
burial-clubs, which, as we learn from Tertullian (_Apolog._ c. 39),
were common among the early Christians, as over those existing among the
heathen population of Rome.

Mode of formation.

We may then completely dismiss the notion of there being any studied
secrecy in connexion with the early Christian cemeteries, and proceed to
inquire into the mode of their formation. Almost without exception, they
had their origin in small burial areas, the property of private persons
or of families, gradually ramifying and receiving additions of one
subterranean storey after another as each was required for interments.
The first step would be the acquisition of a plot of ground either by
gift or purchase for the formation of a tomb, Christians were not beyond
the pale of the law, and their faith presented no hindrance to the
property being secured to them in perpetuity. To adapt the ground for
its purpose as a cemetery, a gallery was run all round the area in the
tufa rock at a convenient depth below the surface, reached by staircases
at the corners. In the upright walls of these galleries _loculi_ were
cut as needed to receive the dead. When these first four galleries were
full others were mined on the same level at right angles to them, thus
gradually converting the whole area into a net-work of corridors. If a
family vault was required, or a burial chapel for a martyr or person of
distinction, a small square room was excavated by the side of the
gallery and communicating with it. When the original area had been mined
in this way as far as was consistent with stability, a second storey of
galleries was begun at a lower level, reached by a new staircase. This
was succeeded by a third, or a fourth, and sometimes even by a fifth.
When adjacent burial areas belonged to members of the same Christian
confraternity, or by gift or purchase fell into the same hands,
communications were opened between the respective cemeteries, which thus
spread laterally, and gradually acquired that enormous extent which,
"even when their fabulous dimensions are reduced to their right measure,
form an immense work."[5] This could only be executed by a large and
powerful Christian community unimpeded by legal enactments or police
regulations, "a living witness of its immense development corresponding
to the importance of the capital." But although, as we have said, in
ordinary times there was no necessity for secrecy, yet when the peace of
the Church was broken by the fierce and often protracted persecutions of
the heathen emperors, it became essential to adopt precautions to
conceal the entrance to the cemeteries, which became the temporary
hiding-places of the Christian fugitives, and to baffle the search of
their pursuers. To these stormy periods we may safely assign the
alterations which may be traced in the staircases, which are sometimes
abruptly cut off, leaving a gap requiring a ladder, and the formation of
secret passages communicating with the _arenariae_, and through them
with the open country.

When the storms of persecution ceased and Christianity had become the
imperial faith, the evil fruits of prosperity were not slow to appear.
Cemetery interment became a regular trade in the hands of the
_fossores_, or grave-diggers, who appear to have established a kind of
property in the catacombs, and whose greed of gain led to that
destruction of the religious paintings with which the walls were
decorated, for the quarrying of fresh _loculi_, to which we have already
alluded. Monumental epitaphs record the purchase of a grave from the
fossores, in many cases during the lifetime of the individual, not
unfrequently stating the price. A very curious fresco, found in the
cemetery of Calixtus, preserved by the engravings of the earlier
investigators (Bottari, tom. ii. p. 126, tav. 99), represents a "fossor"
with his lamp in his hand and his pick over his shoulder, and his tools
lying about him. Above is the inscription, "Diogenes Fossor in Pace
depositus."

Decoration.

It is unnecessary to enter on any detailed description of the frescoes
which cover the walls and ceilings of the burial-chapels in the richest
abundance. It must suffice to say that the earliest examples are only to
be distinguished from the mural decorations employed by their pagan
contemporaries (as seen at Pompeii and elsewhere) by the absence of all
that was immoral or idolatrous, and that it was only very slowly and
timidly that any distinctly religious representations were introduced.
These were at first purely symbolical, meaningless to any but a
Christian eye, such as the Vine, the Good Shepherd, the Sheep, the
Fisherman, the Fish, &c. Even the personages of ancient mythology were
pressed into the service of early Christian art, and Orpheus, taming the
wild beasts with his lyre, symbolized the peaceful sway of Christ; and
Ulysses, deaf to the Siren's song, represented the Believer triumphing
over the allurements of sensual pleasure. The person of Christ appeared
but rarely, and then commonly simply as the chief personage in an
historical picture. The events depicted from the life of Christ are but
few, and always conform rigidly to the same traditional type. The most
frequent are the miracle at Cana, the multiplication of the loaves and
fishes, the paralytic carrying his bed, the healing of the woman with
the issue of blood, the raising of Lazarus, Zacchaeus, and the triumphal
entry into Jerusalem. The Crucifixion, and subjects from the Passion,
are never represented. The cycle of Old Testament subjects is equally
limited. The most common are the history of Jonah as a type of the
Resurrection, the Fall, Noah receiving the dove with the olive branch,
Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, Moses taking off his shoes, David with the
sling, Daniel in the lions' den, and the Three Children in the fiery
furnace. The mode of representation is always conventional, the
treatment of the subject no less than its choice being dictated by an
authority to which the artist was compelled to bow. All the more
valuable of these paintings have been produced in J.H. Parker's series
of photographs taken in the catacombs by the magnesium light.[6]
Wilpert's great work, in which these frescoes are reproduced in colours,
now enables the student even better to distinguish the styles of
different centuries and follow the course of artistic development or
decay.

[Illustration: FIG. 17.--Fresco Ceiling. (From Bosio.)

The subjects, beginning at the top and going to the right, are--

(1) The paralytic carrying his bed.
(2) The seven baskets full of fragments.
(3) Raising of Lazarus.
(4) Daniel in the lions' den.
(5) Jonah swallowed by the fish.
(6) Jonah vomited forth.
(7) Moses striking the rock.
(8) Noah and the dove.
In the centre, the Good Shepherd.]

Catacombs of Naples.

Beyond Rome and its suburbs the most remarkable Christian catacombs are
those in the vicinity of Naples, described by Pelliccia (_De Christ.
Eccl. Polit._ vol. iv. Dissert. 5), and in separate treatises by
Bellerman and Schultze. Plans of them are also given by Agincourt in his
great work on Christian art. These catacombs differ materially from
those of Rome. They were certainly originally stone-quarries, and the
hardness of the rock has made the construction practicable of wide,
lofty corridors and spacious halls, very unlike the narrow galleries and
contracted chambers in the Roman cemeteries. The mode of interment,
however, is the same as that practised in Rome, and the _loculi_ and
_arcosolia_ differ by little in the two. The walls and ceilings are
covered with fresco paintings of different dates, in some cases lying
one over the other. This catacomb contains an unquestionable example of
a church, divided into a nave and chancel, with a rude stone altar and
bishop's seat behind it.

[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Fresco Ceiling. (From Bosio.)

The subjects, beginning at the bottom and going to the right, are--

(1) Moses striking the rock.
(2) Noah and the dove.
(3) The three children in the furnace.
(4) Abraham's sacrifice.
(5) The miracle of the loaves.]

[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Plan of the Catacombs of St John, Syracuse.]

Syracuse.

At Syracuse also there are very extensive catacombs known as "the
Grottos of St John." They are also figured by Agincourt, and described
by Denon (_Voyage en Sicile et Malte_) and Fuhrer. There is an entire
underground city with several storeys of larger and smaller streets,
squares and cross ways, cut out of the rock; at the intersection of the
cross ways are immense circular halls of a bottle shape, like a
glass-house furnace, lighted by air shafts. The galleries are generally
very narrow, furnished on each side with arched tombs, and communicating
with family sepulchral-chambers closed originally by locked doors, the
marks of the hinges and staples being still visible. The walls are in
many places coated with stucco adorned with frescoes, including palms,
doves, labara and other Christian symbols. The ground-plans (figs. 19,
20), from Agincourt, of the catacomb and of one of the circular halls,
show how widely this cemetery differs in arrangement from the Roman
catacombs. The frequency of blind passages and of circular chambers will
be noticed, as well as the very large number of bodies in the cruciform
recesses, apparently amounting in one instance to nineteen. Agincourt
remarks that this cemetery "gives an idea of a work executed with design
and leisure, and with means very different from those at command in
producing the catacombs of Rome."

[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Plan of Circular Hall, Catacombs of St John,
Syracuse. (From Agincourt.)]

Malta.

Taormina.

Denon also describes catacombs at Malta near the ancient capital of the
island. The passages were all cut in a close-grained stone, and are very
narrow, with arched ceilings, running very irregularly, and ramifying in
all directions. The greater part of the tombs stand on either side of
the galleries in square recesses (like the table-tombs of the Roman
catacombs), and are rudely fashioned to imitate sarcophagi. The
interments are not nearly so numerous as in other catacombs, nor are
there any vestiges of painting, sculpture or inscriptions. At Taormina
in Sicily is a Saracenic catacomb, also figured by Agincourt. The main
corridor is 12 ft. wide, having three or more ranges of _loculi_ on
either side, running longitudinally into the rock, each originally
closed by a stone bearing an inscription.

Egypt.

Passing to Egypt, a small Christian catacomb at Alexandria is described
and figured by de Rossi.[7] The _loculi_ here also are set endways to
the passage. The walls are abundantly decorated with paintings, one of a
liturgical character. But the most extensive catacombs at Alexandria are
those of Egypto-Greek origin, from the largest of which, according to
Strabo (lib. xvii. p. 795), the quarter where it is placed had the name
of the Necropolis. The plan, it will be seen, is remarkable for its
regularity (figs. 21, 22). Here, too, the graves run endways into the
rock. Other catacombs in the vicinity of the same city are described by
Pocock and other travellers, and are figured by Agincourt.

[Illustration: Fig. 21--Plan of Catacomb at Alexandria. (From
Agincourt.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 22.--Section of a Gallery in Catacomb at Alexandria.
(From Agincourt.)]

Sidon.

Subterranean cemeteries of the general character of those described are
very frequent in all southern and eastern countries. A vast necropolis
in the environs of Saida, the ancient Sidon, is described in Renan's
_Mission en Phenicie_, and figured in Thobois's plates. It consists of a
series of apartments approached by staircases, the sides pierced with
sepulchral recesses running lengthwise into the rock.

[Illustration: Fig. 23.--Plan of a Tomb at Cervetri. (From Dennis.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 24.--Section of the Tomb of the Seats and Shields,
Cervetri. (From Dennis.)]

Rocktombs of Etruria.

The rock-hewn tombs of Etruria scarcely come under the category of
catacombs, in the usual sense, being rather independent family
burial-places, grouped together in a necropolis. They are, however, far
too remarkable to be altogether passed over. These sepulchres are
usually hollowed out of the face of low cliffs on the side of a hill.
They often rise tier above tier, and are sometimes all on the same level
"facing each other as in streets, and branching off laterally into
smaller lanes or alleys"; and occasionally forming "a spacious square or
piazza surrounded by tombs instead of houses" (Dennis, _Cities and
Cemeteries of Etruria_, ii. 31). The construction of the tombs commonly
keeps up the same analogy between the cities of the living and those of
the dead. Their plan is for the most part that of a house, with a door
of entrance and passage leading into a central chamber or _atrium_, with
others of smaller size opening from it, each having a stone-hewn bench
or _triclinium_ on three of its sides, on which the dead, frequently a
pair of corpses side by side, were laid as if at a banquet. These
benches are often hewn in the form of couches with pillows at one end,
and the legs carved in relief. The ceilings have the representation of
beams and rafters cut in the rock. In some instances arm-chairs, carved
out of the living rock, stand between the doors of the chambers, and the
walls above are decorated with the semblance of suspended shields. The
walls are often covered with paintings in a very simple archaic style,
in red and black. As a typical example of the Etruscan tombs we give the
plan and section (figs. 23, 24) of the _Grotta detta Sedia_ at Cervetri
from Dennis (pp. 32, 35). The tombs in some instances form subterranean
groups more analogous to the general idea of a catacomb. Of this nature
is the very remarkable cemetery at Poggio Gaiella, near Chiusi, the
ancient Clusium, of a portion of the principal storey of which the
woodcut (fig. 25) is a plan. The most remarkable of these sepulchral
chambers is a large circular hall about 25 ft. in diameter, supported by
a huge cylindrical pillar hewn from the rock. Opening out of this and
the other chambers, and connecting them together, are a series of low
winding passages or _cuniculi_, just large enough for a man to creep
through on all fours. No plausible suggestion has been offered as to the
purpose of these mysterious burrows, which cannot fail to remind us of
the labyrinth which, according to Varro's description as quoted by Pliny
(_Hist. Nat._ lib. xxxvi. c. 19, S 4), was the distinguishing mark of
Porsena's tomb, and which have led some adventurous archaeologists to
identify this sepulchre with that of the great king of Etruria (Dennis,
_u.s._, pp. 393 ff.). (E. V.; O. M. D.)

[Illustration: Fig. 25.--Plan of a portion of the principal storey in
the Poggio Gajella. (From Dennis.)]

