SICKINGEN, FRANZ VON (1481-1523), German knight, one of the most notable figures of the first period of the Reformation, was born at Ebernburg near Worms. Having fought for the emperor Maximilian I. against Venice in 1508, he inherited large estates on the Rhine, and increased his wealth and reputation by numerous private feuds, in which he usually posed as the friend of the oppressed. In 1513 he took up the quarrel of Balthasar Schlör, a citizen who had been driven out of Worms, and attacked this city with 7000 men. In spite of the imperial ban, he devastated its lands, intercepted its commerce, and only desisted when his demands were granted. He made war upon Antony, duke of Lorraine, and compelled Philip, landgrave of Hesse, to pay him 35,000 gulden. In 1518 he interfered in a civil conflict in Metz, ostensibly siding with the citizens against the governing oligarchy. He led an army of 20,000 men against the city, compelled the magistrates to give him 20,000 gold gulden and a month's pay for his troops. In 1518 Maximilian released him from the ban, and he took part in the war carried on by the Swabian League against Ulrich I., duke of Württemberg. In the contest for the imperial throne upon the death of Maximilian in 1519, Sickingen accepted bribes from Francis I., king of France, but when the election took place he led his troops to Frankfort, where their presence assisted to secure the election of Charles V. For this service he was made imperial chamberlain and councillor, and in 1521 he led an expedition into France, which ravaged Picardy, but was beaten back from Mezières and forced to retreat. About 1517 Sickingen became intimate with Ulrich von Hutten, and gave his support to Hutten's schemes. In 1519 a threat from him freed John Reuchlin from his enemies, the Dominicans, and his castles became in Hutten's words a refuge for righteousness. Here many of the reformers found shelter, and a retreat was offered to Martin Luther. After the failure of the French expedition, Sickingen, aided by Hutten, formed, or revived, a large scheme to overthrow the spiritual princes and to elevate the order of knighthood. He hoped to secure this by the help of the towns and peasants, and to make a great position for himself. A large army was soon collected, many nobles from the upper Rhineland joined the standard, and at Landau, in August 1522, Sickingen was formally named commander. He declared war against his old enemy, Richard of Greiffenklau, archbishop of Trier, and marched against that city. Trier was loyal to the archbishop, and the landgrave of Hesse and Louis V., count palatine of the Rhine, hastened to his assistance. Sickingen, who had not obtained the help he wished for, was compelled to fall back on his castle of Landstuhl, near Kaiserslautern, collecting much booty on the way. On the 22nd of October 1522 the council of regency placed him under the ban, to which he replied, in the spring of 1523, by plundering Kaiserslautern. The rulers of Trier, Hesse and the Palatinate decided to press the campaign against him, and having obtained help from the Swabian League, marched on Landstuhl. Sickingen refused to treat, and during the siege was seriously wounded. This attack is notable as one of the first occasions on which artillery was used, and by its aid breaches were soon made in an otherwise impregnable fortress. On the 6th of May 1523 he was forced to capitulate, and on the following day he died. He was buried at Landstuhl, and in 1889 a splendid monument was raised at Ebernburg to his memory and to that of Hutten.
His son Franz Conrad was made a baron of the empire (Reichsfreiherr) by Maximilian II., and a descendant was raised in 1773 to the rank of count (Reichsgraf). A branch of the family still exists in Austria and Silesia.
See H. Ulmann, Franz von Sickingen (Leipzig, 1872); F. P. Bremer, Sickingens Fehde gegen Trier (Strassburg, 1885); H. Prutz, “Franz von Sickingen” in Der neue Plutarch (Leipzig, 1880), and the “Flersheimer Chronik” in Hutten's Deutsche Schriften, edited by O. Waltz und Szamatolati (Strassburg, 1891).
