chapter 16._
OPPIDUM.
Among the Gauls and the Britons a town, or a fortified place, was called an oppidum. As Cæsar explained the term, speaking of the oppidum of Cassivellaunus, in Britain, it signified a "stockade or enclosed space in the midst of a forest, where they took refuge with their flocks and herds in case of an invasion."
_E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, chapter 19, note E (volume 2)._
ALSO IN: _Cæsar, Gallic War, book 5, chapter 21._
OPTIMATES.
"New names came into fashion [in Rome], but it is difficult to say when they were first used. We may probably refer the origin of them to the time of the Gracchi [B. C. 133-121]. One party was designated by the name of Optimates, 'the class of the best.' The name shows that it must have been invented by the 'best,' for the people would certainly not have given it to them. We may easily guess who were the Optimates. They were the rich and powerful, who ruled by intimidation, intrigue, and bribery, who bought the votes of the people and sold their interests. … Opposed to the Optimates were the Populares."
_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 1, chapter 20._
See ROME: B. C. 159-133.
ORACLES OF THE GREEKS.
"Wherever the worship of Apollo had fixed its roots, there were sibyls and prophets; for Apollo is nowhere conceivable without the beneficent light of prophecy streaming out from his abode. The happy situation and moral significance of leading colleges of priests procured a peculiar authority for individual oracles. Among these are the Lycian Patara, the Thymbræan oracle near Troja (to which belongs Cassandra, the most famed of Apollo's prophetesses), the Gryneum on Lesbos, the Clarian oracle near Colophon, and finally the most important of all the oracles of Asia Minor, the Didymæum near Miletus, where the family of the Branchidæ held the prophetic office as a hereditary honorary right. Delos connects the Apolline stations on the two opposite sides of the water: here, too, was a primitive oracle, where Anius, the son of Apollo, was celebrated as the founder of a priestly family of soothsayers. … The sanctuaries of Ismenian Apollo in Thebes were founded, the Ptoïum on the hill which separates the Hylian plain of the sea from the Copæic, and in Phocis the oracle of Abæ. The reason why the fame of all these celebrated seats of Apollo was obscured by that of Delphi lies in a series of exceptional and extraordinary circumstances by which this place was qualified to become a centre, not only of the lands in its immediate neighbourhood, like the other oracles, but of the whole nation. … With all the more important sanctuaries there was connected a comprehensive financial administration, it being the duty of the priests, by shrewd management, by sharing in profitable undertakings, by advantageous leases, by lending money, to increase the annual revenues. … There were no places of greater security, and they were, therefore, used by States as well as by private persons as places of deposit for their valuable documents, such as wills, compacts, bonds, or ready money. By this means the sanctuary entered into business relations with all parts of the Greek world, which brought it gain and influence. The oracles became money-institutions, which took the place of public banks. … It was by their acquiring, in addition to the authority of religious holiness, and the superior weight of mental culture, that power which was attainable by means of personal relations of the most comprehensive sort, as well as through great pecuniary means and national credit, that it was possible for the oracle-priests to gain so comprehensive an influence upon all Grecian affairs. … With the extension of colonies the priests' knowledge of the world increased, and with this the commanding eminence of the oracle-god. … The oracles were in every respect not only the provident eye, not only the religious conscience, of the Greek nation, but they were also its memory."
_E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 2, chapter 4._
{2401}
"The sites selected for these oracles were generally marked by some physical property, which fitted them to be the scenes of such miraculous manifestations. They were in a volcanic region, where gas escaping from a fissure in the earth might be inhaled, and the consequent exhilaration or ecstasy, partly real and partly imaginary, was a divine inspiration. At the Pythian oracle in Delphi there was thought to be such an exhalation. Others have supposed that the priests possessed the secret of manufacturing an exhilarating gas. … In each of the oracular temples of Apollo, the officiating functionary was a woman, probably chosen on account of her nervous temperament;—at first young, but, a love affair having happened, it was decided that no one under fifty should be eligible to the office. The priestess sat upon a tripod, placed over the chasm in the centre of the temple."
_C. C. Felton, Greece, Ancient and Modern, chapter 2, lecture 9._
----------ORAN: Start--------
ORAN: A. D. 1505. Conquest by Cardinal Ximenes.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1505-1510.
ORAN: A. D. 1563. Siege, and repulse of the Moors.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1563-1565:
----------ORAN: End--------
ORANGE, The Prince of: Assassination.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1581-1584, and 1584-1585.
ORANGE, The Principality.
"The little, but wealthy and delicious, tract of land, of which Orange is the capital, being about four miles in length and as many in breadth, lies in the Comté Venaissin, bordering upon that of Avignon, within a small distance of the Rhone; and made no inconsiderable part of that ancient and famous Kingdom of Arles which was established by Boso towards the end of the 9th century. …"
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 888-1032; and 1032.