_Modern Discoveries_.--In 1873 was discovered, near the cemetery of St
Domitilla, the semi-subterranean basilica of Santi Nereo ed Achilleo,
100 ft. by 60 ft. This is now covered with a roof, and the fallen
columns have been raised up. The lower part of a pillar, which once
supported a baldachino over the altar, still preserves the name
ACILLEUS, and beneath it a bas-relief of the martyr, with his hands
bound, receiving his death-blow from the executioner. The base of a
similar column has only feet in the same attitude, and probably bore the
name NEREUS. In a grave in the apse was found a large fragment of an
inscription, composed by Pope Damasus, but set up by his successor
Siricius, which, from the note-book of a Salzburg pilgrim of the 8th
century, can be completed thus:--

Nereus (see Rom. xvi. 15) and Achilleus, said to have been baptized by
St Peter, refused to do the bidding of Domitian as praetorians, and
entering the service of Flavia Domitilla, suffered martyrdom with their
mistress Petronilla, of the Aurelian family closely connected with the
Flavii, and the spiritual daughter of St Peter, who was buried in a
sarcophagus with the inscription:--

AVRELIAE . PETRONILLAE . FIL . DVLCISSIMAE

This is now in St Peter's, but was probably originally behind the apse
of this basilica, for there is a fresco of her in an arcosolium, with a
matron named Veneranda. The original entrance to the cemetery leads
directly into a spacious corridor with no _loculi_, but recesses for
sarcophagi, and decorations of the classical style of the 2nd century.
From this a wide staircase leads directly down to a chamber, discovered
in March 1881, of a very early date. Within an arcosolium is a tablet
set up by "Aurelius Ampliatus and his son Gordian, to Aurelia Bonifatia,
his incomparable wife, a woman of true chastity, who lived 25 years, 2
months, 4 days, and 2 hours." The letters are of the 2nd century; but
above the arcosolium was found a stone with great letters, 5 or 6 in.
high: "AMPLIATI, the tomb of Ampliatus." Now Ampliatus is a servile
name: how comes it to be set up with such distinction in the sepulchre
of the Flavii? Romans xvi. 8 supplies the answer: "Salute Ampliatus,
most beloved to me in the Lord." De Rossi thinks the identification
well grounded (_Bullettino_, 1881, p. 74). Epitaphs of members of the
Flavian family have been found here, and others stating that they are
put up "EX INDULGENTIA FLAVIAE DOMITILLAE VESPASIANI NEPTIS." So that De
Rossi did not hesitate to complete an inscription on a broken stone
thus:--

-----
Sepulc / RVM |
Flavi / ORVM |
/ | |
--v------

De Rossi began his excavations in the cemetery of Santa Priscilla in
1851, but for thirty years nothing but what had been described by Bosio
came to light. In 1880 he unearthed a portion near the Cappella Greca,
and found galleries that had not been touched since they were filled in
during the Diocletian persecution. The _loculi_ were intact and the
epitaphs still in their places, so that "they form a kind of museum, in
which the development, the formulae, and the symbolic figures of
Christian epigraphy, from its origin to the end of the 3rd or 4th
century, can be notified and contemplated, not in artificial specimens
as in the Lateran, but in the genuine and living reality of their
original condition." (_Bullett._, 1884, p. 68). Many of the names
mentioned in St Paul's Epistles are found here: Phoebe, Prisca,
Aquilius, Felix Ampliatus, Epenetus, Olympias, Onesimus, Philemon,
Asyncritus, Lucius, Julia, Caius, Timotheus, Tychicus, Crescens,
Urbanus, Hermogenes, Tryphaena and Trypho(sa) on the same stone. Petrus,
a very rare name in the catacombs, is found here several times, both in
Greek and in Latin. The neighbouring _Coemeterium Ostrianum_ was
anciently known as "_Fons S. Petri_," "_ubi Petrus baptizavit_," "_ubi
Petrus prius sedit_." This cemetery derives its name from Priscilla,
mother of Pudens, who is said to have given hospitality to St Peter the
Apostle. We are reminded of St Paul, and of his friends Aquila and
Prisca, by a monument erected by an imperial freedman who was
PRAEPOSITVS TABERNACVLORVM--chief tentmaker. In 1888 a corridor was
discovered which had at one time been isolated from the rest of the
cemetery. It had no _loculi_, but recesses in the wall to receive
sarcophagi. At the end of the corridor there was a large chamber, 23 ft.
by 13 ft., once lined with marble and the ceiling covered with mosaic, a
few fragments of which still remain. The only tomb here was a
sarcophagus, of which the broken front bears the letters which show it
to have been the epitaph of one of the Acilian family:--

ACILIO GLABRIONI FILIO

In the vicinity are fragments of the epitaphs of Manius Acilius and
Priscilla, of Quintus Acilius and Caia Acilia in Greek, another Greek
inscription "Acilius Rufinus mayest thou live in God." After careful
examination of the nine Acilii, who were consuls, De Rossi concludes
that this was the resting-place of that Acilius Glabrio, consul with
Trajan, A.D. 91, who in the year of his consulate was compelled by
Domitian to fight with beasts in the arena, and then banished and put to
death in 95. The question of his Christianity seems settled by the
discovery of the sepulchre of these Christian Acilii. From this crypt a
staircase led up to the basilica in which Pope Silvester was buried, and
the whole plan of which was laid bare by De Rossi. The tomb of St
Silvester could be identified, and that of Pope Siricius "at his feet,"
as the pilgrim noted (_Bullett._, 1890, pp. 106-119).

Just before De Rossi's death, Mgr. Wilpert discovered in the Cappella
Greca a painting of the "Fractio Panis" or eucharistic feast, which he
cleansed from the dust with which it had been covered. The picture of
the Blessed Virgin and Child, which De Rossi ascribed to the 2nd, if not
to the 1st century, has received an unexpected proof of its antiquity.
In 1890 the floor of the gallery in which it stands was excavated, and
another floor was found to be 6 ft. below its supposed level. The
_loculi_ in this lower portion were intact, with inscriptions of the 2nd
century still in their places, proving that the niche in which that
picture was painted must have been considerably older than the lowering
of the floor. A flight of iron steps enables the visitor now to examine
this venerable specimen of early Christian art.

After the death of De Rossi, one of his pupils, H. Stevenson, since
dead, discovered in 1896 a small subterranean basilica in the catacomb
of Santi Pietro e Marcellino on the Via Labicana, with pious
acclamations on the plaster similar to those in the Papal crypt in St
Calixtus. Near the well-known subterranean chapel in the _Coemeterium
Ostrianum_ was discovered by Mgr. Crostarosa, in 1877, another chapel,
in which Signor Armellini found traces of St Emerentiana, foster-sister
of St Agnes. Near this a whole region of galleries has been brought to
light with _loculi_ intact.

Explorations conducted in the cemetery of Domitilla in 1897-1898 brought
to light a fine double crypt with frescoes representing Christ seated
between six male and female saints; also an inscription relating to a
new saint (Eulalius) in a cubiculum of the 3rd century. In 1899-1900
were discovered two opposite cubicula in the catacomb of Santi Pietro e
Marcellino. These were unknown to Bosio, and are both covered with
frescoes, the vault being in one case decorated with the scene which
represents Christ seated among the apostles and pronouncing sentence
upon the defunct. An inscription discovered in 1900 on the site of the
ancient cemetery of St Ciriaca, and dating from A.D. 405, states that
one Euryalus bought a site _ad mensam beati martyris Laurentii_ from a
certain _fossor_ whose name has been erased. This is interesting as an
example of what was known as _memoriae damnatio_ or the blotting out of
a name on account of some dishonourable action. From the end of the 4th
to the first half of the 5th century, the _fossores_ had the privilege
of selling sites, which frequently led to grave abuses. In 1901-1902
excavations in the cemetery of Santa Priscilla, near the Cappella Greca,
revealed a polygonal chamber. This may have originally been the
_nymphaeum_ of the great villa of the Acilii Glabriones, the _hypogaeum_
of which was discovered by De Rossi near this spot in 1888. It may have
been used as a burial-place for martyrs, and Professor Marucchi is
inclined to see in it the sepulchral chapel of Pope Marcellinus, who
died in A.D. 304 during the persecutions of Diocletian. In 1902, in that
part of the Via Ardeatina which passes between the cemeteries of
Calixtus and Domitilla, was discovered a crypt with frescoes and the
sanctuary of a martyr: it is thought that this, rather than a
neighbouring crypt brought to light in 1897, may prove to be the
sepulchral crypt of SS. Marcus and Marcellianus. In a cubiculum leading
out of a gallery in the vicinity there was also discovered an
interesting impression in plaster of an inscription of the mother of
Pope Damasus, beginning:

HIC DAMASI MATER POSVIT LAVREN[TIA MEMBRA].

In the same year building operations in the Via di Sant' Onofrio
revealed the presence of catacombs beneath the foundations: examination
of the _loculi_ showed that no martyrs or illustrious persons were
buried here.

In 1903 a new cemetery with frescoes came to light on the Via Latina,
considered by Marucchi to have belonged to a heretical sect. In the same
year the Jewish cemetery on the Via Portuense, known to Bosio but since
forgotten, was rediscovered. The subterranean basilica of SS. Felix and
Adauctus, discovered by Boldetti and afterwards choked up with ruins,
was cleared again: the crypt, begun by Damasus and enlarged by Siricius,
contains frescoes of the 6th-7th centuries.

A good plan of the catacombs at Albano (at the 15th milestone of the
Appian way), discovered by Boldetti and described by De Rossi, has been
published by Marucchi (_Nuovo Bulletino di archeologia cristiana_, 1902,
pp. 89 ff.). In 1904 a small subterranean cemetery was discovered at
Anagnia. Catacombs have also been recently discovered on the site of
Hadrumetum near Sousse in Tunisia. (+ W. R. B.; O. M. D.)

AUTHORITIES.--The classical work on the catacombs of Rome is G.B. De
Rossi's _Roma sotterranea_, on which most of the accounts in other
languages than Italian have been based. The fine volume by Mgr.
Wilpert, _Le Pitture delle catacombe romane_ (Rome, 1903), in which
all the important frescoes are reproduced in colours, is to be
regarded as an addition to the _Roma sotterranea_. All new
discoveries made by the active _Commissione di archeologia sacra_ are
chronicled with as little delay as possible in the _Nuovo Bulletino de
archeologia cristiana_ published in Rome.

The most recent accounts of the catacombs are to be found in the
following books:--Armellini, _Gli Antichi Cimiteri cristiani di Roma e
d' Italia_ (Rome, 1893); O. Marucchi, _Le Catacombe romane_ (Rome,
1903; also translated into French), _Manuale di epigrafia cristiana _
(Milan, 1904); M. Besnier, _Les Catacombes de Rome_ (Paris, 1909).

Among the older works are: Bosio, _Roma sotterranea_, Severano's
edition (1632), and Aringhi's edition (1651); Boldetti, _Osservazioni
sopra i cimiteri dei santi martiri_ (Rome, 1720); Bottari, _Sculture e
pitture sagre, &c._ (Rome, 1737-1754); Seroux d'Agincourt, _Histoire
de l'art par les monuments_ (Paris, 1823; German ed., 1840); G.
Marchi, _Monumenti delle arti cristiane primitive_ (Rome, 1844); Raoul
Rochette, _Tableau des catacombes de Rome_ (2nd ed., Paris, 1853);
Perret, _Les Catacombes de Rome_ (Paris, 1855)--a sumptuous folio
work, but not always accurate, Roller, _Les Catacombes de Rome_
(Paris, 1881); V. Schultze, _Die Katakomben_ (Leipzig, 1882).

Works written in English are: Northcote and Brownlow, _Roma
sotterranea_ (London, 1869; based upon De Rossi); Wharton Marriott,
_The Testimony of the Catacombs_ (London, 1870); J.H. Parker, _The
Archaeology of Rome: the Catacombs_; Smith and Cheetham, _Dictionary
of Christian Antiquities_, s.v. "Catacombs"; R. Lanciani, _Pagan and
Christian Rome_ (London, 1892); W. Lowry, _Christian Art and
Archaeology_, ch. ii. (London, 1901; a useful introduction to the
subject); H. Gee, "The Church in the Catacombs," in W. Lefroy's
_Lectures in Ecclesiastical History_ (1896); Th. Mommsen, in the
_Contemporary Review_, May 1871.

Accounts of the catacombs will also be found in the encyclopaedias and
manuals published under the following names: Martigny, Perate, F.X.
Kraus (_Realencyklopadie_ and _Geschichte der christlichen Kunst_),
Reusens, V. Schultze and C.M. Kauffmann, and in the large new
_Dictionnaire d'archeologie chretienne et liturgie_, published at
Paris under the editorship of Dom F. Cabrol.

The catacombs at Naples are described in C.F. Bellermann, _Uber die
altesten christlichen Begrabnisstatten und besonders die Katakomben zu
Neapel_ (Hamburg, 1839); Armellini, as above, and V. Schultze, _Die
Katakomben von San Gennaro dei Poveri in Neapel_ (Jena, 1877).

For the catacombs in Malta, A.A. Caruana, _Ancient Pagan Tombs and
Christian Cemeteries in the Islands of Malta_ (Malta, 1898), and A.
Mayr, "Die altchristlichen Begrabnisstatten auf Malta," in _Romische
Quartalschrift_, vol. xv. pp. 216 and 352 (Rome, 1901), may be
consulted.

The fullest account of the Sicilian catacombs is given by J. Fuhrer,
_Forschungen zur Sicilia sotterranea_ (Munich, 1897); and D.C.
Barrecca, _Le Catacombe di San Giovanni in Siracusa_ (Syracuse, 1906).

A catacomb of the 5th century, discovered at Kertch in South Russia,
is described by J. Kulakovsky in _Materials for Russian Archaeology_
(St Petersburg, 1896; a publication of the Russian Imperial
Archaeological Commission), but it is written in Russian, as also is
the account by V. Latyshev, in _Vizantieski Vremennik_, vol. vi. pp.
337 ff. (St Petersburg, 1899).

The catacombs at Hadrumetum (Sousse) are described by A.F. Leynard,
_Les Catacombes d'Hadrumete, deuxieme campagne de fouilles_
(1904-1905). See also _Revue Tunisienne_ (1905), p. 250.

For the catacombs of Alexandria, Neroutsos Bey, _L'Ancienne
Alexandrie_, may be consulted in addition to De Rossi's article
mentioned in the text. (O. M. D.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The most important of these lists are the two Itineraries
belonging to the first half of the 7th century, in the Salzburg
library. One still earlier, but less complete, appears in the
_Notitia Urbis Romae_, under the title _Index Coemeteriorum_. Another
Itinerary, preserved at Einsiedeln, printed by Mabillon, dates from
the latter half of the same century. That found in the works of
William of Malmesbury (Hardy's ed. vol. ii. pp. 539-544) appears to
be copied from it, or both may be from the same source. De Rossi
gives a comparative table of these Itineraries and other similar
lists.

[2] Hieron., _Comment. in Ezech._ lib xx. c. 40. The translation is
Dean Burgon's.

[3] In Rome the three strata are known to geologists as _tufa
litoide_, _tufa granolare_ and _pozzolana_.

[4] Cicero is our authority for the burial of Marius, and for Sulla's
being the first member of the Gens Cornelia whose dead body was burnt
(_De Legg._ ii. 22).

[5] Mommsen's chosen example of an ancient burial-chamber, extending
itself into a catacomb, or gathering subterranean additions round it
till a catacomb was established, is that of the cemetery of St
Domitilla, traditionally identified with a granddaughter of
Vespasian, and the catacomb of Santi Nereo ed Achilleo on the Appian
and Ardeatine way.

[6] Parker's invaluable series of Roman photographs may be seen at
the library of the Victoria and Albert museum, at the Ashmolean
museum and the Bodleian library, Oxford.

[7] _Bulletino di archaeologia cristiana_, November 1864, August
1865. See also _Authorities_, below.

CATAFALQUE (a word of unknown origin, occurring in various forms in many
European languages, meaning a funeral scaffold or temporary stage), a
movable structure of wood sometimes richly decorated, erected
temporarily at funeral ceremonies in a church to receive the coffin or
effigy of the deceased; also an open hearse or funeral car.

CATALANI, ANGELICA (1780-1849), Italian opera-singer, daughter of a
tradesman at Sinigaglia, was educated at the convent of Santa Lucia at
Gubbio, where her magnificent soprano voice, of extraordinary compass
and purity, soon became famous. In 1795 she made her debut on the stage
at Venice, and from that moment every impresario in Europe was anxious
to engage her. For nearly thirty years she sang at all the great houses,
receiving very large fees; her first appearance in London being at the
King's theatre in 1806. She remained in England, a prima donna without a
serious rival, for seven years. Then she was given the management of the
opera in Paris, but this resulted in financial failure, owing to the
incapacity and extravagance of her husband, Captain Valabregue, whom she
married in 1806. But her continental tours continued to be enormously
successful, until she retired in 1828. She settled at Florence in 1830,
where she founded a free singing school for girls; and her charity and
kindness were unbounded. She died of cholera in Paris on the 12th of
June 1849.

