Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/71

O S T S T Marcius, who is said to Lave at the same time established there extensive salt-works, which long continued to supply Rome and its neighbourhood with that necessary article. As the wealth and importance of Rome itself increased, the prosperity of Ostia naturally rose with it, and it continued throughout the period of the Roman republic to be at once the principal emporium of trade in this part of Italy and the permanent station of the Roman fleet. It was, however, at no period a really good port, and the natural disadvantages of its position were not merely felt the more keenly as its commercial importance increased, but they were continually aggravated by natural causes, the allu vial matter continually brought down by the Tiber having filled up the port, and at the same time in great measure blocked the mouth of the river, so as to render it inacces sible to the larger class of vessels. Strabo gives a lively picture of the difficulties with which these had to contend in his time, and which were only surmounted on account of the great pecuniary advantages arising from its proximity to the capital. The necessity of taking some steps to obviate these evils had indeed already presented itself to the dictator Caesar, who had proposed to construct an artificial port at Ostia, with all the appurtenances requisite for so extensive a trade, but no steps were taken towards the execution of this project till the reign of the emperor Claudius, who constructed an entirely new basin or artificial port at a distance of about two miles north of Ostia, and communicating by an artificial channel with the Tiber on one side and the sea on the other. These works were afterwards largely augmented by Trajan, so that the port came to be known as the Portus Trajani, and the channel from thence to the sea was called the Fossa Tra jani. This was undoubtedly the same with what is now become the right branch of the Tiber, entering the sea at Fiumicino. From this time the great mass of the trade was transferred to the new port, while that of Ostia con tinually diminished, though the city itself continued to be a populous and flourishing place throughout the period of the Roman empire. It was not till the close of the western empire that Ostia itself, which was unprotected by walls, and consequently exposed to the attacks of the barbarians, fell into decay ; and after it was plundered by the Saracens in the 9th century the site became alto gether abandoned, the modern village of Ostia (a very poor place) being situated at a distance of about half a mile from the ruins of the ancient city. The extent and variety of these, as well as the beauty of the works of art dis covered on the site, confirm the accounts given by ancient writers of the opulence and prosperity of Ostia in the days of the empire; while those of Porto, as the port of Trajan is still called, are of great interest as exhibiting not only the artificial basin of the port, with its quays and the remains of the surrounding magazines, but a large part of the circuit of walls and towers by which it was protected. Such was the importance of Portus under the Roman empire that it became an episcopal see, and still gives that title to one of the cardinals of Rome. The continual advance of the coast-line, owing to the alluvial deposits brought down by the Tiber, has left the ruins of Ostia more than two miles from the sea. Those of Portus are separated from it by an equal interval, and even the tower of Fiumicino, which was built in the last century at the entrance of the right branch of the Tiber the only one now navigable is already a considerable distance inland. For a detailed account of the history and topography of Ostia and the neighbouring Portus, as well as of the changes in the coast-line and channel of the Tiber, the reader may consult Nibby. Dintorni diEoma, vol. ii. p. 426-474, 602-660; and an elaborate paper by Pieller in the Berichtc dcr Sachsischcn GcscIlschaftfoT 1849. OSTIAKS, or OSTYAKS, a tribe of Finnish origin, who inhabit the basin of the Obi in western Siberia; a few hundreds also are nomads in the basin of the lower Yenisei. Piano Carpi ni and Marco Polo in the 13th century knew them on the flat lands of the Obi, and the best investigators (Castre"n, Lerberg, A. Schienck) consider the trans-Uralian Ostiaks and Samoyedes as identical with the Yugra of the Russian annals During the Russian conquest their abodes extended much farther south than now, and they had numerous settlements on the basin of the Obi, no less than forty one of their fortified places having been destroyed by the Cossacks in 1501, in the region of Obdorsk alone. Remains of these " towns " are still to be seen at the Kunovat river, on the Obi 20 miles below Obdorsk, and elsewhere. The total number of the Ostiaks may be estimated at a little over 27,000. Those on the Irtish are mostly settled, and have adopted the manner of life of Russians and Tartars. Those on the Obi are mostly nomads; along with 8000 Samoyedes in the districts of Beryozoff and Surgut, they own 93,600 reindeer. The Obi Ostiaks are Russified to a great extent. They live almost exclusively by fishing, buying from Russian merchants corn for bread, the use of which has become widely diffused. The Ostiaks call themselves Ass-yakh (people of the Obi), and it is supposed that their present designation is a corruption of this name. By language they belong (Gastren, Jlciseberichte, Rtiselricfe ; Ahlqvist, Ofvers. af Finska F et.-Soc. Fork., xxi.) to the Ugriari branch of the eastern Finnish stem, a classification confirmed by a grammar of their language, compiled in 1875, in Hungarian, by Hunfalvy. All the Ostiaks speak the same language, mixed to some extent with foreign elements ; but three or four leading dialects can be distinguished. The Ostiaks are middle-sized, or of low stature, mostly meagre, and not ill made, however clumsy their appearance in winter, in their thick fur-clothes. The extremities are fine, and the feet are usually small. The skull is brachycephalic, mostly of moderate size and height. The hair is dark and soft for the most part, fair and reddish individuals being rare ; the eyes are dark, generally narrow ; the nose is flat and broad; the mouth is large and with thick lips ; the beard is scanty. The younger men and women are sometimes of an agreeable appearance. The Mongolian type is more strongly pronounced in the women than in the men. On the whole, the Ostiaks are not a pure race; the purest type is found among the fishers on the Obi, the reindeer-breeders of the tundra being largely intermixed with Samoyedes (see Castrt-n ; Fr Finsch s Reisc nachWest-Sibirien, &c. ). Investigators are unanimous in describing them as very kind, gentle, and honest ; rioting is almost quite unknown among them, as also theft, this In.st occurring only in the vicinity of Russian settle ments, and the only penalty enforced being the restitution two fold of the propei ty stolen. The farther they are removed from contact with Russian dealers and traders the higher do their moral qualities become (Middendorff and Castren). They are very skilful in the arts they practise, especially in carving wood and bone, tanning (with egg-yolk and brains), preparation of implements from birch bark, &c. Some of their carved or decorated bark implements (like those figured in Middendorffs Sibirische Reisc, iv. 2) show great artistic skill. Only a few have guns, the great majority continuing to hunt with bow and arrows. Their folk lore, like to that of other Finnish stems, is imbued with a deep feeling of natural poetry, and reflects also the sadness, or even the despair, which has been noticed among them. The number of those who are considered Christians reaches 2000; but their Shamanism is still retained, hardly anything being borrowed from Christianity beyond the worship of St Nicholas, who is a most popular saint among them. OSTRACISM, a peculiar political institution in Athens, designed by Clisthenes as a safeguard against any citizen acquiring too great power and aspiring to make himself tyrant of the state. Before it could be carried into effect, a decree of the people had to be passed that an ostracism was necessary. If this was done, the voting was fixed for a special day in the agora. The votes were given accord ing to tribes ; and each citizen wrote on an oyster shell -rpaKov) the name of the person who he thought should be ostracized. The person who obtained the majority was exiled for ten years, provided the votes against him were