T I B 



429 



T I B 



counts of the history of Tibet are in the annals of the Mon- 

 gols and of the Chinese. The Tibetans belong to the Mon- 

 gol race : they were at first divided into many independent 

 tribes which led a nomadic life, like all the other Mongol 

 1 1 ibes before the time of Genghis Khan. The first king of 

 Tibet, according to Sanang "Setsen, was Seger-Sandiiitu- 

 Khaghan-Tiil-Esen, whose youth resembles that of Moses, 

 for he was exposed by his father, and afterwards found in 

 a copper box swimming on the river Ganga. He became 

 king in 313 B.C., and united the four great tribes of Ngari, 

 of Dzang, of K'ham, and of H'Lassa or Wei. One of his 

 descendants was H'latotori, who was born in 348 A.D., and 

 who became king in 367 A.D. In the fortieth year of- 

 his reign (407) Buddhism was introduced into Tibet. 

 [ BUDDHA.] The history of Tibet becomes more certain 

 from the reign of king Srongdsan-Gambo, who was born in 

 617, and who ascended the throne in 629. He founded the 

 Town of H'Lassa, where he held his residence, and he built 

 a splendid palace on Mount Pudala. His reign is par- 

 ticularly remarkable for the invention, or rather introduc- 

 tion, of the Tibetan alphabet. Tongmi Sambhoda invented 

 this alphabet, which is only a modification of the Sanscrit 

 alphabet ; and he made the first Tibetan grammar. Srong- 

 (Uan-Gambo, who is also renowned as a legislator and ad- 

 ministrator, died in 699. His successors earned on war 

 with China, in which they were often successful ; but in 

 821 Tibet was compelled to pay tribute to China. Under 

 king Dharma, who ascended the throne in 901, Buddhism 

 :ts almost destroyed, the king having adopted the Black 

 ion, or the Islam. Buddhism again became the do- 

 minant religion after Dharma had been murdered by a 

 priest in <J25. 



In the beginning of the eleventh century each of the 

 seven grandsons of king Bilamgur-Dzang became an in- 

 dependent prince ; and from this event dates the entire 

 decline of the kingdom of Tibet, the power of which had 

 been already broken by the civil troubles which accom- 

 panied the persecution of Buddhism. One of the new king- 

 doms was Tangut, in the northern part of Tibet. Genghis 

 Khan subdued all Tibet in 1206, according to Sanang Setsen, 

 but Schmidt affirms that the Chinese and Mohammedan his- 

 torians do not mention this fact. It is nevertheless a fact 

 that Tibet was conquered and ravaged by the Mongols ; 

 and it was not before the end of the thirteenth century 

 that the country recovered from the calamity of the Mon- 

 gol war by the careful administration of Khublai-Khan. 

 The easternmost parts of Tibet, which during the middle 

 extended much farther to the east than they do at 

 present, were gradually conquered by the Chinese in H25, 

 ]255, 1362, and 1371; and in 1727 another part of Tibet 

 incorporated with China, which has been mentioned 

 above. Since the year 1720 all Tibet has been a vassal 

 state of China, and Chinese garrisons are in its towns, and 

 they watch the passes in the frontier mountains : the number 

 of Chinese troops in Tibet amounts to 64,000 men. The 

 tribute which Tibet pays to the emperor of China is com- 

 '1 of a great many ditt'erent articles, which Rittei 

 ;l, enumerates, The national government 

 <jf Tibet is supported by a perfectly organized hierarchy. 

 The name of the chief priests is Lama; and the Dalai- 

 Lama is the first of them. The second is the Teshu, or 

 !<.>-Lama. The people are kind, tolerant, polite, and 

 much more civilized than the Mongols, although they 

 ally poor. They live in a state of polyandry, thai 

 veral men cohabit with one woman; but it is only 

 brothel's who are allowed thus to have one woman in com- 

 mon. Arts and literature are cultivated, but the works 

 and Hie language (it the Tibetans are almost unknown in 

 Kurope. The extreme north of Tibet is inhabited by no- 

 madic Mongols, and Turkish hordes sometimes appear in the 

 deserts of Khor and of Katchi. Both the Lamas are abso 

 lute princes in religious matters, but their sovereignty is 

 checked by the authority of the emperor of China, who 

 units or generals in Tibet, who control the 

 Lamas, and who have the command of the army and the 

 direct ion ol 'temporal affairs. The high functionaries an, 

 almost all Chinese. A great number of officers are em- 

 uloyed in the administration of the studs for breeding 

 hoi ; ihe stores for the army. 



: liter, Knlkmxli; vol. iv. ; Turner, Embassy tit the 

 Court </ Ti'uh'trt Lama in Tihet ; Moorcroft, in Asiat 

 Journ., 1826, vol. xxi. ; Klaproth, Tableaux Historiquet 

 dc I' Aw ; Abel Hemusat, Rucherches sur let Languvs 



r artares, vol. i. ; Kircher, China Illustrata, cap. iv. ; 

 Sanang Setsen, History of the Mongol,'!, ed. Schmidt ; 

 Schmidt, Forschungen iin Gebiete der Volker Miltel- 

 asiens.') 