CATALEPSY (from Gr. [Greek: katalepsis], a seizure), a term applied to a
nervous affection characterized by the sudden suspension of sensation
and volition, accompanied with a peculiar rigidity of the whole or of
certain muscles of the body. The subjects of catalepsy are in most
instances females of highly nervous temperament. The exciting cause of
an attack is usually mental emotion operating either suddenly, as in the
case of a fright, or more gradually in the way of prolonged depression.
The symptoms presented vary in different cases, and even in the same
individual in different attacks. Sometimes the typical features of the
disease are exhibited in a state of complete insensibility, together
with a statue-like appearance of the body which will retain any attitude
it may be made to assume during the continuance of the attack. In this
condition the whole organic and vital functions appear to be reduced to
the lowest possible limit consistent with life, and to such a degree as
to simulate actual death. At other times considerable mental excitement
will accompany the cataleptic symptoms, and the patient will sing or
utter passionate exclamations during the fit, being all the while quite
unconscious. The attack may be of short duration, passing off within a
few minutes. It may, however, last for many hours, and in some rare
instances persist for several days; and it is conceivable that in such
cases the appearances presented might be mistaken for real death, as is
alleged to have occasionally happened. Catalepsy belongs to the class of
functional nervous disorders (see MUSCLE AND NERVE: _Pathology_) in
which morbid physical and psychical conditions are mixed up. Although it
is said to occur in persons in perfect health, careful inquiry will
usually reveal some departure from the normal state, as is shown by the
greater number of the recorded cases. More particularly is this true of
females, in whom some form of menstrual derangement is generally found
to have preceded the cataleptic affection. Catalepsy is sometimes
associated with epilepsy and with grave forms of mental disease. In
ordinary cases, however, the mental phenomena bear close resemblance to
those witnessed in hysteria. In many of the subjects of catalepsy there
appears to be a remarkable weakness of the will, whereby the tendency to
lapse into the cataleptic state is not resisted but rather in some
measure encouraged, and attacks may thus be induced by the most trivial
circumstances.

CATALOGUE (a Fr. adaptation of the Gr. [Greek: katalogos], a register,
from [Greek: katalegein], to enrol or pick out), a list or enumeration,
generally in alphabetical order, of persons, things, &c., and
particularly of the contents of a museum or library. A _catalogue
raisonnee_ is such a list classified according to subjects or on some
other basis, with short explanations and notes. (See also articles
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOLOGY, and LIBRARIES.)

CATALONIA (_Cataluna_), a captaincy-general, and formerly a province of
Spain, formerly also a principality of the crown of Aragon; bounded on
the N. by the Pyrenees, W. by Aragon, S. by Valencia, and E. by the
Mediterranean Sea. Pop. (1900) 1,966,382; area, 12,427 sq. m. The
triangular territory of Catalonia forms the north-eastern corner of the
Iberian Peninsula. A full account of the physical features, and of the
modern development of commerce, communications, &c., in this area is
given in the articles on the four provinces Barcelona, Gerona, Lerida
and Tarragona, into which Catalonia was divided in 1833.

The coast, which is partly sandy, partly rocky, extends about 240 m.;
its chief harbours are those of the capital, Barcelona, of Mataro, of
Rosas and of Tarragona. The surface is much broken by spurs of the
Pyrenees, the direction of which is generally south. Running south-west
to north-east, and united on the north with one of the offsets of the
Pyrenees, is the range of the Sierra Llena, which bisects Catalonia, and
forms its central watershed. The principal rivers are the Ter, the
Llobregat, and the Ebro (q.v.), which all run into the Mediterranean.
None of them is navigable. The climate, in spite of frequent mists and
rains, sudden changes of temperature, and occasional great mid-day heat,
is healthy and favourable to vegetation. The dwarf-palm, orange, lime,
and olive grow in the warmer tracts; and on the higher grounds the
thorn-apple, pomegranate, myrtle, esparto and heaths flourish. There is
much woodland, but meadows and pastures are rare. Maize, millet, rye,
flax, liquorice and fruits of all sorts--especially nuts, almonds,
oranges, figs, walnuts and chestnuts--are produced. Wheat sufficient for
one-fourth of the population is grown, and the vine is extensively
cultivated. Few cattle, but numbers of sheep, goats and swine are
reared. Game is plentiful, and the fisheries on the coast are excellent.
The wines are for the most part rough and strong, though some are very
good, especially when matured. They are much used to adulterate those of
Oporto, or, after undergoing the blending operation termed _compage_,
are passed off as Bordeaux wines in France. The best of them,
_priorato_, is chiefly known in England, under the disguise of second or
third-rate port; it was much used in the military hospitals of America
during the Civil War.

The Catalonians are a frugal, sharp-witted, and industrious people,
having much national pride, and a strong revolutionary spirit. They are
distinct in origin from the other inhabitants of Spain, from whom they
differ in their dialect and costume. In their great energy and their
love of enterprise they resemble the Basques. Irrigation, careful
husbandry and railroad communications have much developed the resources
of their country, in themselves excellent; and there are many
manufacturing towns and industrial establishments.

Catalonia was one of the first of the Roman possessions in Spain, and
formed the north-eastern portion of Hispania Tarraconensis. About 470 it
was occupied by the Alans and Goths. It was conquered by the Moors in
712, but these invaders were in turn dispossessed by the Spaniards and
the troops of Charlemagne in 788. Catalonia was subsequently ruled by
French counts, who soon, however, made themselves independent of France.
By the marriage of Count Raymond Berenger IV. of Barcelona with
Petronilla of Aragon, Catalonia became annexed to Aragon; but this union
was frequently severed. In 1640, when Philip IV. attempted to deprive
Catalonia of its rights and privileges, it gave itself up to Louis XIII.
of France. It was restored to Spain in 1659, and was once more occupied
by the French from 1694 to 1697. Under Philip V. Catalonia, in 1714, was
deprived of its cortes and liberties. From 1808 to 1813 it was held by
France. It was the scene of civil war in 1823, and of important
revolutionary operations in the Carlist wars.

The history and literature of Catalonia have been closely studied, and
in many cases the results of research are published in the Catalan
language. See _Cataluna, sus monumentos y artes, su naturaleza e
historia_ (2 vols. of the illustrated series _Espana_), by P.
Pifferrer, F. Pi Margall, and A.A. Pijoan (Barcelona, 1884); _Historia
de Cataluna_, by V. Balaguer (11 vols., Madrid, 1886, &c.); _Historia
de Cataluna_, by A. Bori y Fontesta (Barcelona, 1898); _Origines
historicos de Cataluna_, by J. Balari y Jovany (Barcelona, 1899);
_Coleccio dels monografias de Catalunya_, by J. Reig y Vilardell
(Barcelona, 1890); _Historia del derecho en Catalonia, Mallorca y
Valencia_, by B. Oliver (Madrid, 1876-1880); and _Antigua marina
catalana_, by F. de Bofarull y Sans (Barcelona, 1898). The _Revista
catalana_ (Catalan Review), published at Barcelona from 1889, contains
many valuable papers on local affairs. See also SPAIN: sections
_Language, Literature_ and _History_, and BARCELONA.

CATALPA, in botany, a genus belonging to the family _Bignoniaceae_ and
containing about ten species in America and eastern Asia. The best known
is _Catalpa bignonioides_, a native of the eastern United States which
is often cultivated in parks and gardens. It is a stately tree with
large heart-shaped pointed leaves and panicles of white bell-shaped
flowers streaked with yellow and brown purple.

CATALYSIS (from the Gr. [Greek: kata], down, and [Greek: luein], to
loosen), in chemistry, the name given to chemical actions brought about
by a substance, termed the "catalyst," which is recovered unchanged
after the action. The term was introduced by Berzelius, who first
studied such reactions. It is convenient to divide catalytic actions
into two groups:--(1) when the catalyst first combines with one of the
reaction components to form a compound which immediately reacts with the
other components, the catalyst being simultaneously liberated, and free
to react with more of the undecomposed first component; and (2), when
the catalyst apparently reacts by mere contact. The theory of catalysis
is treated under CHEMICAL ACTION; in this article mention will be made
of some of the more interesting examples.

A familiar instance of a catalytic action is witnessed when a mixture
of potassium chlorate and manganese dioxide is heated to 350 deg.,
oxygen being steadily liberated, and the manganese dioxide being
unchanged at the end of the reaction. The action may be explained as
follows:--part of the chlorate reacts with the manganese dioxide to form
potassium permanganate, chlorine and oxygen, the chlorine subsequently
reacting with the permanganate to produce manganese dioxide, potassium
chloride and oxygen, thus

2KClO3 + 2MnO2 = 2KMnO4 + Cl2 + O2 = 2KCl + 2MnO2 + 3O2.

This explanation is supported by the facts that traces of chlorine are
present in the gas, and the pink permanganate can be recognized when
little dioxide is used. Other oxides bring about the same decomposition
at temperatures below that at which the chlorate yields oxygen when
heated alone; but since such substances as kaolin, platinum black and
some other finely powdered compounds exercise the same effect, it
follows that the explanation given above is not quite general. Another
example is Deacon's process for the manufacture of chlorine by passing
hydrochloric acid gas mixed with air over heated bricks which had been
previously impregnated with a copper sulphate solution. The nitrous
gases employed in the ordinary chamber process of manufacturing
sulphuric acid also act catalytically. Mention may be made of the part
played by water vapour in conditioning many chemical reactions. Thus
sodium will not react with dry chlorine or dry oxygen; carbon, sulphur
and phosphorus will not burn in perfectly dry oxygen, neither does
nitric oxide give red fumes of the peroxide. In organic chemistry many
catalytic actions are met with. In the class of reaction known as
"condensations," it may be found that the course of the reaction is
largely dependent upon the nature of some substance which acts
catalytically. One of the most important is the Friedel and Craft's
reaction, in which an aromatic compound combines with an alkyl haloid in
the presence of aluminium, zinc or ferric chloride. It seems in this, as
in other cases, that additional compounds are first formed which
subsequently react with the re-formation of the catalyst. The formation
of benzoin from benzaldehyde in the presence of potassium cyanide is
another example; this action has been investigated by G. Bredig and
Stern (_Zeit. Elektrochem._, 1904, 10, p. 582).

The second class of catalytic actions, viz. those occasioned by the
presence of a metal or some other substance which undergoes no change,
is of especial interest, and has received much attention. The
accelerating influence of a clean platinum plate on the rate of
combination of hydrogen and oxygen was studied by Faraday. He found that
with the pure gases the velocity of reaction increased until the mixture
exploded. The presence of minute quantities of carbon monoxide, carbon
disulphide, sulphuretted hydrogen and hydrochloric acid inhibited the
action; in the case of the first two gases, there is no alteration of
the platinum surface, since the plate brings about combination when
removed to an atmosphere of pure hydrogen and oxygen; with the last two
gases, however, the surface is altered, since the plate will not
occasion the combination when placed in the pure gases. M. Bodenstein
(_Zeit. phys. Chem._, 1904, 46, p. 725) showed that combination occurs
with measurable velocity at ordinary temperatures in the presence of
compact platinum. More energetic combination is observed if the metal be
finely divided, as, for instance, by immersing asbestos fibres in a
solution of platinum chloride and strongly heating. The "spongy"
platinum so formed brings about the combination of ammonia and oxygen to
form water and nitric acid, of nitric oxide and hydrogen to form ammonia
(see German Patent, 1905, 157,287), and of sulphur dioxide and oxygen to
form sulphur trioxide. The last reaction, which receives commercial
application in the contact process of sulphuric acid manufacture, was
studied by M. Bodenstein and W. Pohl (_Zeit. Elektrochem._, 1905, 11, p.
373), who found that the equilibrium followed the law of mass-action
(see also F. W. Kuster, _Zeit. anorg. Chem._, 1904, 42, p. 453, R.
Lucas, _Zeit. Elektrochem._, 1905, 11, p. 457). Other metals, such as
nickel, iron, &c., can also react as catalysts. The use of finely
divided nickel (obtained by reducing the oxide in a current of pure
hydrogen at a temperature of 350 deg.) has been carefully studied by P.
Sabatier and J.B. Senderens; a summary of their results is given in the
_Ann. Chim. Phys._, 1905 (viii.) 4, pp. 319-488. Of special interest is
the condensation of acetylene. If this gas mixed with hydrogen be passed
over the reduced nickel in the cold, the temperature may rise to as high
as 150 deg., the acetylene disappearing and becoming replaced by a
substance like petroleum. If the nickel be maintained at 200 deg., and
the gases circulated for twenty-eight hours, a product, condensible to a
yellow liquid having a beautiful fluorescence and boiling at 45 deg., is
obtained. This substance closely resembles ordinary Pennsylvanian
petroleum. If acetylene be passed alone over nickel heated to 200
deg.-300 deg., a mixture, boiling at 60 deg.-70 deg. and having a green
colour by diffused and a red by transmitted light, was obtained. This
substance closely resembles Caucasian petroleum. The decomposition of
carbon monoxide according to the reaction 2CO <=> C + CO2 is purely
catalytic in the presence of nickel and cobalt, and also in the presence
of iron, so long as the amount of carbon dioxide present does not exceed
a certain amount (R. Schenck and W. Heller, _Ber._, 1905, 38, pp. 2132,
2139). It is of interest that finely divided aluminium and magnesium
decompose methane, ethane, and ethylene into carbon and hydrogen in the
same way as nickel. Charcoal at 350 deg. also reacts catalytically; for
example, Senderens found that ethyl alcohol was decomposed by animal
charcoal into methane, ethylene, hydrogen, carbon monoxide and a little
carbon dioxide, and propyl alcohol gave propylene, ethane, carbon
monoxide and hydrogen, while G. Lemoine obtained from ethyl alcohol and
wood charcoal a mixture of acetaldehyde and hydrogen.

CATAMARAN (a Tamil word, from _catta_, to tie, and _maram_ wood), a
surf-boat or raft used by the natives of Madras and along the Coromandel
Coast in India. It is usually made of three tree trunks lashed together,
the centre trunk being the largest and longest, and having one end bent
upward to form a kind of prow. Catamarans of a larger size are in use in
the West Indies and South America. The name is also given to two boats
lashed together. Apparently through an erroneous connexion with cat, the
name has been applied to a noisy scolding woman.

