epoch was revived in La Tosca[1] (1887) and Madame Sans Gêne (1893). Later plays were La Piste (1905) and Le Drame des poisons (1907). In many of these plays, however, it was too obvious that a thin varnish of historic learning, acquired for the purpose, had been artificially laid on to cover modern thoughts and feelings. But a few—Patrie and La Haine (1874), for instance—exhibit a true insight into the strong passions of past ages.
M. Sardou married his benefactress, Mlle. de Brécourt, but eight years later he became a widower, and soon after the revolution of 1870 was married a second time, to Mlle. Soulié, the daughter of the erudite Eudore Soulié, who for many years superintended the Musée de Versailles. He was elected to the French Academy in the room of the poet Joseph Autran (1813-1877), and took his seat on the 22nd of May 1878. He died at Paris on the 8th of November 1908.
See L. Lacour, Trois théâtres (1880); Brander Matthews, French Dramatists (New York, 1881); R. Doumic, Écrivains d'aujourd'hui (Paris, 1895); F. Sarcey, Quarante ans de théâtre (vol. vi., 1901).
SARGASSO SEA, a tract of the North Atlantic Ocean, covered with floating seaweed (Sargassum, originally named sargaço by the Portuguese). This tract is bounded approximately by 25° and 30° N. and by 38° and 60° W., but its extent varies according to winds and ocean currents. By these agencies the weed is carried and massed together, the original source of supply being probably the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico (see Algae). Similar circumstances lead to the existence of other similar tracts covered with floating weed, e.g. in the solitary part of the Pacific Ocean, north of the Hawaiian islands, between 30° and 40° N. and between 150° and 180° W. There is a smaller tract S.E. of New Zealand, and along a belt of the southern ocean extending from the Falkland Islands, south of Africa and south-west of Australia, similar floating banks of weed are encountered. The Sargasso Sea was discovered by Columbus, who on his first voyage was involved in it for about a fortnight. The widely credited possibility of ships becoming embedded in the weed, and being unable to escape, is disproved by the expedition of the “Michael Sars,” under the direction of Sir John Murray and the Norwegian government, in 1910, which found the surface covered with weed only in patches, not continuously.
SARGENT, JOHN SINGER (1856-), American artist, son of a distinguished Boston physician, was born at Florence, Italy, on the 12th of January 1856. He was educated in Italy and Germany, and in 1874 entered the atelier of Carolus-Duran in Paris. He received an “honourable mention” in the Salon of 1878 for his “En route pour la pêche,” and in 1881 a second class medal for his “Portrait of a Young Lady” (made famous by Henry James's appreciation). In 1886 his “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose,” exhibited at the Royal Academy, was bought for the Chantrey Bequest. He rapidly became known in London as a brilliant portrait painter, and year by year his Academy portraits were the leading features of its exhibitions. Though of the French school, and American by birth, it is as a British artist that he won fame by his vogue as the most sought-after portrait painter of the day, his sitters including the men and women of greatest distinction in the literary, artistic and social life of Europe and America. While best known, and consequently busily employed, as a portrait painter, he had at the same time a disposition towards other, and especially decorative work; his paintings of Brittany, Venice and Eastern scenes are less known, but his labour of love, the ornate decorations for the Boston public library (completed in 1903), “The Pageant of Religion,” shows the other side of his genius. Among his pictures in public galleries not already mentioned are “El Jaleo” (exhibited 1882), in the Boston Art Museum; “La Carmencita,” in the Luxembourg; “Coventry Patmore,” in the National Portrait Gallery, London; and “Henry Marquand” (1887), in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. He was elected an A.R.A. in 1894, and R.A. in 1897; he was the recipient of various medals of honour, and was made a member of the chief artistic societies of Europe and America.
