Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/76

M U R M U S far as the north-east frontier of Assam. The principal industries of the city are those fostered by the luxury of the native court. Carving in ivory, conducted with much skill and finish, is an old speciality of the city. The principal building is the new palace of the nawab nazim, a large and imposing pile of buildings on the banks of the river, and nearly in the centre of the city. MURZUK. See FEZZAN, vol. ix. p. 130. MUS, the name of a family of the plebeian gens of the Decii. Two members of the family, a father and a son, crowned distinguished careers in the service of Rome by a singular act of self-devotion. The father, Publius Decius Mus, won his first laurels in the Samnite war, when in 343 B.C., while serving as tribune of the soldiers, he rescued the Roman main army from an apparently hope less position. In 340 B.C. he was consul, and had, with his colleague Manlius Torquatus, the command in the Latin war. A decisive battle took place under Mt. Vesuvius ; the Romans wavered, and Decius, repeating after the chief pontiff a solemn formula by which he devoted " the legions and auxiliaries of the enemy along with himself to the Dii Manes and the earth-goddess," dashed into the ranks of the Latins and met a death which was followed by a crushing defeat of the enemy (Livy, viii. 9). The son, who was also called Publius, was consul for the fourth time in 295 B.C., and devoted himself after the pattern of his father in the battle of Sentinum, when the left wing which he commanded was shaken by the Gauls (Livy, x. 28). The story of the elder Decius is regarded by Mommsen as an unhistorical " doublette " of what is related on better authority of the son. MUS^EUS is the name of three Greek poets. The first is an almost fabulous personage, who is said to have flourished in Attica, and to have been buried on the Museum Hill in Athens. The mystic and oracular verses and usages of Attica, and especially of Eleusis, attach them selves to his name, and when this representative character is deducted nothing of his individuality remains. The second Musseus was an Ephesian who was attached to the court of the Pergamenian kings. The third is of uncertain date, but probably belongs to the 5th century A.D., as the structure of his hexameters is evidently modelled after the canons of Nonnus. The poem in 340 lines which he wrote on the story of Hero and Leander is by far the most beautiful Greek poem of the age. He conveys the pathetic tale of love and death by selecting a few striking situations ; he describes each of them in a telling manner, with no attempt to represent ethical char acter or earnest thought, but with a good eye to the situa tion, the dramatic and rhetorical effect. The work shows the influence of the schools of rhetoric, and is evidently the forerunner of the love romances of the Byzantine period. MUSAUS, J. K. A. (1735-1787), a German author. He studied theology at Jena, his birthplace, and would have become the pastor of a parish but for the resistance of some peasants, who objected that he had been known to dance. In 1760 to 1762 he published in three volumes his first work, Grandison der Zweite, afterwards (in 1781-82) rewritten and issued with a new title, Der deutsche Grandi son. The object of this book was to show the comic aspects of Richardson s hero, who had many sentimental admirers in Germany. In 1763 Musaus was made tutor of the court pages at Weimar, and in 1770 he became a professor at the Weimar gymnasium. His second book Physiognomisclie Reisen did not appear until 1778-79. It was directed against Lavater, and attracted much favour able attention. In 1782 to 1786 he published his most famous work, Volksmdrchen der Detitschen. Even in this series of tales, the substance of which Musaus collected among the people, he could not refrain from expressing the satirical tone which had marked his previous writings. The stories, therefore, lack the unconscious simplicity which characterizes genuine folk-lore. Still, they are very brightly written, and retain at the present day some of their original popularity. In 1785 was issued Freund Hein s Erscheimmgen in Holbein s Manier by J. R. Schellenberg, with explanations in prose and verse by Musaus. A collec tion of stories entitled Straussfedern, of which a volume appeared in 1787, Musaus was prevented from completing by his death, which occurred on the 28th of October 1787. After his death appeared his Moralische Kinderldapper and Nachgelassene Schriften, the latter edited by his friend and relative Kotzebue. Musaus was a man of cheerful and genial temperament, and this dominant characteristic is reproduced in his writings, in which, although satirical, he is never morose. His style is animated, light, and graceful. See Miiller, Johann Karl August Musaus (1867). MUSCAT, or more correctly MASKAT, the chief town of Oman in Arabia, lies upon the sea-coast in 23 40 N". lat. and 58 25 E. long., at the extremity of a small cove in the gorges of a great pass leading inland through dark mountain walls, scorched with the sun and utterly without vegetation, which rise almost right out of the sea to a height of from 300 to 500 feet on both sides of the cove. The town itself is built on a sloping shore, which affords space for some scanty patches of cultivated ground beyond the gates. The interior aspect of Muscat does not correspond to the extremely striking appearance it presents when approached from the sea. The ruins of the Portuguese cathedral, the palace, the minarets, and a few other great buildings tower over narrow crowded streets and filthy bazaars, long rows of good houses now falling into decay, and a mass of mean dwellings of sun-dried brick or wretched huts of palm branches. The whole aspect was described by Palgrave in 1863 as that of decay, but the town was still populous, and Palgrave estimated the inhabitants at 40,000, exclusive of the suburbs. Indeed the excellent harbour so admirably situated for the Indian and Persian Gulf trade, the strength of the whole position, which is defended by forts on the encircling rocks and might easily be rendered impregnable, together with the command of the passes to the fertile lands beyond, make it naturally the most important point on all the coast. The inhabitants and government are favourably spoken of ; the population is a mixture of the most varied nationalities, including very many Indians ; but good order is maintained and equal justice administered to all creeds. The Mohammedan citizens have a consider able strain of African blood, the slave trade having been very active before the convention of England with Zanzibar. The climate is not good ; the summer heat in so confined a situation is very great, and epidemic fevers are common. The exports (salt, dates, fish, cotton, pearls, mother-of- pearl, &c.) and imports (rice, coffee, sugar, piece goods, &c.) are very considerable, amounting perhaps together to a million sterling per annum. Round the cape which forms the north-west limit of the cove lies the prosperous and well-built town of Matrah, with 20,000 to 25,000 inhabitants, and a considerable production of Oman stuffs. It may be regarded as a suburb of Muscat, though the land road over the cape is so rough that communication between the towns is con ducted chiefly by boats. Muscat is an ancient place, perhaps identical with the Moscha of the Pcriplus. In the 9th century of the Christian era ships trading from Si raf to China took in water at Muscat from the well which still supplies the town ; but the place was then quite small, Sohar, farther up the gulf, being the chief place on the Oman coast. The importance of Muscat appears to date from the Portuguese occupa tion (1508-1658). In the first half of last century the contests of the rival inuams of Oman, Saif and Ibn Murshid, placed the town in the hands of the Persians, who were expelled about 1749 by Ahmed b. Sa id. The residence of this prince was at Rustak, but