CATAMARCA, an Andean province of the Argentine Republic, lying W. of
Santiago del Estero and Tucuman and extending to the Chilean frontier,
with Los Andes and Salta on the N., Cordoba on the S.E., and Rioja on
the S. Pop. (1895) 90,161; (1904, estimate) 103,082; area, 47,531 sq. m.
The surface of the province is extremely broken, the Andes forming its
western boundary, and the Aconquija, Ancaste, Ambato, Gulampaja and
other ranges traversing it from north to south. It is composed very
largely of high plateaus with a general slope southward broken by a few
fertile valleys. The greater part of the province is arid and barren,
being sheltered from the moist, eastern winds by the high mountain
barriers of Aconquija and Ancaste. The rivers are small, and some of
them are lost in the barren, sandy wastes. Others, especially in the
foothills of the high sierras, are utilized to irrigate the fertile
valleys. The climate of some of the low, sheltered valleys is extremely
hot and unhealthy, but on the open plateaus it is peculiarly dry and
bracing and is probably beneficial in the treatment of pulmonary
diseases. The mineral resources of the province include gold, silver,
copper, lead, nickel, iron, coal and malachite, but of these only copper
and silver are mined, and these chiefly in the Andalgala district. Salt
deposits also exist, but are worked only to a limited extent. Cereals,
alfalfa and fruit are grown. Large numbers of cattle, fattened in the
alfalfa fields of Pucara, Tinogasta and Copacabana, are driven into
northern Chile across the San Francisco pass (13,124 ft. above sea
level) and mules are bred for the Bolivian market. Wine of an excellent
quality is produced and exported. Tanning leather is another industry of
the province, some of the trees growing in the Catamarca forests being
rich in tannin. Catamarca is traversed by the Northern Central railway
between Cordoba and the city of Catamarca, its capital, which passes
around the southern extremity of the Sierra de Ancaste and makes a long
detour to Chumbicha, near the Rioja frontier. The more important towns,
after Catamarca, the capital, are Andalgala and Tinogasta with
populations (estimated, 1904) of 5000 to 6000 each. Belen is the oldest
Spanish settlement in the province and was founded in 1550, being called
Barco at first. The population is largely mixed with Indian blood.

CATAMARCA (_San Fernando de Catamarca_), capital of the above province
on the Rio del Valle de Catamarca, 230 m. (318 m. by rail) N.N.W. of
Cordoba. Pop. (1895) 7397; (1905, estimate) 8000, with a large
percentage of mestizos. Catamarca is connected by railways with Rioja
and Patquia and with Cordoba. The city stands in a narrow, picturesque
valley at the foot of the Sierra de Ambato, 1772 ft. above sea level.
The valley is highly fertile, partially wooded, and produces fruit in
abundance, wine and some cereals. In the city are flour mills and
tanneries, and among its exports are leather, fruit, wine, flour, and a
curious embroidery for which the women of Catamarca have long been
famous. There is a fine church, 220 by 90 ft., and a national college
occupies the old Merced convent. The alameda is one of the prettiest in
the Argentine Republic, having a reservoir of two acres surrounded by
shrubbery and walks. Catamarca was founded in 1685 by Fernando de
Mendoza because the town of Chacra, the former provincial capital, a few
miles north of Catamarca, had been found unhealthy and subject to
inundations. Previous to the selection of Chacra as the provincial
capital, the seat of government was at San Juan de Londres, founded in
1558 and named after the capital of England by order of Philip II. in
honour of his marriage with Queen Mary. The arid surroundings of Londres
led to its partial abandonment and it is now a mere village. Cholla, a
suburb of Catamarca, is inhabited wholly by Calchaqui Indians, a remnant
of the original inhabitants of this region.

CATANIA (Gr. _Katane_, Rom. _Catina_[1]), a city and episcopal see of
Sicily, the chief town of the province of Catania, on the east coast, 59
m. by rail S. of Messina, and 151 m. by rail S.E. of Palermo (102 m.
direct). Pop. (1881) 100,417; (1905) 157,722. The principal buildings
are handsome, and the main streets, meeting in the Piazzo del Duomo, are
fine. The cathedral of S. Agatha, containing the relics of the saint,
retains its three original Norman apses (1091), but is otherwise a large
baroque edifice. The monument of Don Ferrando d'Acunea, a Spanish
viceroy of Sicily, is a fine early Renaissance work (1494). In the west
portion of the town is the huge Benedictine abbey of S. Nicola (now
suppressed), the buildings of which occupy an area of about 21 acres and
contain the museum, a library, observatory, &c. The church, dating, like
the rest of the buildings, from 1693-1735, is the largest in Sicily, and
the organ, built in 1760 by Donato del Piano, with 72 stops and 2916
pipes, is very fine. The university, founded in 1444, has regained some
of its former importance. To the south near the harbour is the massive
Castell' Ursino, erected in 1232 by Frederick II. Remains of several
ancient buildings exist, belonging in the main to the Roman period. The
theatre, covered by a stream of lava, and built partly of small
rectangular blocks of the same material, though in the main of concrete,
has been superimposed upon the Greek building, some foundations of
which, in calcareous stone, of which the seats are also made, still
exist. It is 106 yds. in diameter, and is estimated to have accommodated
7000 spectators. Close to it are the remains of the so-called Odeum, of
similar plan to the theatre but without a stage, and to the north is the
church of S. Maria Rotonda, originally a Roman domed structure, perhaps
part of a bath. To the north, in the Piazza Stesicoro, is the
amphitheatre, a considerable portion of which has been uncovered,
including the two corridors which ran round the whole building and gave
access to the seats, while a part of the arcades of the exterior has
been excavated and left open; the pillars are made of blocks of lava,
and the arches of brick. The external diameters of the amphitheatre are
410 and 348 ft., while the corresponding diameters of the arena are 233
and 167 ft. It is thus the third largest Roman amphitheatre known, being
surpassed only by that at Verona and the Colosseum. Remains of many
other Roman buildings also exist beneath the modern town, among the best
preserved of which may be noted the public baths (_Thermae Achilleae_)
under the cathedral, and those under the church of S. Maria dell'
Indirizzo. The number of baths is remarkable, and gives some idea of the
luxury of the place in Roman times. Their excellent preservation is
accounted for by their burial under the lava. The majority were
excavated by Prince Ignazio Biscari (1719-1786), who formed an important
private collection of antiquities. Of the ancient city walls no
authenticated remains exist.

Catania has a considerable export trade in sulphur, pumice stone,
asphalt, oranges and lemons, almonds, filberts, cereals, wine (the total
production of wine in the province amounted to 28,600,000 gallons in
1905) and oil. The total value of exports in 1905 was L1,647,075, and of
imports L1,326,055, the latter including notably coal, almost entirely
from the United Kingdom, and wheat, from Russian ports. The harbour is a
good one, and has been considerably enlarged since 1872; L128,000 was
voted in 1905 towards the completion of the harbour works by the Italian
government. Sulphide of carbon is produced here; and there are large
dyeworks, and a factory for making bed-stuffing from seaweed.

The ancient Catina was founded in 729 B.C. by colonists from Naxos,
perhaps on the site of an earlier Sicel settlement--the name is entirely
un-Greek, and may be derived from [Greek: katinon], which in the Sicel
language, as _catinum_ in Latin, meant a basin, and would thus be
descriptive of the situation of the town. Charondas, a citizen of
Catina, is famous as its lawgiver, but his date and his birthplace are
alike uncertain; the fragments preserved of his laws show that they
belong to a somewhat primitive period. The poet Stesichorus of Himera
died here. Very little is heard of Catina in history until 476 B.C.,
when Hiero I. removed its inhabitants to Leontini, repeopled it with
5000 Syracusans and 5000 Peloponnesians, and changed its name to Aetna.
In 461 B.C., however, with the help of Ducetius and the Syracusans, the
former inhabitants recovered possession of their city and revived the
old name. Catina was, however, an ally of Athens during the Syracusan
expedition (415-413 B.C.), and served as the Athenian base of operations
in the early part of the war. In 403 B.C. it was taken by Dionysius of
Syracuse, who plundered the city, sold the inhabitants into slavery and
replaced them with Campanian mercenaries. In the First Punic War it was
one of the first cities of Sicily to be taken by the Romans (263 B.C.).
Marcellus constructed a gymnasium here out of the booty of Syracuse. In
123 B.C. there was an eruption of Etna so violent that the tithe on the
territory of Catina payable to Rome was remitted for ten years. It
appears to have been a flourishing city in the ist century B.C., but to
have suffered from the ravages of Sextus Pompeius. It became a Roman
_colonia_ under Augustus, and it is from this period that the fertile
plain, hitherto called the plain of Leontini, begins to be called the
plain of Catina. It seems to have been at this time the most important
city in the island, to judge from the language of Strabo and the number
of inscriptions found there. In A.D. 251 a lava stream threatened the
town and entered the amphitheatre, which in the time of Theodoric had
fallen into ruins, as is clear from the fact that he permitted the use
of its fallen stones to build the city wall. It was recovered by
Belisarius in 535, sacked by the Saracens in 902 and taken by the
Normans. The latter founded the cathedral; but the town was almost
entirely destroyed by earthquake in 1170, and devastated by Henry VI. in
1197. It became the usual residence of the Aragonese viceroys of the
13th and 14th centuries. In 1669 an eruption of Etna partly filled up
the harbour, but spared the town, which was, however, almost entirely
destroyed by the earthquake of 1693. Since that catastrophe it has been
rebuilt, and has not further suffered from its proximity to Etna.

See A. Holm, _Das alte Catania_ (Lubeck, 1873). (T. As.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] This is the form vouched for by the inscriptions.

CATANZARO, a town and episcopal see of Calabria, Italy, capital of the
province of Catanzaro, 1125 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 22,799
(town); 32,005 (commune). The station for the town (Catanzaro Sala) is
situated on a branch line connecting the two main lines along the east
and west coasts of Calabria, 6 m. N. by W. of Catanzaro Marina on the
east coast, and 20 m. E. of S. Eufemia Biforcazione, on the west coast
line. The town enjoys a comparatively cool climate in summer, and
commands fine views. Numerous wealthy families reside here, and the town
has a trade in olive-oil, silk and velvet. The castle, built by Robert
Guiscard, has been modernized, and so has the cathedral. The see was
founded in 1121. The provincial museum contains antiquities and
especially coins from the ancient cities of Magna Graecia, and a few
pictures.

CATAPHYLL (Gr. [Greek: kata], down, [Greek: phullon], leaf), a botanical
term for the early leaf-forms produced in the lower part of a shoot,
such as bud-scales, or scales on underground stems.

CATAPULT (Lat. _catapulta_, Gr. [Greek: katapeltes]) a generic name for
warlike engines of the cross-bow type used by the ancients. Although
engines of war appear on Assyrian remains, and are mentioned in 2
Chronicles xxvi. 15, it appears that Greek armies, even of the 5th
century, did not possess them, and the first record of a large siege
train in classical literature is of the year 399 B.C., when Dionysius I.
of Syracuse, contemplating an expedition against Carthage, provided
himself with engines. From Sicily siege engines found their way some
years later into Greece; they were used by Philip of Macedon at the
siege of Byzantium in 340, and thereafter, as a natural consequence of
the regularizing or professionalizing of armies, artillery, as we may
call it, came into prominence and called into existence technical corps
to work it.

The war engines of the Romans, during the republic and early principate,
are of the same type as those of Alexander's successors in Greece. They
are usually classed as (a) catapults and (b) ballistae ([Greek:
lithoboloi]). The former were smaller and were used with arrows for what
is now called direct fire (i.e. at low angles of elevation); the latter
were large siege engines discharging heavy bolts or stones at a high
angle of elevation, like the modern howitzer. They were, of course,
principally siege engines, but the smaller natures of catapult appear in
field warfare from time to time, and eventually, during the early
principate, they are found as part of the regulation equipment of
infantry units. Both were constructed on the same principle.

[Illustration]

The essential parts of the catapult (see illustration) were the frame,
the propelling gear, the trough (corresponding to the modern barrel) and
the pedestal. The frame consisted of two horizontal beams forming top
and bottom sills, and four strong upright bars mortised into them. The
three open spaces or compartments, resembling narrow windows, between
these four uprights carried the propelling and laying gear. The
propelling gear occupied the two outer "windows." In each a thick skein
of cord or sinews was fastened to the top and bottom sills and tightly
twisted. Two stiff wooden arms were inserted in the two skeins, and a
specially strong bowstring joined the tips of these arms. In the middle
compartment was the hinged fore-end of the trough, which was at right
angles to the frame and at the back of it. The trough could be laid for
elevation by a movable prop, the upper end of which was hinged to the
trough, while the lower ran up and down a sort of trail fastened to the
pedestal. The whole equipment was laid for "line" by turning the frame,
and with it the trough, prop and trail by a pivot in the head of the
pedestal. Sliding up and down in the trough was a block, fitted with a
trigger mechanism, through which passed the middle of the bowstring. The
pedestal was a strong and solid upright resting upon, and strutted to, a
framework on the ground; its upper end, as mentioned above, took the
pivot of the frame and the head of the trail.

On coming into action the machine was laid for direction and elevation.
The block and with it the bowstring was next forced back against the
resistance of the twisted skeins to the rear end of the trough, this
being effected by a windlass attachment. The trigger being then pressed
or struck with a hammer, the bowstring was released from the block, the
stiff arms were violently brought back to the frame by the untwisting of
the skeins, and the arrow was propelled through the centre "window" with
great velocity. A small machine of the type described weighed about 85
lb., and sent a "three-span" (26-in.) arrow weighing 1/2 lb. at an
effective man-killing velocity somewhat over 400 yds.

The ballista was considerably larger and more expensive than this. In
Scipio's siege train, at the attack of New Carthage (Livy xxvi. 47. 5),
the number of the ballistae was only one-sixth that of the catapults. In
the ballista the rear end of the trough (which projected in front of the
frame) always rested upon the ground, or rather was fixed to the
framework of the pedestal--which was a heavy trestle construction--and
the trough was thus restricted to the angle of elevation, giving the
maximum range (45 deg.). Even so the range was not appreciably greater
than that of a catapult, and in the case of the largest ballistae
(ninety-pounder) it was much less. These enormous engines, which, once
in position, could not be laid on any fresh target, were used for
propelling beams and stones rather than for shooting arrows, that is,
more for the destruction of material than for man-killing effect. The
skeins that supplied the motive force of all these engines were made of
the sinews of animals, twisted raw hide, horsehair rope, and, in at
least one celebrated case, of women's hair. In 146 B.C., the authorities
of Carthage having surrendered their engines to the Romans in the vain
hope of staying their advance, new ones were hurriedly constructed, and
the women and virgins of the city cut off their hair to supply the
needed skeins.

The modern implement known as a "catapult" is formed by a forked stick,
to the forks of which are attached the ends of a piece of elastic. To
the middle of this elastic a pocket is fitted to contain a bullet or
small stone. In use the forked stick is held in the left hand and the
pocket drawn back with the right. Aim is taken and, the pocket being
released, the missile flies through the fork of the stick. Though
classed as a toy, this weapon can do considerable execution among birds,
&c., when skilfully used. The name of "catapult" has also been given to
a bowling machine which is used for cricket practice.