SICKLES, DANIEL EDGAR (1825- ), American soldier and diplomatist, was born in New York City on the 20th of October 1825. He learned the printer's trade, studied in the university of the City of New York (now New York University), was admitted to the bar in 1846, and was a member of the state Assembly in 1847. In 1853 he became corporation counsel of New York City, but resigned soon afterward to become secretary of the U.S. legation in London, under James Buchanan. He returned to America in 1855, was a member of the state Senate in 1856-1857, and from 1857 to 1861 was a Democratic representative in Congress. In 1859 he was tried on a charge of murder, having shot Philip Barton Key, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, whom Sickles had discovered to have a liaison with his wife; but was acquitted after a dramatic trial lasting twenty days. At the outbreak of the Civil War Sickles was active in raising United States volunteers in New York, and was appointed colonel of a regiment. He became a brigadier-general of volunteers in September 1 86,1 , led a brigade of the Army of the Potomac with credit up to the battle of Antietam, and then succeeded to a divisional command. He took part with distinction in the battle of Fredericksburg, and in 1863 as a major-general commanded the III. army corps. His energy and ability were conspicuous in the disastrous battle of Chancellorsville (q.v.); and at Gettysburg (q.v.) the part played by the III. corps in the desperate fighting around the Peach Orchard was one of the most noteworthy incidents in the battle. Sickles himself lost a leg and his active military career came to an end. He was, however, employed to the end of the war, and in 1867 received the brevets of brigadier-general U.S.A. and major-general U.S.A. for his services at Fredericksburg and Gettysburg respectively. General Sickles was one of the few successful volunteer generals who served on either side. Soon after the close of the Civil War he was sent on a confidential mission to Colombia to secure its compliance with a treaty agreement (of 1846) permitting the United States to convey troops across the Isthmus of Panama. In 1866-1867 he commanded the department of the Carolinas. In 1866 he was appointed colonel of the 42nd infantry (Veteran Reserve Corps), and in 1869 he was retired with the rank of major-general. He was minister to Spain from 1869 to 1873, and took part in the negotiations growing out of the "Virginius Affair" (see Santiago, Cuba). General Sickles was president of the New York State Board of Civil Service Commissioners in 1888-1889, was sheriff of New York in 1890, and was again a representative in Congress in 1893-1895.
SICULI, an ancient Sicilian tribe, which in historical times occupied the eastern half of the island to which they gave their name. It plays a large though rather shadowy part in the early traditions of pre-Roman Italy. There is abundant evidence that the Siculi once lived in Central Italy east and even north of Rome (e.g. Servius ad Aen. vii. 795; Dion. Hal. i. 9. 22; Thucydides vi. 2). Thence they were dislodged by the Umbro-Safine tribes, and finally crossed to Sicily. Archaeologists are not yet agreed as to the particular stratum of remains in Italy to which the name of the Siculi should be attached (see for instance B. Modestov, Introduction à l'histoire romaine, Paris, 1907, pp. 135 sqq.). They were distinct from the Sicani (q.v.; Virg. Aen. viii. 328) who inhabited the western half of the island, and who according to Thucydides came from Spain, but whom Virgil seems to recognize in Italy. Both traditions may be true (cf. W. Ridgeway, Who were the Romans? London, 1908, p. 23). Of the language of the Siculi we know a very little from glosses preserved to us by ancient writers, most of which were collected by E. A. Freeman (Sicily, vol. i. App. note iv.), and from an inscription upon what is presumably an ornamental earthen-ware wine vessel, which has very much the shape of a tea-pot, preserved and transcribed by R. S. Conway in the Collection of the Grand Duke of Baden at Karlsruhe (Winnefeld, Grossherzogl. vereinigte Sammlungen, 1887, 120), which has been discussed by R. Thurneysen (Kuhn's Zeitschrift, xxxv. 214). The inscription was found at Centuripa, and the alphabet is Greek of the 5th or 6th century B.C. We have not enough evidence to make a translation possible, despite Thurneysen's valiant effort, but the recurrence of the phrase hemiton esti durom in a varied order (durom hemiton esti)—presumably a drinking song or proverb, " half a cup is sorry cheer," though it is possible that the sign read as m may really denote some kind of s— makes the division of these three words quite certain, and renders it highly probable that we have to do with an Indo-European language. None of
