POSILIFPO POSTS. 



601 



initiated by him into the stoic philosophy. lie 

 wrote many works, which are now lost. Jan. Buke 

 collected the fragments Posidonii lleliqute, etc. 

 (Leyden, 1815). He distinguished the ideas of 

 God, fate and nature more accurately than the 

 other stoics. 



POSILIPPO. See Pattsilippo. 



POSITION. See Prosody. 



POSSE COMITATUS, in law ; the power of the 

 county or the citizens who are summoned to assist 

 an officer in suppressing a riot or executing any 

 legal process, which is forcibly opposed : the word 

 rvniitalus is often omitted, and posse alone used in 

 the same sense. 



POSSELT, ERNEST Louis ; a historical and poli- 

 tical writer, born at Durlach, in Baden, in 1763, 

 studied at Gottingen and Strasburg, and, in 1784, be- 

 came professor of history and rhetoric, in the gym- 

 nasium at Carlsruhe. In 1791, he was made bailiff 

 of Gernsbach, near Rastadt, and died in 1804, in 

 consequence of a fall from a window. His principal 

 works are Be Hum Populi Gallici adversus Hun- 

 gar 'ice Borussiccque Reges, &c. (1793) ; his Histor. 

 Tuschenbuch fur die neuestc Geschichte; and 

 Geschichte der Deutschen, continued by Politz, &c. 

 He also edited the European Annals (in German) 

 from 1795, and the AUgemcine Zeitung, which he 

 established in 1799. 



POSSESSED (demoniacs). The epileptic, hyste- 

 ric and frantic patients were so called in ancient 

 times, and it was believed that one or several devils 

 dwelt in such unfortunate persons. Delusion, in 

 connexion with monkish knavery, produced mir- 

 acles ; stupidity and malignity, autos dafe. 



POST-CAPTAIN. See Captain. 



POSTERN, more frequently called a sally port, 

 is a small gate generally made in the angle of the 

 flank of a bastion, or in that of the curtain, or near 

 the orillon, descending into the ditch, by which the 

 garrison may march in and out unperceived by the 

 enemy, to relieve the works, make sallies, &c. 



POSTS ; one of the most effective instruments of 

 civilization, to be ranked with the art of printing 

 and the mariner's compass. We find the first posts 

 in the Persian .empire. Darius I., son of Hystaspes, 

 caused couriers, with saddled horses, to stand ready 

 at different stations throughout the empire, situated 

 one day's journey from each other, in order to re- 

 ceive reports from the provinces without delay. 

 Augustus established an institution in the Roman 

 empire similar to the modern posts. The name of 

 posts is said to be derived from the Latin positus. 

 (placed), because horses were put at certain dis- 

 tances, to transport letters or travellers. In the 

 ninth century, there existed in Germany, France 

 and Italy, messengers who travelled on horseback, 

 destined, however only for the service of govern- 

 ment ; and this establishment, besides, was of little 

 duration. Carrier pigeons (q. v.) are used in the 

 East, and became known in Europe through the 

 crusaders, but seem never to have been introduced 

 in the latter part of the world to any extent. When 

 commerce began to flourish, the larger commercial 

 cities, particularly in Germany, began to establish 

 mounted messengers and stage-coaches. Travel- 

 ling merchants and butchers (who ride about in the 

 country to buy cattle) used to take charge of letters. 

 In the beginning of the thirteenth century, the uni- 

 versity of Paris maintained pedestrian messengers, 

 who, at certain times, took charge of letters and 

 money for the students, collected in that city from 

 almost all parts of Europe. Louis XI. established 

 for his own use mounted messengers, and, by an 

 edict of June 19, 1464, instituted post stations, nt 

 intervals of four French miles, on the chief roads of \ 



France. Charles VIII. extended this institution, 

 which existed until 1524, for the sole use of the 

 court. When the Spaniards discovered Peru, in 

 1527, they found messengers placed at short dis- 

 tances on the road from Cusco to Quito, in order to 

 transmit with speed the orders of the Inca. In 

 Germany, the first post was established in Tyrol, in 

 the latter half of the fifteenth century, by Roger I. 

 count of Thurn, Taxis and Valsassina. His son 

 established another from Brussels to Vienna, in 

 1516, by the wish of the emperor Maximilian I. 

 In 1522, a post was established between Vienna 

 and Nuremberg, where the diet sat, on account, of 

 the war with Solyman II. ; but it ceased with the 

 war. Charles V. was anxious to have news as 

 quickly as possible, on account of the vastness of 

 his states, and caused Leonard of Thurn and Taxis 

 to establish a permanent riding-post from the Ne- 

 therlands through Liege, Treves, Spire and Rhein- 

 hausen, through Wiirtemberg, Augsburg and Tyrol 

 to Italy. In 1543, Leonard was appointed post- 

 master-general of the empire. After the death of 

 Charles V., the members of the empire were un- 

 willing to allow a Spanish-Netherlandish post (such 

 was that established by Charles V.) in their terri- 

 tories ; yet Ferdinand I. confirmed Leonard in 

 1563. In 1595, he was appointed postmaster- 

 general of the empire, in opposition to the wishes 

 of the members ; but several of them, having al- 

 ready established posts in their dominions, refused 

 to acknowledge the exclusive privileges claimed by 

 the imperial post. In 1615, Lamoral of Taxis was 

 actually infeoffed with the imperial post, as an im- 

 perial fief. Ferdinand II. extended this grant so 

 as to make it descendible to the nieces of Lemoral, 

 and a regular post now went every week from the 

 imperial court, and also from Rome, Venice, Milan, 

 Mantua, &c., to Augsburg, and thence to Brussels 

 and back. The post remained as long as the em- 

 pire existed, one of its many ill defined and unwieldy 

 institutions, in which private or petty interest was 

 allowed to stand in the way of the public welfare. 

 The post was actually made a regular point in the 

 fFahlcapitulationen, the stipulations between the 

 electors and the candidate for the imperial dignity. 

 The imperial posts were restricted, and the emperor 

 himself excluded the Thurn and Taxis post from 

 several of his dominions. In a country where so 

 many small territories had their own posts, it was 

 natural that they should remain in a very bad con- 

 dition, and it is only in very recent times that they 

 have become better ; yet, generally speaking, the 

 letter-mail is not transmitted quickly. It was wise 

 in the United States to intrust the whole post estab- 

 lishment to the general government, thereby avoid- 

 ing the difficulties which have interfered with the 

 beneficial operation of the institution in Germany. 

 There are at present post establishments of different 

 kinds in Germany. Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, 

 Hanover, the kingdom of Saxony, Baden, Bruns- 

 wick, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Holstein-Oldenburg, 

 Holstein-Lauenburg and Luxemburg have exclu- 

 sively their own posts ; but, in Wiirtemberg, Hesse- 

 Nassau, in the states of the Saxon-Ernestine line, in 

 both the Schwartzenburgs, Hohenzollern, Waldeck, 

 Lippe-Detmold, and the territories of the princes 

 of Reuss, the post is left to the house of Thurn and 

 Taxis as a fief. In some other states, the Thurn 

 and Taxis post is founded upon a regular compact. 

 The whole Thurn and Taxis post establishment is 

 under the superintendence of the postmaster-general 

 at Frankfort on the Maine. The petty principality 

 of Lichtenstein has no post. The Thurn and Taxis 

 post extends over an area of 25,000 miles with 

 3,753,450 inhabitants. We will mention here a 