CATARACT (from the Lat. form _cataracta_ of the Gr. [Greek:
katarraktes], a floodgate, or waterfall, properly something which rushes
down), a downpour of water, a waterfall. The earliest use in English is
of a floodgate or portcullis, and this survives in the name of a disease
of the eye (see EYE: _Eye Diseases_), in which the crystalline lens
becomes opaque, and forms an apparent grating over the eye. The term is
also used of a device to regulate the strokes in certain types of
steam-engine.

CATARGIU (or CATARGI), LASCAR (1823-1899), Rumanian statesman, was born
in Moldavia in November 1823. He belonged to an ancient Walachian
family, one of whose members had been banished in the 17th century by
Prince Matthew Bassaraba, and had settled in Moldavia. Under Prince
Gregory Ghica (1849-1856), Catargiu rose to be prefect of police at
Jassy. In 1857 he became a member of the _Divan ad hoc_ of Moldavia, a
commission elected in accordance with the treaty of Paris (1856) to vote
on the proposed union of Moldavia and Walachia. His strongly
conservative views, especially on agrarian reform, induced the
Conservatives to support him as a candidate for the throne in 1859.
During the reign of Prince Cuza (1859-1866), Catargiu was one of the
Opposition leaders, and received much assistance from his kinsman, Barbu
Catargiu (b. 1807), a noted journalist and politician, who was
assassinated at Bucharest on the 20th of June 1862. On the accession of
Prince Charles in May 1866, Lascar Catargiu became president of the
council, or prime minister; but, finding himself unable to co-operate
with his Liberal colleagues, I.C. Bratianu and C.A. Rosetti, he resigned
in July. After eight more ministerial changes, culminating in the
anti-dynastic agitation of 1870-1871, Catargiu formed, for the first
time in Rumanian history, a stable Conservative cabinet, which lasted
until 1876. His policy, which averted revolution and revived the
popularity of the crown, was regarded as unpatriotic and reactionary by
the Liberals, who resumed office in 1876; and a proposal to impeach the
whole Catargiu cabinet was only withdrawn in 1878. Catargiu remained in
opposition until 1889, when he formed another cabinet, taking the
portfolio of the Interior; but this administration fell after seven
months. In the Florescu ministry of March 1891 he occupied the same
position, and in December he again became president of the council,
retaining office until 1895. During this period he was responsible for
several useful reforms, chiefly financial and commercial. He died
suddenly at Bucharest on the 11th of April 1899.

CATARRH (from the Gr. [Greek: katarrein], to flow down), a term
principally employed to describe a state of irritation of the mucous
membrane of the respiratory passages, or what is called in popular
language a "cold." It is the result of infection by a micro-organism in
one or more of various predisposing conditions, damp, chill, fatigue,
&c. The complaint usually begins as a nasal catarrh or _coryza_ (Gr.
[Greek: korys], head), with a feeling of weight about the forehead and
some degree of difficulty in breathing through the nose, increased on
lying down. Fits of sneezing accompanied with a profuse watery discharge
from the nostrils and eyes soon follow, while the sense of smell and to
some extent that of taste become considerably impaired. There is usually
present some amount of sore throat and of bronchial irritation, causing
hoarseness and cough. Sometimes the vocal apparatus becomes so much
inflamed (laryngeal catarrh) that temporary loss of voice results. There
is always more or less feverishness and discomfort, and frequently an
extreme sensitiveness to cold. After two or three days the symptoms
begin to abate, the discharge from the nostrils and chest becoming
thicker and of purulent character, and producing when dislodged
considerable relief to the breathing. On the other hand the catarrh may
assume a more severe aspect and pass into some form of pulmonary
inflammation (see BRONCHITIS) or influenza (q.v.).

When the symptoms are first felt it is well to take a good purge, and to
encourage free perspiration by a hot bath, some diaphoretic drug, as
spirits of nitrous ether, being taken before retiring to bed. Some of
the older school of physicians still pin their faith to a dose of
Dover's powder. When the cold manifests itself by aches and pains in
back and limbs, aspirin taken three or four times in the first
twenty-four hours will often act like magic. Locally a snuff made of
menthol 1 part, ammonium chloride 3 parts and boracic acid 2 parts will
relieve the discomfort of the nose. Also, remembering the microbic
origin of the disease, gargling and nasal syringing should be repeated
at intervals. As soon as the attack shows signs of subsiding, a good
tonic and, still better, a change of air are very helpful.

The term catarrh is used in medical nomenclature in a wider sense to
describe a state of irritation of any mucous surface in the body, which
is accompanied with an abnormal discharge of its natural secretion,
hence the terms gastric catarrh, intestinal catarrh, &c.

See also RESPIRATORY SYSTEM: _Pathology_, and DIGESTIVE ORGANS,
_Pathology of_.

CATARRHINE APE, the term used to describe those apes which have the
nostrils approximated, the aperture pointing downward, and the
intervening septum narrow; distinguishing features of both the lower
"doglike" apes (Cynomorpha) and the higher "manlike" apes
(Anthropomorpha). The Catarrhini are restricted entirely to the Old
World, and include the gorilla, the chimpanzee and orang-utan.

CATASTROPHE (Gr. [Greek: katastrophe], from [Greek: katastrephein], to
overturn), a term of the ancient Greek drama for the change in the plot
which leads up to the conclusion. The word is thus used of any sudden
change, particularly of a violent or disastrous nature, and in geology
of a cataclysm or great convulsion of the earth's surface.

CATAUXI, a numerous cannibal tribe of South American Indians of the
Purus river district, Brazil. They are a fine warlike race, with
remarkably clear complexions and handsome features; round wrists and
ankles they wear rings of twisted hair. They cultivate mandioc, and make
pottery and bark canoes.

CATAWBAS (from the Choctaw for "divided"), a tribe of North American
Indians of Siouan stock; formerly the dominant people of South Carolina.
Some of their divisions extended into North Carolina. They are now
almost extinct, but were at one time able to send nearly 2000 "braves"
into battle. In the American War of Independence they furnished a
valuable contingent to the South Carolina troops. They then occupied a
number of small towns on the Catawba river, but they afterwards leased
their land and removed to the territory of the Cherokees, with whom they
had been formerly at war. There, however, they did not long remain, but
returned to a reservation in their original district. Their affinities
have not been very clearly made out, and by Albert Gallatin they were
grouped with the Cherokees, Choctaws, Muskogees and Natchez. A
vocabulary of sixty of their words was published by Horatio Hale in vol.
ii. of the _Transactions of the American Ethnological Society_ in 1848;
and a much fuller list--about 300--collected by Oscar M. Lieber, the
geologist, in 1856, made its appearance in vol. ii. of _Collections of
the South Carolina Historical Society_, 1858. Of the one hundred
Catawbas still said to be surviving, few, if any, can claim to be
full-blooded. They are in the Catawba Reservation in York county, South
Carolina. The name is familiar in connexion with the white American
wine, the praises of which have been sung by Longfellow. The grape from
which the wine is obtained was first discovered about 1801, near the
banks of the Catawba river, and named by Major Adlum in 1828, but it is
now cultivated extensively in Illinois, Ohio and New York, and
especially on the shores of Lake Erie.

See also _Handbook of American Indians_ (Washington, 1907).

CATCH THE TEN, sometimes Called _Scotch Whist_, a game played with a
pack of 36 cards, from ace, king, queen to six in each suit, the ace
being highest both in play and cutting. In trumps, however, the knave
ranks highest. Any number from two to eight may play. If an even number,
partners are cut for; if odd, each plays for himself. An odd number of
players sit as they like; four players sit as at whist; six playing in
two sides sit so that no two partners shall be next each other; six
playing three sides sit so that two opponents shall divide each pair;
eight are arranged in alternate pairs. After cutting, the cards are
dealt according to the number of players. The last card is turned up for
the trump. When five or seven play, the six of spades is usually
omitted; when eight play, the four sixes are thrown out. The eldest hand
leads any card he chooses and all must follow suit if able, the penalty
for a revoke being the loss of the game. The tricks are not kept
separate but gathered in by one player for his side. At the end of the
deal there are six hands of six cards on the table. The players first
play out the first two hands, next the second two and finally the last
two, the trump card remaining on the table until the first four hands
are played out. The game is 41 points, the object of the play being to
win the cards which have a special value. These are, with their values:
knave of trumps 11, ace of trumps 4, king of trumps 3, queen of trumps
2, ten of trumps 10. All other cards have no counting value. As the ten
can be taken by any other honour the object is to "catch the ten."

CATECHISM (from Gr. [Greek: katechein], teach by word of mouth), a
compendium of instruction (particularly of religious instruction)
arranged in the form of questions and answers. The custom of
catechizing, common to all civilized antiquity, was followed in the
schools of Judaism and in the Early Church, where it helped to preserve
the Gospel narrative (see CATECHUMEN).

The catechism as we know it is intended primarily for children and
uneducated persons. Its aim is to instruct, and it differs from a creed
or confession in not being in the first instance an act of worship or a
public profession of belief. The first regular catechisms seem to have
grown out of the usual oral teaching of catechumens, and to have been
compiled in the 8th and 9th centuries. Among them the work of Notker
Labeo and of Kero, both monks of St Gall, and that of Ottfried of
Weissenburg in Alsace deserve mention. But it is not until the first
stirrings of revolt against the hierarchy, which preceded the
Reformation, that they became at all widespread or numerous. The
Waldenses of Savoy and France, the _Brethren_ (small communities of
evangelical dissenters from the medieval faith) of Germany, and the
_Unitas Fratrum_ of Bohemia all used the same catechism (one that was
first printed in 1498, and which continued to be published till 1530)
for the instruction of their children. It was based on St Augustine's
_Enchiridion_, and considers (a) Faith, i.e. the Creed, (b) Hope, i.e.
the Lord's Prayer, and (c) Love, i.e. the Decalogue.

The age of the Reformation gave a great stimulus to the production of
catechisms. This was but natural at a time when the invention of
printing had thrown the Bible open to all, and carried the war of
religious opinion from the schools into the streets. The adherents of
the "old" and the "new" religions alike had to justify their views to
the unlearned as well as to the learned, and to give in simple formulas
their reasons for the faith that was in them. Moreover, in the universal
unrest and oversetting of all authority, Christianity itself was in
danger of perishing, not only as the result of the cultured paganism of
the Renaissance, but also through the brutish ignorance of the common
folk, deprived now of their traditional religious restraints. To the
urgency of this peril the reformers were fully alive; and they sought
its remedy in education. "Let the people be taught," said Luther, "let
schools be opened for the poor, let the truth reach them in simple words
in their own mother tongue, and they will believe."

_Catechisms of the Chief Religious Communions._--(a) _Evangelical
(Lutheran and Reformed)._--It was the ignorance of the peasantry, as
revealed by the horrors of the Peasants' War of 1524-25, and his
pastoral visitation of the electorate of Saxony 1525-1527, that drew the
above exclamation from Luther, and impelled him to produce his two
famous catechisms (1529). In 1520 he had brought out a primer of
religion dealing briefly with the Decalogue, the Creed and the Lord's
Prayer; and Justus Jonas, Johannes Agricola and other leaders had done
something of the same kind. Now all these efforts were superseded by
Luther's Smaller Catechism meant for the people themselves and
especially for children, and by his Larger Catechism intended for clergy
and schoolmasters. These works, which did much to mould the character of
the German people, were set among the doctrinal standards of the
Lutheran Church and powerfully influenced other compilations. The
Smaller Catechism, with the Augsburg Confession, was made the Rule of
Faith in Denmark in 1537.

In this same year (1537) John Calvin at Geneva published his catechism
for children. It was called _Instruction and Confession of Faith for the
Use of the Church of Geneva_ (a reprint edited by A. Rilliet and T.
Dufour Was published in 1878), and explained the Decalogue, the
Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Sacraments. Though it was
meant, as he said, to give expression to a simple piety rather than to
exhibit a profound knowledge of religious truth, it was the work of a
man who knew little of the child mind, and, though it served as an
admirable and transparent epitome of his famous _Institutes_, it was too
long and too minute for the instruction of children. Calvin came to see
this, and in 1542, after his experience in Strassburg, drafted a new one
which was much more suitable for teaching purposes, though, judged by
modern standards, still far beyond the theological range of childhood.
It was used at the Sunday noon instruction of children, on which Calvin
laid much stress, and was adopted and similarly used by the Reformed
Church of Scotland. The Reformed churches of the Palatinate, on the
other hand, used the Heidelberg Catechism (1562-1563), "sweet-spirited,
experiential, clear, moderate and happily-phrased," mainly the work of
two of Calvin's younger disciples, Kaspar Olevianus and Zacharias
Ursinus. The Heidelberg Catechism, set forth by order of the elector, is
perhaps the most widely accepted symbol of the Calvinistic faith, and is
noteworthy for its emphasis on the less controversial aspects of the
Genevan theology. As revised by the synod of Dort in 1619, this
catechism became the standard of most of the Reformed churches of
central Europe, and in time of the Dutch and German Reformed churches of
America. Other compilations were those of Oecolampadius (Basel, 1526),
Leo Juda (Zurich, 1534), and Bullinger (Zurich, 1555). In France, after
Calvin's day, the Reformed church used besides Calvin's book the
catechisms of Louis Capell (1619), and Charles Drelincourt (1642), and
at the present time Bonnefon's _Nouveau Catechisme elementaire_ (14th
ed., 1900) seems most in favour. In Scotland both Calvin's Geneva
Catechism and then the Heidelberg Catechism were translated by order of
the General Assembly and annotated. In 1592 these were superseded by
that of John Craig, for a time the colleague of John Knox at the High
Church, Edinburgh.

Since 1648 the standard Presbyterian catechisms have been those compiled
by the Westminster Assembly, presented to parliament in 1647, and then
authorized by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (July 1648)
and by the Scottish parliament (January 1649). The Larger Catechism is
"for such as have made some proficiency in the knowledge of the
Christian religion," but is too detailed and minute for memorizing, and
has never received anything like the reception accorded to the Shorter
Catechism, which is "for such as are of weaker capacity." The work was
done by a committee presided over first by Herbert Palmer, master of
Queens', Cambridge, and then by Anthony Tuckney, master of Emmanuel. The
scriptural proof texts were added at the request of the English
parliament. In his negotiations with the parliament in 1648 Charles I.
offered to license the printing of the catechism, but, as the
negotiations were broken off, this was not done. The Shorter Catechism,
after a brief introduction on the end, rule and essence of religion, is
divided into two parts:--I. The doctrines we are to believe (1)
concerning the nature of God, (2) concerning the decrees of God and
their execution--(a) in creation and providence, (b) in the covenant of
works, (c) in the covenant of grace; II. The duties we are to perform
(1) in regard to the moral law, (2) in regard to the gospel--(a) inward
duties, i.e. faith and repentance, (b) outward duties as to the Word,
the sacraments and prayer. It has 107 questions and answers, while that
of the Anglican Church has but 24, grouping as it does the ten
commandments and also the petitions of the Lord's Prayer, instead of
dealing with them singly. Though the Shorter Catechism, closely
associated as this has been from the first with Scottish public
elementary education, has had very great influence in forming and
training the character of Presbyterians in Scotland, America and the
British colonies, it is, like most other catechisms drawn up by dogmatic
theologians, more admirable as an epitome of a particular body of
divinity than as an instruction for the young and the unlearned. Its use
is now generally preceded by something more adapted to the child-mind,
and this is true also in other communions and in the case of other
catechisms.

