736. S C A N D I 
laid siege to that city, but which is now reduced to a few 
houses. 
SCANDARIEH, a village of Irak Arabi, situated on a 
canal, which forms a communication between the Tigris and 
Euphrates'; 120 miles north-west of Bassorah. 
SCANDERBERG, prince of Albania, whose proper name 
was Castriot, son of John, prince of that country, was born 
in 1404. He was sent by his father as a hostage to sultan 
Amurath II., and was educated in the Mahometan religion, 
and when he was only eighteen years old, he was placed at 
the head of a body of troops, with the title of sanjiak. After 
the death of his father, in 1432, he formed the design of 
possessing himself of his principality, and having accompa¬ 
nied the Turkish army to Hungary, he made a secret alliance 
with the famous Huniades, promising to desert to the Chris¬ 
tians during the first battle that should occur. This he put 
in execution, and having defeated the Turks with great loss, 
he compelled Amurath’s secretary to sign an order for the 
governor of Croia, the capital of Albania, to deliver that 
place and its citadel to its bearer. The stratagem succeeded ; 
he ascended the throne of his father, and renounced the Ma¬ 
hometan religion. Amurath made many attempts to recover 
Albania, but without effect. A course of warfare was con¬ 
tinued for eleven years under Mahomet II., Amurath’s suc¬ 
cessor, who, by the conquest of Constantinople, was become 
very formidable to all Europe. Scanderberg met with various 
fortune, but was generally successful, so that the sultan, in 
1461, proposed terms of peace to him, which were accepted. 
Scanderberg then, at the desire of the pope, came into Italy 
to the succour of Ferdinand II., king of Naples, besieged in 
Bari, and having caused the siege to be raised, contributed 
greatly to the subsequent victory over the count of Anjou, 
The Venetians having entered into a war with Mahomet, in¬ 
duced Scanderberg to renounce his treaty with the sultan, 
and make an inroad into his dominions. He obtained se¬ 
veral important victories, and saved his own capital, which 
was invested by a great army under Mahomet himself. He 
died in 1467, at the age of 63, and his death was considered 
by the sultan as relieving him from the most formidable 
enemy he had to contend with, and it was soon followed by 
the submission of Albania to the Turkish dominion. 
SCANDEROON. See Alexandretta. 
SCANDIACA, in Botany, a name given by some authors 
to the white-flowered lamium. 
SCANDIANO, a small town of Italy, in the duchy of 
Modena, between Sassuolo and Reggio. It has a castle, 
and is 9 miles west of Modena. 
SCANDINAVIA, a name not unfrequently given to that 
part of Europe, which comprehends Denmark, Sweden, and 
Norway, and sometimes applied more extensively to adja¬ 
cent countries and islands. Scandinavia, considered as 
comprising the present Sweden, Norway, Lapland, and 
Fininark, was formerly thought to have been an island, but 
is now well known to be a peninsula. Pliny calls it Scan- 
dinuvia, and according to the orthography of Vossius and 
Gronovius, it is written Scandinovia; by Xenophon Lamp- 
sacenus, it is named Baltia; by Timseus, Basilea; and by 
Pytheas, sometimes Basilea, and at other times Abalus. The 
writers of the middle ages denominate it Scanza, Seanzia, 
Scantia, and Scandia, which some derive from the German 
or Gothic word ScanJet), signifying castles, alleging that 
the first inhabitants made castles on the steep rocks with 
which the country abounds; and hence, they say, came the 
word Scandinavia, denoting “ a country filled with castles.” 
Others again write Scandinavia, Seanzia, &c., from the word 
Seckanten, importing the sea-coast or shore. The Greek 
word Balt/a signifies the breaking in of the sea. Tacitus 
places in Scandinavia two distinct nations, the Suiones and 
the Sittones, the former inhabiting the present Sweden, and 
fhe latter Norway; for they were separated by mount Sevo, 
now Seager, the ridge that separates Norway from Sweden. 