"In the beginning of the 9th century, historians tell us of one William, sirnamed Cornet, of uncertain extraction, sovereign of this State, and highly esteemed by the great Emperor Charlemagne, whose vassal he then was. Upon failure of the male descendants of this prince in the person of Rambald IV.; who died in the 13th century, his lands devolved to Tiburga, great aunt to the said Rambald, who brought them in marriage to Bertrand II. of the illustrious house of Baux. These were common ancestors to Raymond V., father to Mary, with whom John IV. of Chalon contracted an alliance in 1386; and it was from them that descended in a direct male line the brave Philibert of Chalon, who, after many signal services rendered the Emperor Charles V., as at the taking of Rome more particularly, had the misfortune to be slain, leaving behind him no issue, in a little skirmish at Pistoya, while he had the command of the siege before Florence. Philibert had one only sister, named Claudia, whose education was at the French court," where, in 1515, she married Henry, of Nassau, whereby the principality passed to that house which was made most illustrious, in the next generation, by William the Silent, Prince of Orange. The Dutch stadtholders retained the title of Princes of Orange until William III. Louis XIV. seized the principality in 1672, but it was restored to the House of Nassau by the Peace of Ryswick.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1697.
On the death of William III. it was declared to be forfeited to the French crown, and was bestowed on the Prince of Conti; but the king of Prussia, who claimed it, was permitted, under the Treaty of Utrecht, to bear the title, without possession of the domain.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
_J. Breval, History of the House of Nassau._
ALSO IN: _E. A. Freeman, Orange (Historical Essays, volume 4)._
See, also, NASSAU.
ORANGE, The town: Roman origin.
See ARAUSIO.
ORANGE FREE STATE.
See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1806-1881.
ORANGE SOCIETY, The formation of the.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1795-1796.
ORARIANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ESKIMAUAN FAMILY.
ORATIONES, Roman Imperial.
See CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS.
ORATORY, Congregation of the.
See CONGREGATION OF THE ORATORY.
ORBITELLO, Siege of (1646).
See ITALY: A. D. 1646-1654.
ORCHA, Battle of.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).
ORCHAN, Ottoman Turkish Sultan, A. D. 1325-1359.
ORCHIAN, FANNIAN, DIDIAN LAWS.
"In the year 181 B. C. [Rome] a law (the Lex Orchia) was designed to restrain extravagance in private banquets, and to limit the number of guests. This law proved ineffectual, and as early as 161 B. C. a far stricter law was introduced by the consul, C. Fannius (the Lex Fannia) which prescribed how much might be spent on festive banquets and common family meals. … The law, moreover, prohibited certain kinds of food and drink. By a law in the year 143 B. C. (the Lex Didia) this regulation was extended over the whole of Italy."
_W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 6, chapter 12 (volume 4)._
ORCHOMENOS.
See MINYI, THE.
ORCHOMENOS, Battle of (B. C. 85).
See MITHRIDATIC WARS.
ORCYNIAN FOREST, The.
See HERCYNIAN.
ORDAINERS, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1310-1311.
ORDEAL, The.
"During the full fervor of the belief that the Divine interposition could at all times be had for the asking, almost any form of procedure, conducted under priestly observances, could assume the position and influence of an ordeal. As early as 592, we find Gregory the Great alluding to a simple purgatorial oath, taken by a Bishop on the relics of St. Peter, in terms which convey evidently the idea that the accused, if guilty, had exposed himself to imminent danger, and that by performing the ceremony unharmed he had sufficiently proved his innocence. But such unsubstantial refinements were not sufficient for the vulgar, who craved the evidence of their senses, and desired material proof to rebut material accusations. In ordinary practice, therefore, the principal modes by which the will of Heaven was ascertained were the ordeal of fire, whether administered directly, or through the agency of boiling water or red-hot iron; that of cold water; of bread or cheese; of the Eucharist; of the cross; the lot; and the touching of the body of the victim in cases of murder. {2402} Some of these, it will be seen, required a miraculous interposition to save the accused; others to condemn; some depended altogether on volition, others on the purest chance; while others, again, derived their power from the influence exerted on the mind of the patient. They were all accompanied with solemn religious observances. … The ordeal of boiling water ('æneum,' 'judicium aquæ ferventis,' 'cacabus,' 'caldaria') is probably the oldest form in which the application of fire was judicially administered in Europe as a mode of proof. … A caldron of water was brought to the boiling point, and the accused was obliged with his naked hand to find a small stone or ring thrown into it; sometimes the latter portion was omitted, and the hand was simply inserted, in trivial cases to the wrist, in crimes of magnitude to the elbow, the former being termed the single, the latter the triple ordeal. … The cold-water ordeal ('judicium aquæ frigidæ') differed from most of its congeners in requiring a miracle to convict the accused, as in the natural order of things he escaped. … The basis of this ordeal was the superstitious belief that the pure element would not receive into its bosom anyone stained with the crime of a false oath."
_H. C. Lea, Superstition and Force,