(b) _Roman Catholic_.--There was no universal catechism published by the
Latin Church before the council of Trent, but several provincial
councils, e.g. in Germany and Scotland (where Archbishop Hamilton's
catechism appeared in 1552 and was ordered to be read in church by the
parish priest), moved in self-defence along the lines already adopted by
the reformers. The council of Trent in 1563 resolved on an authoritative
work which was finally carried through by two small papal commissions,
and issued in 1566 by Pius V. (Eng. trans, by Donovan, Dublin, 1829).
Being uncatechetical in form and addressed to the clergy rather than to
the people, it missed its intention, and was superseded by others of
less exalted origin, especially by those of the Jesuit Peter Canisius,
whose _Summa Doctrinae et Institutionis Christianae_ (1554) and its
shorter form (1556) were already in the field. The catechisms of
Bellarmine (1603) and Bossuet (1687) had considerable vogue, and a
summary of the former known as _Schema de Parvo_ was sanctioned by the
Vatican council of 1870. But the Roman Catholic Church as a whole has
never had any one official catechism, each bishop being allowed to
settle the matter for his own diocese. In England the Roman Catholic
bishops have agreed on the use of what is known as "The Penny
Catechism," which is very lucid and well constructed.

(c) _Orthodox Eastern Church._--Peter Mogilas, metropolitan of Kiev,
drew up in 1643 the _Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic
Eastern Church_. This bulwark against the encroachments of the Jesuits
and the Reformed Church was standardized by the synod of Jerusalem in
1672. A smaller catechism was drawn up by order of Peter the Great in
1723. The catechisms of Levshin Platon (1762) and V.D. Philaret (1839),
each in his day metropolitan of Moscow, are bulky compilations which
cannot be memorized, though there is a short introductory catechism
prefaced to Philaret's volume (Eng. trans, in Blackmore's _Doctrine of
the Russian Church_, 1845). These works are not to any extent in the
hands of the people, but are used by the Russian clergy and
schoolmasters as guides in giving instruction. The Coptic and Armenian
churches also have what H. Bonar describes as "mere pretences at
catechisms."

(d) _Anglican._--The catechism of the Church of England is included in
the Book of Common Prayer between the Orders for Baptism and
Confirmation. It has two parts: (i.) the baptismal covenant, the Creed,
the Decalogue and the Lord's Prayer, drawn up probably by Cranmer[1] and
Ridley in the time of Edward VI., and variously modified between then
(1549) and 1661; (ii.) the meaning of the two sacraments, written on the
suggestion of James I. at the Hampton Court Conference in 1604 by John
Overall, then dean of St Paul's, and afterwards bishop successively of
Coventry and Lichfield and of Norwich. This supplement to what had
become known as the Shorter Catechism established its use as against the
longer one, _King Edward VIth's Catechisme_, which had been drawn up in
1553 by John Ponet or Poynet, bishop of Winchester, and then revised and
enlarged in 1570 by Alexander Nowell, Overall's predecessor as dean of
St Paul's. The Anglican catechism with occasional modification,
especially in the sacramental section, is used not only in the Church of
England but in the Episcopal churches of Ireland, Scotland, the British
dominions and the United States of America. By the rubric of the Prayer
Book and by the 59th canon of 1603 the clergy are enjoined to teach the
catechism in church on Sundays and holidays after the second lesson at
Evening Prayer. This custom, long fallen into disuse, has largely been
revived during recent years, the children going to church for a special
afternoon service of which catechizing is the chief feature. Compared
with the thoroughness of most other catechisms this one seems very
scanty, but it has a better chance of being memorized, and its very
simplicity has given it a firm hold on the inner life and conscience of
devout members of the Anglican communion throughout the world.

(e) _Other Communions._--Almost every section of the church, e.g. the
Wesleyan Methodist, has its catechism or catechisms, but in addition to
those already enumerated only a few need be mentioned. The Socinians
embodied their tenets in the larger and smaller works drawn up by Fausto
Sozzini and Schmalz, and published at Rakow in Poland in 1605;[2] modern
Unitarians have modern catechisms. The Quakers or Friends possess a kind
of catechism said to have been written by George Fox in 1660, in which
father and son are respectively questioner and answerer, and an
interesting work by Robert Barclay, in which texts of Scripture form the
replies. Congregationalists for some time used Isaac Watts's _Catechisms
for Children and Youth_ (1730), since superseded by the manuals of J.H.
Stowell, J.H. Riddette and others. In 1898 the National Council of the
Evangelical Free Churches in England and Wales published an
_Evangelical Free Church Catechism_, the work of a committee (convened
by Rev. Hugh Price Hughes) comprising Congregationalists, Baptists,
Methodists (Wesleyan, Primitive and others), and Presbyterians, and thus
representing directly or indirectly the beliefs of sixty or seventy
millions of avowed Christians in all parts of the world, a striking
example of inter-denominational unity. More remarkable still in some
respects is _The School Catechism_, issued in 1907 by a conference of
members of the Reformed churches in Scotland, which met on the
invitation of the Church of Scotland. In its compilation representatives
of the Episcopal Church in Scotland co-operated, and the book though
"not designed to supersede the distinctive catechisms officially
recognized by the several churches for the instruction of their own
children," certainly "commends itself as suitable for use in schools
where children of various churches are taught together."

Catechisms have a strong family likeness. In the main they are
expositions of the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Decalogue, and
thus follow a tradition that has come down from the days when Cyril of
Jerusalem delivered his catechetical Lectures. Even when (as in the
Shorter Westminster Catechism and the School Catechism) the Creed is
simply printed as an appendix, or where (as in the Free Church
Catechism) it is not mentioned at all, its substance is dealt with.
The order in which these three main themes are treated is by no means
constant. The Heidelberg and Westminster Catechisms are of a more
logical and independent character. The former is based on the Epistle
to the Romans, and deals with the religious life as (1) Repentance,
(2) Faith, (3) Love. Under these heads it discusses respectively the
sin and misery of men, the redemption wrought by Christ (here are
included the Creed and the Sacraments), and the grateful service of
the new life (the Decalogue).

It may be noted that Sir Oliver Lodge has adopted the catechetical
form in his book, _The Substance of Faith Allied with Science_ (1907),
which is described as "a catechism for parents and teachers."

See Ehrenfeuchter, _Geschichte des Katechismus_ (1857); P. Schaff,
_History of the Creeds of Christendom_ (3 vols., 1876-1877); Mitchell,
_Catechisms of the Second Reformation_ (1887); C. Achelis, _Lehrbuch
der prakt. Theologie_ (2 vols., 1898); L. Pullan, _History of the Book
of Common Prayer_, pp. 207-208; E.A. Knox, _Pastors and Teachers_
(1902), chs. iii. and iv.; W. Beveridge, _A Short History of the
Westminster Assembly_ (1904), ch. x. (A. J. G.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cranmer bad published a separate and larger catechism on the
basis of the work of Justus Jonas in 1548; note also _Allen's
Catechisme, A Christen Instruccion of the Principall Pointes of
Christes Religion_ (1551).

[2] A Latin edition in 1609 was dedicated to James I. of England. The
British Houses of Parliament passed a resolution ordering all copies
of it to be publicly burned, and again in 1652 when another edition
appeared. An English translation, probably by John Bidle, was printed
in Amsterdam and widely circulated.

CATECHU, or CUTCH (Malay, _kachu_), an extract obtained from several
plants, its chief sources being the wood of two species of acacia (_A.
catechu_ and _A. suma_), both natives of India. This extract is known as
black catechu. A similar extract, known in pharmacy as pale catechu
(_Catechu pallidum_), and in general commerce as gambir, or _terra
japonica_, is produced from the leaves of _Uncaria gambir_ and _U.
acida_, cinchonaceous plants growing in the East Indian Archipelago. A
third product to which the name catechu is also applied, is obtained
from the fruits of the areca or betel palm, _Areca catechu_.

Ordinary black catechu is usually imported in three different forms. The
first and best quality, known as Pegu catechu, is obtained in blocks
externally covered with large leaves; the second and less pure variety
is in masses, which have been moulded in sand; and the third consists of
large cubes packed in coarse bags. The wood of the two species of
_Acacia_ yielding catechu is taken for the manufacture when the trees
have attained a diameter of about 1 ft. The bark is stripped off and
used for tanning, and the trunk is split up into small fragments, which
are covered with water and boiled. When the extract has become
sufficiently thick it is cast into the forms in which the catechu is
found in commerce. Catechu so prepared is a dark brown, or, in mass,
almost black, substance, brittle, and having generally a shining lustre.
It is astringent, with a sweetish taste. In cold water it disintegrates,
and in boiling water, alcohol, acetic acid and strong caustic alkali it
is completely dissolved. Chemically it consists of a mixture of a
peculiar variety of tannin termed catechu-tannic acid with catechin or
catechuic acid, and a brown substance due to the alteration of both
these principles. Catechu-tannic acid is an amorphous body soluble in
cold water, while catechin occurs in minute, white, silky, needle-shaped
crystals, which do not dissolve in cold water. A very minute proportion
of quercetin, a principle yielded by quercitron bark, has been obtained
from catechu.

Gambir, which is similar in chemical composition to ordinary catechu,
occurs in commerce in the form of cubes of about an inch in size, with a
pale brown or yellow colour, and an even earthy fracture. For the
preparation of this extract the plants above mentioned are stripped of
their leaves and young twigs, and these are boiled down in shallow pans.
The juice is strained off, evaporated, and when sufficiently
concentrated is cast into shallow boxes, where, as it hardens and dries,
it is cut into small cubes.

Gambir and catechu are extensively employed in dyeing and tanning. For
dyeing they have been in use in India from the most remote period, but
it was only during the 19th century that they were placed on the list of
European dyeing substances. Catechu is fixed by oxidation of the
colouring principle, catechin, on the cloth after dyeing or printing;
and treated thus it yields a variety of durable tints of drabs, browns
and olives with different mordants (see DYEING). The principal
consumption of catechu occurs in the preparation of fibrous substances
exposed to water, such as fishing-lines and nets, and for colouring
stout canvas used for covering boxes and portmanteaus under the name of
tanned canvas. Black catechu is official in most pharmacopoeias except
that of Great Britain, in which pale catechu is the official drug. The
actions and uses of the two are similar, but black catechu is the more
powerful. The dose is from five to twenty grains. The _pulvis catechu
compositus_ contains catechu and kino, and may be given in doses twice
as large as those named. The drug has the actions and uses of tannic
acid, but owing to the relative insolubility of catechu-tannic acid, it
is more valuable than ordinary tannic acid in diarrhoea, dysentery and
intestinal haemorrhage.

CATECHUMEN (Lat. _catechumenus_, Gr. [Greek: katechoumenos], instructed,
from [Greek: katechein], to teach orally), an ecclesiastical term
applied to those receiving instruction in the principles of the
Christian religion with a view to baptism. As soon as Christianity
became a missionary religion, it was found necessary to make
arrangements for giving instruction to new converts. At the beginning
the Apostles themselves seem to have undertaken this duty, and the
instruction was apparently given after baptism, for in Acts ii. 41, 42,
we are told that "they that gladly received the word were baptized ...
and they continued stedfastly in the Apostles' teaching." There are two
instances in the New Testament where reference is made to individual
instruction in this technical sense. Luke (i. 4) in dedicating the third
Gospel to Theophilus tells him that his aim in writing the book was
"that thou mightest have certainty in the things in which thou has been
instructed" ([Greek: katechethes]) and we are told that Apollos was
instructed ([Greek: katechemenos]) "in the way of the Lord" (Acts xviii.
25).

With the development of Christianity the instruction became more
definite and formal. It is probable that the duty of instructing
converts was assigned to "the teachers," who are ranked by Paul
immediately after the Apostles and prophets (1 Cor. xii. 28), and
occupied an important position in the Christian ministry. In the
_Didache_, or Teaching of the Apostles, we have an excellent
illustration of the teaching which was given to candidates for baptism
in early times. There can be little doubt that the _Didache_ was used as
a manual for catechumens for several centuries. Athanasius (_Festal
Epistles_, 39), for instance, says that "it was appointed by the Fathers
to be read by those who are just recently coming to us, and wish to be
instructed in the word of godliness" ([Greek: katecheisthai ton tes
eusebeias logon]). The instruction prescribed by the _Didache_ is very
largely ethical, and stands in striking contrast to the more elaborate
doctrinal teaching which came into vogue in later days. The _Shepherd of
Hermas_ too is another book which seems to have been used for the
purpose of catechesis, for Eusebius says that it "was deemed most
necessary for those who have need of elementary instruction" (_Eccles.
Hist._ iii. 3-6).

With the rise of theological controversy and the growth of heresy
catechetical instruction became of vital importance to the Church, and
much greater importance was attached to it. After the middle of the 4th
century it was regarded as essential that the candidate for baptism
should not only be acquainted with the spiritual truths and ethical
demands which form the basis of practical Christianity, but should also
be trained in theology and the interpretation of the creeds. Two books
have been preserved which throw a striking light upon the transformation
which had taken place in the conception of catechesis; (1) the
Catechetical Lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem; (2) the _De rudibus
Catechizandis_ of Augustine. Cyril's Lectures may be termed the _Pearson
on the Creed_ of the 4th century. He takes each article separately,
discusses it clause by clause, explains the meaning of each word, and
justifies each statement from Scripture. Augustine's treatise was
written at the request of a catechist, named Deogratias, who had asked
him for advice. After replying to the question of Deogratias, and giving
sundry counsels as to the best method of interesting catechumens,
Augustine concludes by giving a model catechetical lecture, in which he
covers the whole of biblical history, beginning from the opening
chapters of Genesis, and laying particular stress on the doctrinal parts
of Scripture. Cyril and Augustine differ, as we should expect, in the
doctrines which they select for emphasis, but they both agree in
requiring a knowledge of sound doctrine on the part of the candidates.

In spite of the numerous references to catechumens in Patristic
literature, our knowledge of the details of the system is often very
deficient, and upon some points there is considerable diversity of
opinion amongst experts. The following are the most important questions
which come under consideration.

