

XANTHIAN MARBLES. 



1014 



office*, ftc. They have Uiui a monopoly of the business of n 



!< of tlic crown vimilii in Scotlnnd. The society require of their 

 intranU an apprenticeship of five yean, with a curriculum nf university 

 hich includes two Muon* of attendance, the one at Latin and 



the other at some other literary clan, and four courses of attendance WRITING. [ALPHABET.] 



at law classM. The writers to the signet possess a library, the collect- 

 ing of which commenced in 1755, by the purchase of some law books, 

 to which works on other subjects were added in 1778. It is now sup- 

 ported by an annual grant by the society. 



Xto an Englishman is the representative of what might as well be 

 denoted by the two consonants t t. But in the Greek alphabet it 



was merely a guttural aspirate, equivalent probably to the Oerman c/i. 

 The cause of this change in the power of the symbol appears to admit 

 of the following explanation : Before the employment by the Greeks 

 of their character H or {, it was their common custom to represent 

 this sound by X 2, as may be seen in Boeckh's inscriptions, rather than 

 by K 2, of which there exist however a few examples, as in the so-colled 

 Vanian Inscription. [ALPHABET, plates ii. and iii.] Now the Romans 

 copied this Greek practice, and we consequently find in Latin inscrip- 

 tions such forms as MAXSVIIVS, PROXSVMVS, &c. See the Index of 

 Marini's ' Fratelli Arvali." So again coins give us the proper name 

 . where the later orthography would have been AXIVS; and 

 oven existing manuscripts still bear traces of this orthography. Thus 

 the Hedicean MS. of Virgil has EXSKSA (' Aen.', viii. 418), KXSVIT 

 ('Aen.', viii 587). But the Romans, being generally averse to the 

 aspirated letters (A itself, though written, seems not to have been pro- 

 nounced by them), had little or no occasion for the character X except 

 in this combination with an s. The very sight therefore of au x, even 

 before the eye came to the s, raised in the mind the idea of .1 sibilant, 

 and thus rendered the sibilant itself a superfluous letter ; which, 

 because it was superfluous, would before long be omitted, and thus the 

 single letter x would perform the office of the two consonants x s. It 

 may be objected to this view, that in one of the oldest inscriptions, the 

 Bacchanalian (see the plate in the seventh volume of Drakenborch's 

 Livy), we have the form EXDEICEBEST, where the letter in question 

 already has the power of our modern x. This perhaps is an erroneous 

 idea. It would probably be more correct to look upon the character in 

 this word as the simple guttural, thus : echdeicerent, from which the 

 later form cdicerenl would easily flow. A sibilant in this word would 

 have given the same offence to a Roman, as {8i5ocai would have done 

 to a Greek ear. It should be recollected too that the old Latin prepo- 

 sition had the form ec, as seen in ecfari, ecferre, &c. (for thus did 

 Cicero write these words), and that a sibilant was added only before the 

 /), k, I, or before a vowel. Au argument against the view we 

 have taken in reference to the change of power in the symbol might 

 be founded upon the fact that the Spaniards employ the very same 

 symbol as a guttural. Thus in the geographical names Xeres, Xalapa, 

 Mexico, the x has little or nothing of a sibilant character. 



The letter x was the last in the Roman alphabet, neither Y nor z 

 belonging to it, although the majority of Latin grammars include them. 

 On reflection however it will be admitted that the words in which 

 those two letters occur are not really part of the Latin language, but 

 borrowed from the Greek, as zephyrtu, zona ; or from some Eastern 

 source, as yaza. Such forms as lachryma, hijemt, sylra, are simply 

 errors of modern editors. The Romans themselves wrote laeruma or 

 lirrimn, hirmt, or rather hie m jut, and tilra. But the fact that x was 

 tli.- final letter of the Roman alphabet is established by an anecdote in 

 the Life of Augustus by Suetonius (c.88). 



The interchanges of x with other letters are as follows : 



1. x with c, as in the double form, already mentioned, of the Latin 

 nr (ireek preposition ex or ec. 



2. x with sc or it. See S. 



3. x with g, as in the Latin aw/en compared with the Greek autava, 

 and fu-y-vv/u compared with mix, Eng., and mix-tut, Latin. 



4. x with pt, as the Latin ejrilit compared with the Greek i^iAos. 

 In the same way we find an illiterate Roman officer writing 



tjui, and thus too proximut is the superlative of prope. Thin change is 

 in fact only another instance of the interchange of p and c, HO common 

 between Greek and Latin. See C. 



5. x perhaps with A. Thug (trot is probably in the first syllable 

 the equivalent of the Latin /nut it and liotptt. See O and N. So again 

 harta in probably connected with the Greek {rrot. 



6. x with :. Thus in Spanish a z is found where the Latin has an x. 



xarnple, the Latin words crux, pax, have become in Spanish 

 trui, paz, whence the names of the American towns, Vcra Cruz and 

 La I' 



XAXTHAMYLAMIDE. [CARBAMIC Ann. SulpltoearbaMtt of 

 niii'il.] 



