This page needs to be proofread.
232
TREATISE—TREBIZOND

Joh. Lupus, De confederation principum (Strassburg, 1511, the first published monograph upon the subject); Bodinus, Dissertatio de contractibus summarum potestatum (Halle, 1696); Neyron, De vi foederum inter gentes (Göttingen, 1778); Neyron, Essai historique et politique sur les guaranties, &c. (Göttingen, 1797); Wächter, De modis tollendi pacta inter gentes (Stuttgart, 1780); Dresch, Ueber die Dauer der Völkerverträge (Landshut, 1808); C. Bergbohm, Staatsverträge und Gesetze als Quellen des Völkerrechts (Dorpat, 1877); Jellinek, Die rechtliche Natur der Statenverträge (Vienna, 1880); D. Donati, Trattati internazionali nel diritto costituzionale (1907); Holzendorff, Handbuch des Völkerrechts (1887) vol. iii.; Fleischmann, Völkerrechtsquellen in Auswahl herausgegeben (1905); de Lapradelle, Recueil des arbitrages internationaux (1905); J. B. Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party (1898) 6 vols. For a list of the principal “ concordats,” see Calvo, Droit international théorique et pratique t. i. On the history of the great European treaties generally, see the Histoire abrégée des traités de paix entre les puissances de l'Europe, by Koch, as recast and continued by Scholl (1817 and 1818), and again by Count de Garden in 1848–1859, as also the Reeueil manuel of De Martens and Cussy, continued by Geffcken. For the peace of Westphalia, Ptitter's Geist des westphdlischen Friedens (1795) is useful; for the congress of Vienna Kluber's Acten des Wiener Congresses (1815–1819) and Le Congrés de Vienne et les traités de 1815 précédé des conferences de Dresde, de Prague et de Chatillon, suivi des Congres d'Aix-la-Chapelle, Troppau, Laybach et Vérone, by Count Angeberg. The last-mentioned writer has also published collections of treaties relating to Poland, 1762~1862; to the Italian question, 1859; to the Congress of Paris, 1856 and the revision of its work by the Conference of London, 1871; and to the Franco-German War of 1870-71. For the treaties regulating the Eastern question see The European Concert in the Eastern Question, by T. E. Holland (1885) and La Turquie et le Tanzimat, by E. Engelhardt (1882–1884).  (T. E. H.) 


TREATISE, a written composition, dealing fully and systematically with the principles of some subject of serious importance. The M. Eng. tretis, O. Fr. tretis, or treitis, is a doublet of "treaty," which also meant a discourse or account. Both words are to be referred to Lat. tractare, to treat, handle, frequentative of trahere, tractus, to draw. " Treatise " thus would mean, by etymology, something well handled, nicely made.


TREBIA (mod. Trebbia), a river of Cisalpine Gaul, a tributary of the Padus (Po) into which it falls some 4 m. west of Placentia (Piacenza). It is remarkable for the victory gained on its banks by Hannibal over the Romans in 218 B.C. The latest investigations make it clear that Polybius's account, according to which the battle took place on the left bank of the river, is to be preferred to that of Livy (see W. J. Kromayer in Anzeiger der phil. hist. Klasse der k. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, October 14, 1908). Its valley is followed past Bobbio by the modern highroad from Piacenza to Genoa (88 m.).


TREBINJE, a town of Herzegovina, situated 9m. N.E. of Ragusa, on the small river Trebinjcica, and on a branch of the railway from Metkovic to Castelnuovo, near Cattaro. Pop. (1895), about 1700. Trebinje is built in a low-lying oasis among the desolate limestone mountains, close to the Dalmatian and Montenegrin frontiers. Its half-ruined wall and citadel testify to its former strategic importance. Trebinje was built by the Slavs, probably on the site of a Roman town laid waste by the Saracens in 840. In the tenth century Constantine Porphyrogenitus mentions it as Terbunia. It commanded the road from Ragusa to Constantinople, traversed, in 1096, by Raymond of Toulouse and his crusaders. Under the name of Tribunia or Travunja (the Trebigne of the Ragusans), it belonged to the Servian Empire until 1355. In 1483 it was captured by the Turks.