1. _The Classification of Catechumens_.--Bingham and many of the older
writers held that there were four classes of catechumens, representing
different stages in the process of instruction: (a) "The inquirers"
whose interest in Christianity had been sufficiently aroused to make
them desire further information, and who received private and
individual instruction from the teachers before they were admitted
into the second class, (b) "The hearers" (_audientes_), who were
admitted into the Church for the purpose of listening to sermons and
exhortations, (c) The _prostrati_ or _genu flectentes_, who were
allowed also to take part in the prayers, (d) The _electi_ or
_competentes_, who had completed the period of probation and were
deemed ready to receive baptism. Modern scholars, however, for the
most part, deny that there is sufficient basis to justify this
elaborate classification, and think that its advocates have confused
the catechumenate with the system of penance. The evidence does not
seem to warrant more than two classes, (a) the _audientes_, who were
in the initial stages of their training, (b) the _competentes_, who
were qualified for baptism.

2. _The Relation of Catechumens to the Church_.--Catechumens were
allowed of course to attend church services, but at a certain point
were dismissed with the words "Ite catechumeni, missa est." The moment
at which the dismissal took place cannot be exactly determined, and it
is not clear whether the catechumens were allowed to remain for a
portion of the Communion service, and if so, whether as spectators or
as partial participants. A passage in Augustine seems to imply that in
some way they shared in the Sacrament, "that which they (the
catechumens) receive, though it be not the Body of Christ, is yet an
holy thing and more holy than the common food which sustains us,
because it is a Sacrament" (_De peccatorum meritis_, ii. 42). The
explanation of these words has occasioned considerable controversy.
Many scholars hold (and this certainly seems the most natural
interpretation) that consecrated bread was taken from the Eucharist
and given to the catechumens. Bingham, however, maintains that the
reference is not to the consecrated bread, but to salt, which was
given to them as a symbol "that they might learn to purge and cleanse
their souls from sin."

3. _The Duration of the Training_.--Various statements with regard to
the duration of the catechumenical training are found in
ecclesiastical authorities. The Apostolical Constitutions, for
instance, fix it at three years;[1] the synod of Elvira at two.[2] The
references in the Fathers, however, imply that for practical purposes
it was limited to the forty days of Lent. Very probably, however, the
forty days of actual instruction were preceded by a period of
probation.

4. _The Relation between the Catechumenate and Baptism_.--Catechetical
instruction was designed as a preliminary to baptism. There were two
directions, however, in which this purpose was enlarged: (a) We have
no reason to suppose that when infant baptism was introduced, those
who had been baptized in infancy were excluded from the catechetical
training, or that instruction was deemed unnecessary in their case,
though as a matter of fact we have no definite reference to their
admission. The custom of postponing baptism, which was very general in
the 4th and 5th centuries, probably made such cases more rare than is
generally supposed, and so accounts for the absence of any allusion to
them in connexion with the catechumenate. (b) We have no reason to
suppose that the instruction given in the famous catechetical schools
of Alexandria and Carthage was restricted to candidates for baptism.
There is no doubt that "catechetical" is used in a much wider sense
when applied to the lectures of Origen than when used of the addresses
of Cyril of Jerusalem. The "instruction" of Origen was given to all
classes of Christians, and not merely to those who were in the initial
stages.

5. _Characteristics of the Catechumenical Training_.--Besides
instruction there were some other important features connected with
the catechumenate. (a) The duty of _confession_ was impressed on the
candidates. (b) The ceremony of _exorcism_ was often performed in
order to free the catechumen from evil spirits. (c) At a certain point
in the training the creed and the doctrine of the Sacraments were
delivered to the candidates by the bishop with much impressive
ceremonial. This teaching constituted the "holy secret" or "mystery"
(_disciplina arcani_) of Christianity, and could only be imparted to
those who were qualified to receive it. The acquisition of this
arcanum was regarded as the most essential element in the catechetical
discipline, and marked off its possessors from the rest of the world.
There can be little doubt that this conception of the "Holy Secret"
came into the Church originally from the Greek mysteries, and that
much of the ceremonial connected with the catechumenate and baptism
was derived from the same source.

AUTHORITIES.--Cyril, _Catecheses_; Gregory of Nyssa, _Oratio
Catechetica_; Chrysostom, _Catecheses ad illuminandos_; Augustine, _De
rudibus Catechizandis_; Mayer, _Geschichte des Katechumenats ... in
den ersten sechs Jahrhunderten_ (1868); S. Cheetham, _The Mysteries,
Pagan and Christian_. (H. T. A.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Apost. Constit._ viii. 2.

[2] Canon 42.

CATEGORY (Gr.: [Greek: kategoria], "accusation"), a term used both in
ordinary language and in philosophy with the general significance of
"class" or "group." In popular language it is used for any large group
of similar things, and still more generally as a mere synonym for the
word "class." The word was introduced into philosophy as a technical
term by Aristotle, who, however, several times used it in its original
sense of "accusation." He also used the verb [Greek: kategorein], to
accuse, in the specific logical sense, to predicate; [Greek: tho
kategoroumenon] becomes the predicate; and [Greek: kategorikhe protasis]
may be translated as affirmative proposition. But though the word thus
received a new signification from Aristotle, it is not on that account
certain that the thing it was taken to signify was equally a novelty in
philosophy. In fact we find in the records of Oriental and early Greek
thought something corresponding to the Aristotelian classification.

Hindu philosophy.

Our knowledge of Hindu philosophy, and of the relations in which it
may have stood to Greek speculation, scarcely enables us to give
decisive answers to various questions that naturally arise on
observation of their many resemblances (see an article by Richard
Garbe in _Monist_, iv. 176-193). Yet the similarity between the two is
so striking that, if not historically connected, they must at least be
regarded as expressions of similar philosophic needs. The Hindu
classification to which we specially refer is that of Kanada, who lays
down six categories, or classes of existence, a seventh being
generally added by the commentators. The term employed is _Padartha_,
meaning "signification of a word." This is in entire harmony with the
Aristotelian doctrine, the categories of which may with truth be
described as significations of simple terms, [Greek: tha katha
medemian sueplokhen legomena]. The six categories of Kanada are
Substance, Quality, Action, Genus, Individuality, and Concretion or
Co-inherence. To these is added Non-Existence, Privation or Negation.
_Substance_ is the permanent substance in which _Qualities_ exist.
_Action_, belonging to or inhering in substances, is that which
produces change, _Genus_ belongs to substance, qualities and actions;
there are higher and lower genera. _Individuality_, found only in
substance, is that by which a thing is self-existent and marked off
from others. _Concretion_ or Co-inherence denotes inseparable or
necessary connection, such as that between substance and quality.
Under these six classes, [Greek: gene tou hontos], Kanada then
proceeds to range the facts of the universe.[1]

Greek philosophy

Within Greek philosophy itself there were foreshadowings of the
Aristotelian doctrine, but nothing so important as to warrant the
conclusion that Aristotle was directly influenced by it. Doubtless the
One and Many, Being and Non-Being, of the Eleatic dialectic, with
their subordinate oppositions, may be called categories, but they are
not so in the Aristotelian sense, and have little or nothing in common
with the later system. Their starting-point and results are wholly
diverse. Nor does it appear necessary to do more than mention the
Pythagorean table of principles, the number of which is supposed to
have given rise to the decuple arrangement adopted by Aristotle. The
two classifications have nothing in common; no term in the one list
appears in the other; and there is absolutely nothing in the
Pythagorean principles which could have led to the theory of the
categories.[2]

Plato.

One naturally turns to Plato when endeavouring to discover the genesis
of any Aristotelian doctrine, and undoubtedly there are in the
Platonic writings many detached discussions in which the matter of the
categories is touched upon. Special terms also are anticipated at
various times, e.g. [Greek: poiotes] in the _Theaetetus_, [Greek:
poiein] and [Greek: paschein] in the _Gorgias_, and [Greek: pros ti]
in the _Sophist._[3] But there does not seem to be anything in Plato
which one could say gave occasion directly and of itself to the
Aristotelian doctrine; and even when we take a more comprehensive view
of the Platonic system and inquire what in it corresponds to the
widest definition of categories, say as ultimate elements of thought
and existence, we receive no very definite answer. The Platonic
dialectic never worked out into system, and only in two dialogues do
we get anything like a list of ultimate or root-notions. In the
_Sophist_, Being, Rest and Motion ([Greek: tho on autho kahi stasis
kahi kinesis]) are laid down as [Greek: megista ton genon].[4] To
these are presently added the Same and the Other ([Greek: tauthon kai
thateron]), and out of the consideration of all five some light is
cast upon the obscure notion of Non-Being [Greek: (to mhe on)]. In the
same dialogue (262 seq.) is found the important distinction of [Greek:
onoma] and [Greek: rhema], noun and verb. The _Philebus_ presents us
with a totally distinct classification into four elements--the
Infinite, the Finite, the Mixture or Unity of both and the Cause of
this unity ([Greek: tho apeiron, tho peras, he summixis, he aitia]).
It is at once apparent that, however these classifications are related
to one another and to the Platonic system, they lie in a different
field from that occupied by the Aristotelian categories, and can
hardly be said to have anything in common with them.

Aristotle.

The Aristotelian doctrine is most distinctly formulated in the short
treatise [Greek: Kategoriai], which generally occupies the first place
among the books of the _Organon_. The authenticity of the treatise was
doubted in early times by some of the commentators, and the doubts
have been revived by such scholars as L. Spengel and Carl Prantl. On
the other hand, C.A. Brandis, H. Bonitz, and Ed. Zeller are of opinion
that the tract is substantially Aristotle's. The matter is hardly one
that can be decided either _pro_ or _con_ with anything like
certainty; but this is of little moment, for the doctrine of the
categories, even of the _ten_ categories, does not stand or fall with
only one portion of Aristotle's works.

It is surprising that there should yet be so much uncertainty as to
the real significance of the categories, and that we should be in
nearly complete ignorance as to the process of thought by which,
Aristotle was led to the doctrine. On both points It is difficult to
extract from the matter before us anything approaching a satisfactory
solution. The terms employed to denote the categories have been
scrutinized with the utmost care, but they give little help. The most
important--[Greek: k. tou ontos] or [Greek: tes ousias, gene tou
ontos] or [Greek: ton onton, gene] simply, [Greek: tha prota] or
[Greek: tha koina prota, ai ptoseis], or [Greek: ai diaireseis]--only
indicate that the categories are general classes into which Being as
such may be divided, that they are _summa genera_. The expressions
[Greek: gene ton kategorion] and [Greek: schemata ton k.], which are
used frequently, seem to lead to another and somewhat different view.
[Greek: kategoria] being taken to mean that which is predicated,
[Greek: gene ton k.] would signify the most general classes of
predicates, the framework into the divisions of which all predicates
must come. To this interpretation there are objections. The categories
must be carefully distinguished from predicables; in the scholastic
phraseology the former refer to _first intentions_, the latter to
_second intentions_, i.e. the one denote real, the other logical
connexion. Further, the categories cannot without careful explanation
be defined as predicates; they are this and something more. The most
important category, [Greek: ousia], in one of its aspects cannot be
predicate at all.

In the [Greek: Kategoriai] Aristotle prefixes to his enumeration a
grammatico-logical disquisition on homonyms and synonyms, and on the
elements of the proposition, i.e. subject and predicate. He draws
attention to the fact that things are spoken of either in the
connexion known as the proposition, e.g. "a man runs," or apart from
such connexion, e.g. "man" and "runs." He then proceeds, "Of things
spoken of apart from their connexion in a proposition ([Greek: ton
katha medemian sumplokhen legomenon]), each signifies either Substance
([Greek: ousia]), or Quantity ([Greek: poson]), or Quality ([Greek:
poion]), or Relation ([Greek: pros ti],) or Where (i.e. Place, [Greek:
pou]), or When (i.e. Time, [Greek: pote]), or Position ([Greek:
keisthai]), or Possession ([Greek: echein]), or Action ([Greek:
poiein]), or Passion ([Greek: paschein]). [Greek: ousia], the first
category, is subdivided into [Greek: prote ousia] or primary
substance, which is defined to be [Greek: tode ti], the singular thing
in which properties inhere, and to which predicates are attached, and
[Greek: deuterai] [Greek: onsiai], genera or species which can be
predicated of primary substances, and are therefore [Greek: onsia].
only in a secondary sense. Nevertheless, they too, after a certain
fashion, signify the singular thing, [Greek: tode ti]" (K. p. 3 b 12,
13). It is this doctrine of [Greek: prote onsia] that has raised
doubts with regard to the authenticity of the [Greek: Kategoriai] But
the tenfold classification, which has also been captiously objected
to, is given in an acknowledged writing of Aristotle's (see Topica, i.
9, p. 103 b 20).[5] At the same time it is at least remarkable that in
two places where the enumeration seems intended to be complete (_Met._
p. 1017 a 25; _An. Pos._ i. 22, p. 83 a 21), only eight are mentioned,
[Greek: exein] and [Greek: keisthai] being omitted. In other
passages[6] six, five, four, and three are given, frequently with some
addition, such as [Greek: kai ai allai k]. It is also to be observed
that, despite of this wavering, distinct intimations are given by
Aristotle that he regarded his list as complete, and he uses phrases
which would seem to indicate that the division had been exhaustively
carried out. He admits certainly that some predicates which come under
one category might be referred to another, but he declines to deduce
all from one highest class, or to recognize any relation of
subordination among the several classes.

The full import of the categories will never be adequately reached
from the point of view taken up in the [Greek: Kategoriai], which
bears all the marks of an early and preliminary study. For true
understanding we must turn to the _Metaphysics_, where the doctrine is
handled at large. The discussion of Being in that work starts with a
distinction that at once gives us a clue. [Greek: tho on] is spoken of
in many ways; of these four are classified--[Greek: tho on katha
sumbebekos, tho om hos alethes, tho on dunamei kai energeia], and
[Greek: tho on kata ta schemata ton kategorion]. It is evident from
this that the categories can be regarded neither as purely logical nor
as purely metaphysical elements. They indicate the general forms or
ways in which Being can be predicated; they are determinations of
Being regarded as an object of thought, and consequently as matter of
speech. It becomes apparent also why the analysis of the categories
starts from the singular thing, for it is the primary form under which
all that is becomes object of knowledge, and the other categories
modify or qualify this real individual. [Greek: Panta de ta gignomena
hupo te tinos gignetai kai ek tinos kai ti. To de ti lego kath
hekasten kategorian e gar tode e poson e poion e pon]. (_Met._ p. 1032
a 13-15) ... The categories, therefore, are not logical forms, but
real predicates; they are the general modes in which Being may be
expressed. The definite thing, that which comes forward in the process
from potentiality to full actuality, can only appear and be spoken of
under forms of individuality, quality, quantity and so on. The nine
later categories all denote entity in a certain imperfect fashion.