XASTHAMYLIC ACID. ,1 my,Wy, Wnriomc add (C.jH.jO.S, 



C i S A CII< H(/*)' Xanthamylate of potash is formed on treating a 

 solution of potash in amylic alcohol with bisulphide of carbon until 

 alkaline reaction no longer manifests itself : the salts then crystallises 

 out in plates ; it is soluble in alcohol or ether, gives precipitates of 



xanthamylates with most metallic solutions, and when acted upon by 

 hydrochloric acid yields up its xanthamylic acid. 



Xanthamylic acid is an oily liquid, colourless when quit 

 generally of a yellow tint ; it lias a pungent disagreeable odour, reddens 

 litmus paper, is heavier than water, burns with a luminous flame, and 

 is readily decomposed by water. 



XANTIIK1N". A yellow colouring matter contained in flowers. It 

 is extracted by cold alcohol from the petals of yellow dahlias. Xonthein 

 4s soluble in water, alcohol, and ether, but does not crystallise from 

 any of these solutions. Alkalies communicate to it a very rich brown 

 colour. It communicates a brilliant yellow to tissues, and unitr 

 most metallic bases forming yellow or brown lakes. 



XANTI1KI.KNK. [XANTUH: ACID.] 



XANTHENE. Xutheue, ifelcne. An unimportant and problema- 

 tical derivative of hydropersulphocyanic acid. 



XANTHIAN MARBLES, the designation given to a collection of 

 architectural and sepulchral remains, from their having been chiefly 

 found in the city of Xonthus in Lycia, a province of Asia Minor. 

 [LvciA, in GEOG. Div., col. 638.] They were for the most part 

 obtained by Sir Charles Fellows, during researches conducted at the 

 expense of the British government in the years 1842-46, and are now 

 deposited in the Lycian gallery of the British Museum. 



The Xanthian marbles comprise sculptural remains which are believed 

 to range in date from the conquest of Xanthus by the Persians, B.C. 

 545, to the period of the Byzantine empire, and vary considerably 

 therefore in character and value. The oldest and most important ore 

 the rilievi from what is known as the Harpy Tomb, which stood near 

 the theatre at Xanthus. This tomb was found almost entire, and 

 consisted of a solid rectangular shaft 17 feet high, surmounted by a 

 small chamber. The friezes on the sides of this pedestal exhibit so 

 much refinement of feeling, combined with an almost austere purity 

 of style, that it may be doubted whether they do not belong to a 

 period antecedent to the Persian invasion, and are not the work con- 

 sequently of the descendants of the Grecian colonists, before their 

 taste was vitiated by Persian influence. The date usually assigned to 

 them is about 500 n.c. , 



The tomb has acquired its name from four figures of similar design 

 on the four extremities of its north and south sides, which resemble 

 the Harpy of the ancients. The head is that of a female, the breast is 

 exposed, and the body, which terminates with the trunk, has wings 

 and a tail like a pigeon's ; from under the wings comes a bird's claw, 

 clasping the legs of a child, which is carried in the bosom of the figure. 

 They are all flying upwards and outwards from the middle i<t 

 group, and are carrying off female children. There was no inscription 

 on the tomb, which, from the flying figures carrying off the children, 

 is supposed to allude to the story of Pandarus, king of Lycia ; these 

 figures being the harpies carrying away the daughters of Pandarus. 

 (Homer, 'Odyssey,' b. xx.) Besides these there ore seated figures, 

 probably deities, and other personages from the Greek mythology. 

 The figures are about three feet high, and the four coinjiartmeiits, 

 about nine feet in length, form the top of the tomb, and arc elevated 

 about twenty feet above the ground upon a square shaft or pedestal 

 of gray stone, and roofed with two flat stones of a similar material ; 

 the bas-reliefs are in white marble. 



Close to this tomb stood another similar tomb of the same dimen- 

 sions, entirely covered with Lycian characters. These Xanthian tombs 

 extend over several miles of country. 



Another extremely interesting series consists of a broad and a narrow 

 and various architectural members of a remarkable Ionic struc- 

 ture, the purpose of which is not determined, but of which there are 

 in the room an excellent model, according to the restoration proposed 

 by Sir C. Fellows, under whose direction it was made, and a picture 

 xhnwing the api>earancc of the spot prior to the excavations. The 

 liiiv. H represent contests between the heavily-armed Greek soldiers 

 and more lightly equipped Asiatics; the siege of a city, and a sally of 

 the besieged ; and a Persian satrap receivinga deputation. The subject 

 referred to is usually considered to be the conquest of Lycia by the 

 Persians under Harpagus, and the building to have been the tomb of 

 HarpaguR, or a memorial to his honour, and to have been erected in 

 the 4th century, B.C. By some, however, the bas-reliefs are supposed 

 to represent the suppression of the revolt of the Lycians, B.< 

 Be that as it may, the sculptures are thoroughly Persian in character, 

 and both in subject and style recal to the memory similar subjects 

 among the Assyrian rilievi. Another series of bas-reliefs, part of the 

 tomb of one Paiafa, a satrap of Lycia, has representations of warriors 