TREBIZOND (Gr. Trapezus), a city of Asia Minor, situated on the Black Sea, near its south-eastern angle. From the time of its foundation as a Greek colony to the present day it has always been a considerable emporium of commerce, and it was for two centuries and a half the capital of an empire. Its importance is due to its command of the point where the chief trade route from Persia and Central Asia to Europe, over the table-land of Armenia by Bayezid and Erzerum, descends to the sea. Its safety also was secured by the barrier of rugged mountains (7000 to 8000 ft.) which separates its district from the rest of Asia Minor. So complete is the watershed that no streams pass through these ranges, and there is hardly any communication in this direction between the interior of Asia Minor and the coast. For the same reason, together with its northern aspect, the climate is humid and temperate, unlike that of the inland regions, which are exposed to great extremes of heat in summer and- cold in winter. The position which was occupied by the Hellenic and medieval city is a sloping table of ground (whence the original name of the place, Trapezus, the "Table-land"), which falls in steep rocky precipices on the two sides, where two deep valleys, descending from the interior, run parallel at no great distance from one another down to the sea. The whole is still enclosed by the Byzantine walls, which follow the line of the cliffs and are carried along the sea-face; and the upper part of the level, which is separated from the lower by an inner cross wall, forms the castle; while at the highest point, where a sort of neck is formed between the two valleys, is the keep which crowns the whole. On each side, about half-way between the keep and the sea, these ravines are crossed by massive bridges, and on the farther side of the westernmost of these, away from the city, a large tower and other fortifications remain. The area of the ancient city is now called the Kaleh, and is inhabited by the Turks; eastward of this is the extensive Christian quarter, and beyond this again a low promontory juts northward into the sea. partly covered with the houses of a well-built suburb, which is the principal centre of commerce. The harbour lies on the eastern side of this promontory, but it is an unsafe roadstead, being unprotected towards the north-east and having been much silted up, so that vessels cannot approach within a considerable distance of the shore. From here the caravans start for Persia, and at certain periods of the year long trains of camels may be seen, and Persian merchants conspicuous by their high black caps and long robes. The route which these caravans follow is a chaussée as far as Erzerum, but this in places is too much broken to admit of the transit of wheeled vehicles. The railway by Batoum to Baku by way of Tiflis has tended greatly to turn the channel of commerce from Trebizond into Russian territory, since it helps to open the route to Erivan, Tabriz and the whole of Persia. The total population of the place amounts to about 40,000, of whom 22,000 are Moslems and 18,000 Christians. Great Britain and all the larger European states have consulates there.

The vilayet, of which Trebizond is the chief town, consists of a long irregular strip of coast country, the eastern half of which is deeply indented and mountainous.

History.—The city of Trapezus was a colony of Sinope, but it first comes into notice at the time of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, who found repose there. Notwithstanding its commercial importance, the remoteness of its position prevented it from being much known to fame either in the Hellenic or the early medieval period; its greatness dates from the time of the fourth crusade (1204), when the Byzantine Empire was dismembered and its capital occupied by the Latins. During the confusion that followed that event Alexius Comnenus escaped into Asia, and, having collected an army of Iberian mercenaries, entered Trebizond, where he was acknowledged as the legitimate sovereign, and assumed the title of Grand Comnenus. Though only twenty-two years of age, Alexius was a man of ability and resolute will, and he succeeded without difficulty in making himself master of the greater part of the southern coast of the Black Sea. The empire thus founded continued to exist until 1461, when the city was taken by Mahommed II. The cause of this long duration, and at the same time the secret of its history, is to be found in the isolated position of Trebizond and its district, between the mountains and the sea, which has already been described. By this means it was able to defy both the Seljuks and the Ottomans, and to maintain its independence against the emperors of Nicaea and Constantinople. But for the same reason its policy was always narrow, so that it never exercised any beneficial influence on the world at large. It was chiefly in the way of matrimonial alliances that it was brought into contact with other states. The imperial family were renowned for their beauty, and the princesses of this race were sought as brides by Byzantine emperors of the dynasty of the Palaeologi, by Western nobles, and by Mahommedan princes; and the connexions thus formed originated a variety of