TI'BIA. [SKELETON.] 



TIBIA'NA, a genus of Polypiaria. [SERTULARLKA.] 

 TIBULLUS, A'LBIUS, lived in the time of Augustus, 

 and was a friend and contemporary of Horace. He was of 

 equestrian rank, and originally possessed considerable pro- 

 perty, of which he lost the greater part (Tibull., i. 1, 19, 

 &c. ; iv. 1, 128, &c.), probably, as it is conjectured, in 

 consequence of the assignments of lands among the vete- 

 ans of Augustus ; and this supposition is rendered still 

 nore probable by the circumstance that Tibullus never 

 celebrates the praises of Augustus, like the other poets of 

 lis time. He was not however reduced to absolute 

 loverty ; the estate on which he resided at Pedum (Horace, 

 Kp., i. 4), a town between Praeheste and Tibur, appears to 

 lave been his own, and to have descended to him fvom his 

 ancestors. (Tibull., i. 10, 15, &c.) Here he passed the 

 greater part of his time in the enjoyment of a quiet country- 

 ife, which had for him the greatest charms. He left "it 

 lowever to accompany his patron, Valerius Messalla, into 

 Aquitania, and was present with him through the cam- 

 paign, either in B.C. 28 or 27. (Tibull., i. 7, 9.) He after- 

 wards set out with him to Asia, but was taken ill at 

 Corcyra; but that he died at Corcyra, as is stated by 

 some modern writers, is only a conjecture, unsupported 

 by any antient authority, and is directly contradicted 

 by what Ovid says. It appears from an epigram of Domi- 

 tius Maraua (in Tibull., iv. 15), who lived in the age of 

 Augustus, that Tibullus died soon after Virgil ; and as 

 Virgil died in u.c. 19, we may perhaps place the death of 

 Tibullus in the following year, B.C. 18. It has been already 

 mentioned that Tibullus was the friend of Horace ; two 

 poems have come down to us addressed to him by the 

 latter (Cli/v/i., i. 33 ; Epist., i. 4). Ovid too laments his 

 death in a beautiful elegy, from which it appears that his 

 mother and sister were present at his death (Amor., iii. 9). 

 It is difficult to determine at what time Tibullus was 

 born ; and we can but at best make some approximation 

 to it. In the epigram of Domitius Marsus, already referred 

 to, he is called juvenis, and Ovid deplores his untimely 

 death. We must not however be misled by the expression 

 juri'iiis into supposing that he was quite a young man, in 

 our sense of the word, at the time of his death, since the 

 antients extended the meaning of juvenis to a time which 

 we consider to be that of mature manhood. Several circum- 

 stances tend to show that he could not be much less than 

 forty at his death. Ovid speaks of Tibullus as preceding 

 Propertius, and of Propertius as preceding himself ; and 

 as Ovid was born B.C. 43, we must place the birth of 

 Tibullus a few years at least before that time. Again. 

 Horace in the first book of his Odes addresses Tibullus as 

 an intimate friend, which hardly allows us to suppose that 

 Tibullus was a mere youth at the time. If Bentley's sup- 

 position is correct, that the first book of the Odes was 

 published about B.C. 30 or 28, Horace was then about 

 35, and Tibullus may have been a few years younger. 

 Moreover he does not appear to have been a very young 

 man when he accompanied Messalla into Aquitania in 

 B.C. 28 or 27. We may therefore perhaps place his birth 

 at about B.C. 57. There are indeed two lines in Tibullus 

 (jii. 5, 17, 18), which expressly assign his birth to B.C. 43, 

 the same year in which Ovid was born ; but these are, 

 without doubt, an interpolation derived from one of Ovid's 

 poems (Trist., iv. 10, 6). 



We have thirty-six poems of Tibullus, written, with one 

 exception, in elegiac metre, and divided into four books. 

 The first two books are admitted by all critics to have 

 been written by Tibullus, but of the genuineness of the last 

 two, considerable doubts have been raised. ,T. H. Voss 

 and others attribute the third book to a poet of the name 

 of Lygdamis, but the style and mode of treating the sub- 

 jects resemble the other elegies of Tibullus, and there do 

 not appear sufficient reasons for doubting that it is his 

 composition. There are however stronger grounds for 

 supposing the first poem in the fourth book, written in 

 hexameters, not to be genuine. It differs considerably in 

 style and expression from the other poems, and is attri- 

 buted by some writers to Sulpicia, who lived under Domi- 

 tiau, by others to a Sulpicia of the age of Augustus ; but 

 I we know nothing with certainty respecting its author. Of 



