SARGASSO SEA 



SARSAPARILLA 



165 



Ftdora (1883), Thiodara (1884), and La Tosca 

 (1887). He has, moreover, attempted the higher 

 historical play in pieces like La Palrie (1869), La 

 Haine (1874), and Thermidor (1891 ). Sardou was 

 elected to the Academy in 1877. See Montegut in 

 Revue des Deux Monties ( 1877 ). 



Sargasso Sea. See ATLANTIC, GULF STREAM, 

 GULFWEED. 



Sargent, JOHN SINGER, subject and portrait 

 painter, son of an American physician, was born at 

 Florence, Italy, in 1856, and was elected an A.R.A. 

 in 1894, and R.A. in 1897. 



Sargon. See ASSYRIA, Vol. I. p. 516. 



Sari, capital of the province of Mazanderan, 

 Persia, lies 18 miles S. of the Caspian Sea. It is 

 a greatly decayed place of some 8000 inhabitants. 



Sark (Fr. Gem), the smallest of the four 

 Channel Islands (q. v.), 6 miles E. of Guernsey 

 and 12 NNW. of Jersey. Only 2 so,, m. in area, 

 it i- almost entirely rockbound, and consists of 

 two portions, Great and Little Sark, connected by 

 an isthmus called the Coupee, 456 feet long, 5 to 8 

 broad, and 384 high. Lead was mined during 

 1835-45 ; lishing and agriculture are now almost the 

 only occupations. Pop. ( 1841 ) 785 ; ( 1891 ) 571. 



Sarniatians (anc. Sarmatie, Sauromatce), a 

 race who spoke the same language as the Scythians 

 (q. v.), and who are believed to have been of Median 

 descent and so Iranian in stock, though some author- 

 ities think they belonged to the Ural-Altaic family. 

 They were nomads, wild and savage in appearance, 

 excellent horsemen and archers, and dressed in 

 leather armour. Their young women went into 

 battle on horseback ; hence probably the Greek 

 legends about the Amazons. Several tribes were 

 embraced under the name ; they roamed over the 

 wide plains of eastern Europe, from the Vistula 

 and the Danube to the Volga and the Caucasus. 

 Their country was arbitrarily divided by the ancient 

 writers into European and Asiatic Sarmatia, the 

 river Don being made the dividing-line. In the 

 second half of the 4th century B.c. they subjected 

 the Scythians to their yoke. Their empire lasted 

 until the 4th century A.D., when it was overthrown 

 by the Goths. Shortly after that their name dis- 

 appears from history. The Ja/yges (q.v.) were a 

 Sarinatian tribe who also disappeared amongst 

 Goths and Huns. But the name of Sarniatia is 

 sometimes applied to the vast region in which the 

 Sarmatians roamed, and is sometimes rhetorically 

 used for Poland. 



Sarnia, a town and port of Canada, just below 

 the issue from Lake Huron of the St Clair River, 

 170 miles WSW. of Toronto by rail. A great 

 tunnel beneath the St Clair (q.v.) connects it with 

 Port Huron ( q. v. ) on the American side. Pop. 3847. 



Sarno, a city of Southern Italy, 30 miles by rail 

 E. of Naples, on the farther side of Vesuvius, hag 

 an ancient castle, a cathedral (1625), a seminary, 

 paper, cotton, linen, and ribbon manufactories, 

 and produces fine silk. Pop. 14,464. Here Teia, 

 kini; of the Goths, was vanquished and slain in 

 ,a desperate battle with the Greeks, commanded 

 by Nat-sen, in 552. 