SARGON, more correctly Sarru-Kinu (“the legitimate king,” Sargon being a hybrid formation from the Semitic sar and the Sumerian gina, “established”), an Assyrian general who, on the death of Shalmaneser IV., during the siege of Samaria, seized the crown on the 12th of Tebet 722 B.C. He claimed to be the descendant of the early kings, and accordingly assumed the name of a famous king of Babylonia who had reigned about 3000 years before him. His first achievement was the capture of Samaria, 27,200 of its inhabitants being carried into captivity. Meanwhile Babylon had revolted under a Chaldaean prince, Merodach-baladan, who maintained his power there for twelve years. In 720 B.C. Yahu-bihdi of Hamath led Arpad, Damascus and Palestine into revolt: this was suppressed, and the Philistines and Egyptians were defeated at Raphia (mod. er-Rafa). In 719 B.C. Sargon defeated the Minni to the east of Armenia, and in 717 overthrew the combined forces of the Hittites and Moschi (Old Testament Meshech). The Hittite city of Carchemish was placed under an Assyrian governor, and its trade passed into Assyrian hands. The following year Sargon was attacked by a great confederacy of the northern nations—Ararat, the Moschi, Tibareni, &c.—and in the course of the campaign marched into the land of the Medes in the direction of the Caspian. In 715 B.C. the Minni were defeated, and one of their chiefs, Dāyuku or Daiukku (Deioces), transported to Hamath. In 714 B.C. the army of Rusas of Ararat was annihilated, and a year later five Median chiefs, including Arbaku (Arbaces) became tributary. Cilicia and the Tibareni also submitted as well as the city of Malatia, eastern Cappadocia being annexed to the Assyrian Empire. A league was now formed between Merodach-baladan and the princes of the west, but before the confederates could move, an Assyrian army was sent against Ashdod, and Edom, Moab and Judah submitted to Sargon, who was thus free to turn his attention to Babylonia, and Merodach-baladan was accordingly driven from Babylon, where Sargon was crowned king. Shortly after this Sargon sent a statue of himself to Cyprus and annexed the kingdom of Commagene. He was murdered in 705 B.C., probably in the palace he had built at Dur-Sargina, now Khorsabad, which was excavated by P. E. Botta.
SĀRI, a town of Persia, in the province of Mazandaran, on the left bank of the Tejen river, 80 m. S.W. of Astarabad. Pop. 10,000. It is the seat of the governor of Mazandaran, and has post and telegraph offices. The town is picturesque but very unhealthy, has stone-paved streets and houses built of brick and covered with green and red glazed tiles.
SARIPUL, or Siripul, a town and khanate of Afghan Turkestan. The town lies 100 m. S.W. of Balkh; estimated pop. 18,000. Two-thirds of the people are Uzbegs and the rest Hazaras. The khanate, which lies between Balkh and Maimana, is one of the “four domains” which were in dispute between Bokhara and Kabul, and were allotted to the Afghans by the Anglo-Russian boundary agreement of 1873.
SĀRIPUTTA, one of the two principal disciples of Gotama the Buddha. He was born in the middle of the 6th century B.C. at Nāla, a village in the kingdom of Magadha, the modern Behar, just south of the Ganges and a little east of where Patna now stands. His personal name was Upatissa; the name of his father, who was a brahmin, is unknown; his mother's name was Sārī, and it was by the epithet or nickname of Sāriputta (that is “Sārī's son”), that he was best known. He had three sisters, all of whom subsequently entered the Buddhist Order. When still a young man he devoted himself to the religious life, and followed at first the system taught by Sañjaya of the Belattha clan. A summary of the philosophical position of this teacher has been preserved in the Dialogue called The Perfect Net.
According to this account his main tendency was to avoid committing himself to any decided conclusion on any one of the numerous points then discussed so eagerly among the clansmen in the valley of the Ganges. Early in the Buddhist movement Sāriputta had a conversation with one of the men who had just joined it; and the Buddhist quoted to him the now famous stanza, “Of all the things that proceed from a cause, the Buddha the cause hath told; and he tells too how each shall come to an end—such alone is the word of
- ↑ Adapted as an opera for the music of Puccini (Rome, 14th Jan. 1900).