The categories then are not to be regarded as heads of predicates, the
framework into which predicates can be thrown. They are real
determinations of Being--_allgemeine Bestimmtheiten_, as Hegel calls
them. They are not _summa genera_ of existences, still less are they
to be explained as a classification of namable things in general. The
objections Mill has taken to the list are entirely irrelevant, and
would only have significance if the categories were really--what they
are not--an exhaustive division of concrete existences. Grote's view
(_Aristotle_, i. 108) that Aristotle drew up his list by examining
Various popular propositions, and throwing the different predicates
into genera, "according as they stood in different logical relation to
the subject," has no foundation. The relation of the predicate
category to the subject is not entirely a logical one; it is a
relation of real existence, and wants the essential marks of the
prepositional form. The logical relations of [Greek: to on] are
provided for otherwise than by the categories.

Aristotle has given no intimation of the course of thought by which he
was led to his tenfold arrangement, and it seems hopeless to discover
it. Trendelenburg in various essays has worked out the idea that the
root of the matter is to be found in grammatical considerations, that
the categories originated from investigations into grammatical
functions, and that a correspondence will be found to obtain between
categories and parts of speech. Thus, Substance corresponds to noun
substantive, Quantity and Quality to the adjective, Relation partly to
the comparative degree and perhaps to the preposition, When and Where
to the adverbs of time and place. Action to the active, Passion to the
passive of the verb, Position [Greek: keisthai] to the intransitive
verb, [Greek: echein] to the peculiar Greek perfect. That there should
be a very close correspondence between the categories and grammatical
elements is by no means surprising; that the one were deduced from the
other is both philosophically and historically improbable. Reference
to the detailed criticisms of Trendelenburg by Ritter, Bonitz, and
Zeller will be sufficient.

Aristotle has also left us in doubt on another point. Why should there
be only _ten_ categories? and why should these be the ten? Kant and
Hegel, it is well known, signalize as the great defect in the
Aristotelian categories the want of a principle, and yet some of
Aristotle's expressions would warrant the inference that he _had_ a
principle, and that he thought his arrangement exhaustive. The leading
idea of all later attempts at reduction to unity of principle, the
division into substance and accident, was undoubtedly not overlooked
by Aristotle, and Fr. Brentano[7] has collected with great diligence
passages which indicate how the complete list might have been deduced
from this primary distinction. His tabular arrangements (pp. 175, 177)
are particularly deserving of attention. The results, however, are
hardly beyond the reach of doubt.

Later Greek.

There was no fundamental change in the doctrine of the categories from
the time of Aristotle to that of Kant, and only two proposed
reclassifications are of such importance as to require notice. The
Stoics adopted a fivefold arrangement of highest classes, [Greek:
genikotata]. [Greek: to on] or [Greek: ti], Being, or somewhat in
general, was subdivided into [Greek: hypokeimena] or subjects, [Greek:
poia] or qualities in general, which give definiteness to the blank
subject, [Greek: pos echonta], modes which further determine the
subject, and [Greek: pros ti pos echonta], definite relative modes.
These categories are so related that each involves the existence of
one higher than itself, thus there cannot be a [Greek: pros ti pos
echon] which does not rest upon or imply a [Greek: pos echon], but
[Greek: pos echon] is impossible without [Greek: poion], which only
exists in [Greek: hypokeimenon], a form or phase of [Greek: to
hon].[8]

Plotinus, after a lengthy critique of Aristotle's categories, sets out
a twofold list. [Greek: to en, kinesis, stasis, tautotes, heterotes]
are the primitive categories ([Greek: prota gene]) of the intelligible
sphere. [Greek: ousia, pros ti, poia, poson, kinesis] are the
categories of the sensible world. The return to the Platonic
classification will not escape notice.

Modern philosophy.

Modern philosophy, neglecting altogether the dry and tasteless
treatment of the Aristotelian doctrine by scholastic writers, gave a
new, a wider and deeper meaning to the categories. They now appear as
ultimate or root notions, the metaphysical or thought elements, which
give coherence and consistency to the material of knowledge, the
necessary and universal relations which obtain among the particulars
of experience. There was thus to some extent a return to Platonism,
but in reality, as might easily be shown, the new interpretation was,
with due allowance for difference in point of view, in strict harmony
with the true doctrine of Aristotle. The modern theory dates in
particular from the time of Kant, who may be said to have reintroduced
the term into philosophy. Naturally there are some anticipations in
earlier thinkers. The Substance, Attribute and Mode of Cartesianism
can hardly be classed among the categories; nor does Leibnitz's chance
suggestion of a fivefold arrangement into Substance, Quantity,
Quality, Action and Passion, and Relations, demand any particular
notice. Locke, too, has a classification into Substances, Modes and
Relations, but in it he has manifestly no intention of drawing up a
table of categories. What in his system corresponds most nearly to the
modern view of these elements is the division of kinds of real
predication. In all judgments of knowledge we predicate either (1)
Identity or Diversity, (2) Relation, (3) Co-existence, or necessary
connexion, or (4) Real existence. From this the transition was easy to
Hume's important classification of _philosophical relations_ into
those of Resemblance, Identity, Time and Place, Quantity or Number,
Quality, Contrariety, Cause and Effect.

These attempts at an exhaustive distribution of the necessary
relations of all objects of knowledge indicate the direction taken by
modern thought, before it received its complete expression from Kant.

Kant.

The doctrine of the categories is the very kernel of the Kantian
system, and, through it, of later German philosophy. To explain it
fully would be to write the history of that philosophy. The categories
are called by Kant Root-notions of the Understanding (_Stammbegriffe
des Verstandes_), and are briefly the specific forms of the a priori
or formal element in rational cognition. It is this distinction of
matter and form in knowledge that marks off the Kantian from the
Aristotelian doctrine. To Kant knowledge was only possible as the
synthesis of the material or a posteriori with the formal or a priori.
The material to which a priori forms of the understanding were applied
was the sensuous content of the pure intuitions, Time and Space. This
content could not be _known_ by sense, but only by intellectual
function. But the understanding in the process of knowledge makes use
of the universal form of synthesis, the judgment; intellectual
function is essentially of the nature of judgment or the reduction of
a manifold to unity through a conception. The specific or type forms
of such function will, therefore, be expressed in judgments; and a
complete classification of the forms of judgments is the key by which
one may hope to discover the system of categories. Such a list of
judgments Kant thought he found in ordinary logic, and from it he drew
up his well-known scheme of the twelve categories. These forms are the
determinations of all objects of experience, for it is only through
them that the manifold of sense can be reduced to the unity of
consciousness, and thereby constituted experience. They are a priori
conditions, subjective in one sense, but objective as being universal,
necessary and constitutive of experience.

The table of logical judgments with corresponding categories is as
follows:--

Judgments. Categories.
Universal \ I. / Unity.
Particular > Of Quantity < Plurality.
Singular / \ Totality.

Affirmative \ II. / Reality.
Negative > Of Quality < Negation.
Infinite / \ Limitation.

Categorical \ / Inherence and Subsistence
| III. | (Substance and Accident).
Hypothetical > Of Relation < Causality and Dependence
| | (Cause and Effect).
Disjunctive / \ Community (Reciprocity).

Problematical \ IV. / Possibility and Impossibility.
Assertoric > Of Modality < Existence and Non-Existence.
Apodictic / \ Necessity and Contingency.

Fichte.

Kant, it is well known, criticizes Aristotle severely for having drawn
up his categories without a principle, and claims to have disclosed
the only possible method by which an exhaustive classification might
be obtained. What he criticized in Aristotle is brought against his
own procedure by the later German thinkers, particularly Fichte and
Hegel. And in point of fact it cannot be denied that Kant has allowed
too much completeness to the ordinary logical distribution of
propositions; he has given no proof that in these forms are contained
all species of synthesis, and in consequence he has failed to show
that in the categories, or pure conceptions, are contained all the
modes of a priori synthesis. Further, his principle has so far the
unity he claimed for it, the unity of a single function, but the
specific forms in which such unity manifests itself are not themselves
accounted for by this principle. Kant himself hints more than once at
the possibility of a completely rational system of the categories, at
an evolution from one single movement of thought, and in his _Remarks
on the Table of the Categories_ gave a pregnant hint as to the method
to be employed. From any complete realization of this suggestion Kant,
however, was precluded by one portion of his theory. The categories,
although the necessary conditions under which alone an object of
experience can be thrown, are merely forms of the mind's own activity;
they apply only to sensuous and consequently subjective material.
Outside of and beyond them lies the thing-in-itself, which to Kant
represented the ultimately real. This subjectivism was a distinct
hiatus in the Kantian system, and against it principally Fichte and
Hegel directed criticism. It was manifest that at the root of the
whole system of categories there lay the synthetizing unity of
self-consciousness, and it was upon this unity that Fichte fixed as
giving the possibility of a more complete and rigorous deduction of
the pure notions of the understanding. Without the act of the Ego,
whereby it is self-conscious, there could be no knowledge, and this
primitive act or function must be, he saw, the _position_ or
affirmation of itself by the Ego. The first principle then must be
that the Ego posits itself as the Ego, that Ego = Ego, a principle
which is unconditioned both in form and matter, and therefore capable
of standing absolutely first, of being the _prius_ in a system.
Metaphysically regarded this act of self-position yields the
categories of Reality. But, so far as matter is concerned, there
cannot be affirmation without negation, _omnis determinatio est
negatio_. The determination of the Ego presupposes or involves the
Non-Ego. The form of the proposition in which this second act takes to
itself expression, the Ego is not = Not-Ego, is unconditioned, not
derivable from the first. It is the absolute antithesis to the
primitive thesis. The category of Negation is the result of this
second act. From these two propositions, involving absolutely opposed
and mutually destructive elements, there results a third which
reconciles both in a higher synthesis. The notion in this third is
determination or limitation; the Ego and Non-Ego limit, and are
opposed to one another. From these three positions Fichte proceeds to
evolve the categories by a series of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

In thus seizing upon the unity of self-consciousness as the origin for
systematic development, Fichte has clearly taken a step in advance of,
and yet in strict harmony with, the Kantian doctrine. For, after all
that can be said as to the demonstrated character of formal logic,
Kant's procedure was empirical, and only after the list of categories
had been drawn out, did he bring forward into prominence what gave
them coherence and reality. The peculiar method of Fichte, also, was
nothing but a consistent application of Kant's own Remark on the Table
of the Categories. Fichte's doctrine, however, is open to some of the
objections advanced against Kant. His method is too abstract and
external, and wants the unity of a single principle. The first two of
his fundamental propositions stand isolated from one another, not to
be resolved into a primitive unity. With him, too, the whole stands
yet on the plane of subjectivity. He speaks, indeed, of the universal
Ego as distinct from the empirical self-consciousness; but the
universal does not rise with him to concrete spirit. Nevertheless the
_Wissenschaftslehre_ contains the only real advance in the treatment
of the categories from the time of Kant to that of Hegel.[9] This, of
course, does not imply that there were not certain elements in
Schelling, particularly in the _Transcendental Idealism_, that are of
value in the transition to the later system; but on the whole it is
only in Hegel that the whole matter of the Kantian categories has been
assimilated and carried to a higher stage. The Hegelian philosophy, in
brief, is a system of the categories; and, as it is not intended here
to expound that philosophy, it is impossible to give more than a few
general and quite external observations as to the Hegelian mode of
viewing these elements of thought. With Kant, as has been seen, the
categories were still subjective, not as being forms of the individual
subject, but as having over against them the world of _noumena_ to
which they were inapplicable. Self-consciousness, which was, even with
Kant, the _nodus_ or kernel whence the categories sprang, was nothing
but a logical centre,--the reality was concealed. There was thus a
dualism, to overcome which is the first step in the Hegelian system.
The principle, if there is to be one, must be universally applicable,
all-comprehensive. Self-consciousness is precisely the principle
wanted; it is a unity, an identity, containing in itself a
multiplicity. The universal in absolute self-consciousness is just
pure thinking, which in systematic evolution is the categories; the
particular is the natural or multiform, the external as such; the
concrete of both is spirit, or self-consciousness come to itself. The
same law that obtains among the categories is found adequate to an
explanation of the external thing which had so sadly troubled Kant.
The categories themselves are moments of the universal of thought,
type forms, or definite aspects which thought assumes; determinations,
_Bestimmungen_, as Hegel most frequently calls them. They evolve by
the same law that was found to be the essence of ultimate
reality--i.e. of self-consciousness. The complete system is pure
thought, the Universal _par excellence_.

After the Hegelian there can hardly be said to have been a
philosophical treatment of the categories in Germany which is not more
or less a criticism of that system. It does not seem necessary to
mention the unimportant modifications introduced by Kuno Fischer, J.E.
Erdmann, or others belonging to the school. In the strongly-opposed
philosophy of J.F. Herbart the categories can hardly be said to hold a
prominent place. They are, with him, the most general notions which
are psychologically formed, and he classifies them as follows:--(1)
Thing, either as product of thought or as given in experience; (2)
Property, either qualitative or quantitative; (3) Relation; (4) The
Negated. Along with these he posits as categories of inner
process--(1) Sensation, (2) Cognition, (3) Will, (4) Action. Joh. Fr.
L. George (1811-1873),[10] who in the main follows Schleiermacher,
draws out a table of categories which shows, in some points, traces of
Herbartian influence. His arrangement by enneads, or series of nine,
is fanciful, and wanting in inner principle.

Trendelenburg.

The most imposing of more recent attempts at a reconstruction of the
categories is that of F.A. Trendelenburg. To him the first principle,
or primitive reality, is Motion, which is both real as external
movement, and ideal as inner construction. The necessary conditions of
Motion are Time and Space, which are both subjective and objective.
From this point onwards are developed the mathematical (point, line,
&c.) and real (causality, substance, quantity, quality, &c.)
categories which appear as involved in the notion of motion. Matter
cannot be regarded as a product of motion; it is the condition of
motion, we must think something moved. All these categories, "under
the presupposition of motion as the first energy of thought, are ideal
and subjective relations; as also, under the presupposition of motion
as the first energy of Being, real and objective relations."[11] A
serious difficulty presents itself in the next category, that of End
(_Zweck_), which can easily be thought for inner activity, but can
hardly be reconciled with real motion. Trendelenburg solves the
difficulty only empirically, by pointing to the insufficiency of the
merely mechanical to account for the organic. The consideration of
Modality effects the transition to the forms of logical thought. On
the whole, Trendelenburg's unique fact of motion seems rather a
blunder. There is much more involved than he is willing to allow, and
motion _per se_ is by no means adequate to self-consciousness. His
theory has found little favour.

Ulrici.

Hermann Ulrici works out a system of the categories from a
psychological or logical point of view. To him the fundamental fact of
philosophy is the distinguishing activity (_unterscheidende
Tatigkei

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