Harpl, PIETRO, better known by his monastic 

 appellation, FRA PAOLO, was born at Venice on 

 14th August 1552, embraced the monastic life, and 

 took the vows in the religious order of the Servites 

 (n.v.) in 1565. Five years later the Duke of 

 Mantua made him his court theologian ; but he 

 was soon after summoned to be professor of philo- 

 sophy in the Servile monastery at Venice, and there 

 he remained all the rest of his life. For nine years, 

 however (1579 88), he was absent in Rome looking 

 after affairs connected with the reform of the 

 Servile order. In early life his thoughts were 



principally given to the study of oriental lan- 

 guages, mathematics, astronomy, and other branches 

 of natural philosophy, including the medical and 

 physiological sciences, in which he attained to 

 great proficiency, being by some writers regarded 

 (although without sufficient grounds) as entitled 

 to at least a share in the discovery of the circula- 

 tion of the blood. He kept up a correspondence 

 with Galileo, Harvey, Bacon, and W. Gilbert. In 

 the dispute between the republic of Venice and 

 Paul V. (q.v.) on the subject of clerical immunities 

 Sarpi stepped forward as the valiant champion of 

 the republic and of freedom of thought. On the 

 repeal (1607) of the edict of excommunication 

 launched against Venice Sarpi was summoned to 

 Koine to account for his conduct. He refused to 

 obey, and was excommunicated as contumacious ; 

 and an attempt was made upon his life by- a band 

 of assassins, who professed to be actuated by zeal 

 for the papal cause. Seriously wounded, he after 

 his recovery confined himself within his monastery, 

 and busied himself with writing his celebrated 

 History of the Council of Trent, a History of 

 the Interdict, and other works. The first named 

 was published in London in 1619 by Antonio de 

 Dominis (q.v.), the ex-bishop of Spalato, at first 

 under the pseudonym of Pietro Soave Polano, an 

 anagram of Paolo Sarpi Veneto ; and it almost 

 immediately rose into popularity with the adver- 

 saries of Rome as well in England as throughout 

 the Continent. It is by no means a simple 

 history of the proceedings of the council, but 

 rather a controversial narrative of the discus- 

 sions, in which the writer freely enters into the 

 merits of the doctrines under discussion, and in 

 many cases displays a strong anti-Catholic bias. 

 His judgment of the motives and conduct of the 

 memoers of the council, especially of the repre- 

 sentatives of the po|>e and his partisans in the 

 assembly, is uniformly hostile.. Ranke, who criti- 

 cises the work in an appendix to his History of 

 the Popes, ranks Sarpi, in spite of the partisan 

 spirit of his writing, as the second of Italian his- 

 torians, next after Machiavelli. A voluminous 

 history of the Council of Trent from the papal 

 standpoint was written by the Jesuit Pallavicmo 

 (q.v.). Sarpi died on loth January 1623. His life 

 as an ecclesiastic was almve reproach ; and his 

 long-tried zeal in the cause of the republic had 

 made him the idol of his fellow-citizens, who 

 accordingly honoured him with a public funeral. 

 His History of the Council of Trent has lieen re- 

 printed in n ii ml lerless editions ; his collected works 

 were published at Naples, in 24 vols., in 1789-90. 



See Lives by A. G. Campbell (18C9), Bianchi-Oiovini 

 (Zurich, 1836), and T. A. Trollope' Paul the Popf and 

 Paul the Friar (1861), largely based upon the Italian 

 work of ftianchi-Giovini. 



Sarracenla. See INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 



Sarrakhs. See SARAKHS. 



Sarregnemines. See SAARGEMCND. 



Sarsaparilla, or SARSA. This is the dried 

 root of the Smilax qflicinalig, a plant lielonging to 

 the natural order Snulacea*, and a native of Central 

 America. In the British Pharmacopoeia it is known 

 as Sarsce Radix, or Jamaica Sarsaparilla, being 

 imported from that island, and having first l>een 

 brought into Europe from the West Indies about 

 1530. There are, nowever, several other species. 

 if Smilax having the same properties, and grow- 

 ing in the warmer parts of America. They are 

 twining shrubs, sometimes attaining a very con- 

 siderable height, and growing only where there 

 ' abundance of water. The root is many feet 

 ong, about the thickness of a goose-quill, brown- 

 sh in colour, with numerous rootlets. They are 

 olded and packed into bundles about 18 inches 