However, it is certain, that before the time of Tacitus, Scan- 
dinayia was inhabited by the Goths; as we have already 
N A V I A. 
stated under the article Goths. It has been an opinion 
very generally maintained, that a few years before the com¬ 
mencement of the Christian era, a nation of Asiatic Goths, 
under Odin, settled in the Scandinavian territory, as we have 
already mentioned under the article Runic. But the history 
of Odin, and of his appearance among the Scandinavians, is- 
involved in considerable obscurity. (See Odin.) M. Mal¬ 
let, in his “ Northern Antiquities,” acknowledges that he 
can discover nothing very certain concerning Odm, but only 
this, that he was the founder of a new religion before un¬ 
known to the rude and artless inhabitants of Scandinavia, 
For other particulars respecting him, we refer to his biogra¬ 
phical article. In investigating the religion of the Scandi¬ 
navians, he begins with that of the ancient Scythians, front 
whom they are supposed to have originated. The religion 
of the Scythians, he says, was, in the first ages, extremely 
simple, consisting of a few plain easy doctrines, which seem 
to have comprized the whole of religion known to the first 
inhabitants of Europe. These were preserved, in the North, 
without any material alteration. In process of time, how¬ 
ever, the Scythian nations suffered their religion to be cor¬ 
rupted by an intermixture of ceremonies, some of them ri¬ 
diculous, others cruel; in which, by little and little, as it 
commonly happens, they placed the whole of their religion. 
Accordingly, our author distinguishes two different epochs 
or ages in the religion of this people; and in each of these 
he thinks it of importance not to confound the opinions of 
the sages with the fables or mythology of the poets. The Scy¬ 
thian religion, in its primaeval purity, taught the being of a 
supreme God, master of the universe, to whom all things 
were submissive and obedient. (See Tacitus, de Mor. Germ, 
c. xxxv.) It attributed to this deity, an infinite power, a 
boundless knowledge, an incorruptible justice. It forbad 
the representation of this divinity under any corporeal form, 
or the confinement of him within the inclosure of walls; 
but taught that it was only within woods and consecrated 
forests that they could serve him properly. (Id. c. ix.) 
From this supreme God were sprung, as it were emanations 
of his divinity, an infinite number of subaltern deities and 
genii, of which every part of the world was the seat and 
temple. These intelligences directed the operations of na¬ 
ture ; and each element was under the guidance of some 
being peculiar to it. The earth, the water, the fire, the air, 
the sun, moon and stars, had each their respective divinity. 
The trees, forests, rivers, mountains, rocks, winds, thun¬ 
der and tempests, had the same ; and merited on that score 
a religious worship, which, at first, could not be directed 
to the visible object, but to the intelligence with which it 
was animated. The motive of this worship was the fear of 
a deity irritated by the sins of men, but who, at the same 
time, was merciful, and capable of being appeased by 
prayer and repentance. They looked up to him as to the 
active principle, which, by uniting with the earth or pas¬ 
sive principle, had produced men, animals, plants, and all 
visible beings: they even believed that he was the only 
agent in nature who preserves the several beings, and dis¬ 
poses of all events. To serve this divinity with sacrifices 
and prayers, to do no wrong to others, and to be brave and 
intrepid themselves, were all the -moral consequences they 
drew from these doctrines. Lastly, the belief of a future 
state cemented and completed the whole building. Cruel 
tortures were there reserved for such as despised these three 
fundamental precepts of morality, and joys without number 
and without end awaited every religious, just, and valiant 
man. 
These are the principal heads of that ancient religion, 
which probably prevailed for many ages through the 
greatest part of the north of Europe, and doubtless among 
several nations of Asia. It was preserved tolerably pure in 
the North till towards the decline of the Roman republic; 
one may judge at least by the testimony of several authors, 
that the Germans had maintained till that time the chief of 
these doctrines, whilst the inhabitants of Spain, Gaul and 
Britain, half subdued by the arms and luxury of the Romans, 
• adopted 
