681 



SOLIMAN II. 



SOLIS, ANTONIO DE. 



682 



while Yemen and the Arabian coast were subjugated by the pasha of 

 Egypt, and armaments sent even into Guzerat to aid the Indian 

 Moslems against the Portuguese : the fleets of the vassal states of 

 Barbary, under the famous corsair Khaireddin, or Barbaroesa, at the 

 same time swept the Mediterranean, and laid waste the Italian coasts; 

 and Croatia was conquered (1537) after a great victory over the 

 Imperialists at Essek. The Turkish arms were everywhere triumphant, 

 and the powerful friendship of Soliman was courted by Francis I. of 

 Franco, the alliance with whom (1536) was the first between the Porte 

 and any Christian power. The death of John Zapolya (1541) wrought 

 a fresh change in the affairs of Hungary, great part of which was 

 Eeized by the Turks; Buda became the seat of a pasha; and the war 

 continued, generally to the advantage of the sultan, till a truce was 

 concluded in 1547, by which Austria agreed to pay a tribute of 30,000 

 ducats for her remaining possessions in Hungary. In the same year 

 a fresh invasion of Persia led to the capture of Ispahan ; but this 

 conquest was not long retained. The war with the house of Austria 

 for Hungary again broke out in 1552; and Transylvania was subdued 

 and made a principality under the suzerainte of the Porte. Persia 

 was again attacked, and Erivan taken in 1554 ; but a peace was con- 

 cluded with the shah in the following year, which became the basis of 

 all subsequent treaties between the two powers. 



A great naval victory was gained in 1560, over the combined fleets 

 of the Christian powers at Djerbeh, on the African coast, by Piali, 

 who had succeeded, on the death of Barbarossa, to the command of 

 the Turkish navies ; and a fresh truce with the empire (1562) left the 

 Turks in possession of their Hungarian conquests. But the martial 

 glories of Soliman were clouded by domestic dissensions. His eldest 

 sou, Mustapha, had been put to death in 1553, at the instigation of 

 bis stepmother Iloxalana, who was solicitous to secure the succession 

 for one of her own children; and jealousies of the two surviving 

 princes, Selim and Bayezid, having ended in the rebellion of the 

 latter, he was defeated and driven into Persia ; but the shah sur- 

 rendered the fugitive on the demand of Soliman, and he was put to 

 death with his children (1561). 



The united fleets of the Porte and of Barbary had ruled the 

 Mediterranean since the battle of Djerbeh ; but they were repulsed 

 with great loss in the siege of Malta (1565) by the heroism of the 

 grand-master John de la Valette. The war in Hungary meantime 

 continued, notwithstanding frequent partial pacifications ; and in 

 1566 Soliman headed his armies for the last time for its invasion ; 

 but he died in his tent before the walls of Szigeth, September 5, 

 1566 (Safar 20th, A.H. 974), the day before the capture of the town, 

 at the age of seventy-two solar (or seventy-four lunar) years. His 

 only surviving son, Selim II., succeeded him. 



Though the Ottoman empire did not fully attain its greatest terri- 

 torial extent during the reign of Soliman, its military power was 

 undoubtedly during this period at its greatest height and most com- 

 pk-te organisation, and declined irrecoverably in both these respects 

 under his indulent and voluptuous successors. The personal energy 

 of the sultan himself, and of the ministers and generals selected by 

 him and trained under his eye, maintained the efficiency of every 

 branch of the administration ; and the Kanoon-Nameh, or code of 

 regulations, which was drawn up under his own superintendence, com- 

 pleted the reform which his exertions had commenced. The finances, 

 the military fiefs, the functions of the pashas and other employe's, the 

 police and administration of justice, are all treated at length in this 

 elaborate compilation, which long formed the basis of both the juris- 

 prudence and political science of the Ottomans. But Soliman was 

 not less distinguished as a patron of literature and the arts than as 

 a warrior and a legislator ; the erection of the noble mosque of the 

 Solimaneyeh, and of numerous public buildings both in the capital 

 and the provinces, attest his architectural magnificence; and he is 

 the only one of the Ottoman sovereigns who facilitated the internal 

 communications of his dominions by the construction of roads and 

 bridges. He was himself a poet of no mean rank ; and the encourage- 

 ment which he afforded to the employment of the Turkish language 

 in place of the Persian, which the Ottomans had generally chosen as 

 the vehicle of their sentiments, forms an era in the literature of the 

 country. In an age remarkable for the eminent greatness of the 

 monarchs filling the thrones of Europe, few of them equalled Soliman 

 the Magnificent either in the union of princely qualities or in the 

 glory and good fortune of their reigns. 



SOLIMAN II., a younger son of Sultan Ibrahim, was placed on the 

 Ottoman throne A.D. 1687 (A.H. 1098), on the deposition of his elder 

 brother, Mohammed IV. He was nearly forty-six years of age at his 

 accession, and had passed hia whole life secluded in the seraglio and 

 occupied by the study of the Kordn. A prince thus unacquainted 

 with active life was little fitted to stay the progress of the Imperial- 

 ists, who in the last years of the preceding reign had almost expelled 

 the Turks from Hungary. In the campaign of 1688 Belgrade and 

 Agria were lost; and in 1689 the vizir Kagib was twice signally 

 defeated by the Austrians, who penetrated into the heart of Servia and 

 took^Nissa. An abortive negociation for peace followed; but the 

 appointment of Mustapha-Pasha Kuprilu to the vizirat changed the 

 face of affairs, and in the two succeeding campaigns the Ottomans 

 recovered Belgrade and most of the frontier fortresses. Soliman how- 

 ever died at Constantinople in June 1691 (A,H. 1102), after a reign of 



three years and nine months ; and leaving no children, was succeeded 

 by hia next brother, Ahmed II. 



SOLIME'NA, FRANCESCO, Cavaliere, called 1'Abate Ciccio, a cele- 

 brated Neapolitan painter, was born at Nocera de' Pagani in 1657. 

 He was originally intended for the law, but having a decided taste for 

 art, he was first taught by his father Angelo, who was the pupil of 

 the Cav. Massimo, and studied afterwards at Naples under Francesco 

 di Maria, and in the academy of Pietro del Po. Solimena was one of 

 the best and most correct painters of his time ; ho had great versatility 

 of talent and executed works in every style, and had also very great 

 facility of execution. But his style in all its varieties belonged to the 

 elegant and ornamental ; his drawing is uniform, and in a great degree 

 merely academical; his heads are only graceful, but his light and shade 

 is effective; his works however want expression, sentiment, and 

 dramatic vigour. He was a great admirer of Pietro da Cortona and 

 the Bolognese painters, one or other of whom he generally made his 

 model. He died at Naples extremely wealthy and in the enjoyment of 

 a great reputation in 1747, at the very advanced age of ninety. 



Solimena was the rival and at the same time the friend of Luca 

 Giordano, by whose death in 1705 he was left without a rival, and he 

 raised accordingly the price of his pictures, which however in no way 

 diminished the number of his commissions. His works, both in oil 

 and fresco, are very numerous ; the principal of them are the frescoes 

 of the sacristy of the Theatines of San Paolo Maggiore ; others, in oil, 

 in- the Church of the Apostle. , and those of the Chapel of San Filippo 

 Neri in the church dell' Oratorio : there are likewise by him many 

 great altar-pieces and other pictures in oil in the churches of Naples 

 and in other cities of Italy. His portraits likewise are very numerous, 

 including those of some of the principal kings and princes of his time. 

 Solimena was also a poet ; his sonnets have been several times pub- 

 lished. He was never married; his large property, which besides 

 estates amounted to 300,000 scudi, went to his nephews, the sons of 

 his brother Tommaso Solimena, who was a distinguished lawyer. Of 

 his numerous scholars the principal were Sebastiano Conca, Giaquinto 

 Corrado, Ferdinando Saufelice, and Francesco de Mura. 



SOLI'NUS, CAIUS JU'LIUS, a Roman writer of whose life and 

 period nothing is known. It is however certain that he did not 

 write in the Augustan age, as some have supposed, for his work, 

 entitled ' Polyhistor,' is merely a compilation from Pliny's ' Natural 

 History.' Indeed Salmasius says (' Prolegomena ') that the work con- 

 tains nothing which is not found in Pliny, and that he got together 

 all that he could out of Pliny's work, and put it in his compendium, 

 keeping the same arrangement and nearly the same words. Solinus 

 however never mentions Pliny, though he cites near one hundred 

 authors. Salmasius endeavours to show that he lived about two huu- 

 dred years after Pliny. The first writers who mention him are Hieron- 

 ymus and Priscian. It has often been said, and even in very recent 

 works, that the researches of Salmasius prove that there were two 

 editions of the ( Polyhistor.' But we certainly do not need the testi- 

 mony of Salmasius to this point, as it is correctly observed in the 

 article ' Solinus/ 'Biog. Univ. :' for Solinus, in his address to his friend 

 Adventus (according to some readings) says that the first edition waa 

 a hasty performance, and that it appeared under the title of ' Collec- 

 tanea Rerum Memorabilium ; ' and that he gave the name of ' Poly- 

 histor ' to his second and improved edition. The work of Solinus con- 

 tains a great variety of miscellaneous matter, of which a large part is 

 geographical. His style deserves no great commendation, but ib is 

 sufficiently perspicuous. Some fragments of a poem entitled ' Pontica ' 

 have been attributed to him ; Wernsdorf and some recent critics have 

 however attempted to show that this poem is the work of Varro 

 Atacinus, but "VVullner, ' Comment, da P. Ter. Yar. Atasini vita et 

 Script. Monast.,' has fully met their arguments. 



The first edition of Solinus is probably that of Rome about 1473 ; 

 but one also appeared about the same date at Milan, edited by Bonini 

 Mombriti. The pains that have been taken with a work of little value 

 are shown by the number of editions. The principal edition is that of 

 Salmasius, 2 vols. fol., Paris, 1629; and 2 vols. fol., Utrecht, 1689; a 

 work, says Morhofius (< Polyhistor,' ii., c. 2), accompanied with a most 

 enormous commentary, in which the editor has collected all that ho 

 could find in the ancient writers on the topics which Solinus discusses, 

 and has given also his own opinions ; but the editor, as usual, did his 

 work in a hurry, and made various blunders, which a little more 

 attention might have prevented. 



There is an English translation of Solinus, by Arthur Golding, 

 London, 1587 and 1590. The title of the former edition is, 'The 

 Excellent and Pleasant Worke of Julius Ca. Solinus, Polyhistor, con- 

 taining the Noble Actions of Human Creatures, &c.' 



SOLI'S, ANTONIO DE, was born at Placenzia, July 18, 1610, of an 

 ancient and illustrious family. His parents sent him to Salamanca to 

 study the law ; but having a natural turn for poetry, he gave it the 

 preference, and cultivated the muses with great ardour and success. 

 At the age of seventeen, and when still a student, he wrote a comedy 

 called ' Amor y Obligacion ' ('Love and Duty'), which was received with 

 the highest applause. This introduced him to the notice of Calderon, 

 with whom he was afterwards very intimate, occasionally writing the 

 preludes to his dramas. At six-and-twenty Solis applied himself to 

 ethics and politics, as well as to the history and antiquities of his 

 native country. His great merit procured him a patron in the Count 



