Easter," addressed to the king of the Picts, which forms the 21st chapter of the 5th Book of Bede.—J. T.
CEOWULF, a Saxon king, who reigned over Northumberland in the eighth century. He ended his days in the monastery of Lindisfarne, where he sought refuge from the troubles which distracted his kingdom. He is highly commended by Bede for his piety and justice.—J. T.
CEPHALAS, Constantinus, a Greek author of the tenth century, whose "Anthologia," edited by Reiske in 1754, was reprinted with a preface by Warton at Oxford in 1766.
CEPHISODOTUS, an Athenian general and orator, much employed in negotiations with Sparta about the year 370 b.c. He was sent against his friend Charidemus, who had traitorously turned his arms against the Athenians and possessed himself of the Chersonese; but failing to subdue the traitor, he concluded a treaty so disadvantageous to the Athenians, that he was deprived of his command and heavily fined. He was living in 355 b.c.
CEPHISODOTUS, a celebrated Greek sculptor, a contemporary of Praxiteles, was alive in 372 b.c. He executed a group of figures in marble for the temple of Jupiter at Megalopolis, a statue of Peace for the Athenians, and a group representing the Nine Muses on Mount Helicon.—Another Cephisodotus, a sculptor, called "the Younger," son of the great Praxiteles, was alive in 300 b.c. Along with his brother Timarchus he executed various works in marble, bronze, and wood, for the Athenians and Thebans, particularly a statue in wood of Lycurgus the orator, and statues of Latona, Diana, and Æsculapius.
CEPIO or CÆPIO, a patrician family of the gens Servilia, several members of which are distinguished in early Roman history. We notice—Cn. Servilius, who, succeeding to the command of the army in Spain about the year 140 b.c., induced two friends of Viriathus, the Lusitanian chief, to murder him.—Quintus Servilius, who commanded in Spain about the year 110-108 b.c., became consul in 106 b.c.; served afterwards as military commander in Gaul, where he tarnished his reputation by robbing a temple at Thoulouse of the sacred treasure; and by his share, which was considerable, in the terrible defeat the Roman legions suffered in an action with the Cimbri. He lost his command, and was committed to prison. During his consulship the law of C. Gracchus, committing the whole judicial power to the equestrian order, was repealed, and one passed by which the judges were to be chosen jointly from the senate and the knights.—Quintus Servilius, who was urban quæstor in 100 b.c., and distinguished himself by his violent opposition, as leader of the equestrian party, to the lex judicaria of M. Livius Drusus; and afterwards more creditably by his valour in the Social War.
CERACCHI, Giuseppe, a sculptor, born in Corsica about 1760; was executed in 1802 for attempting, along with four others, the life of Bonaparte. His reputation as a sculptor towards the end of last century was only second to that of Canova.
CERATINUS, James, a learned Dutchman, successively Greek professor at Leipzig, Tournay, and at Louvain, where he died in 1530. Erasmus entertained the highest opinion of his scholarship, and wrote a preface for his edition of the Græco-Latin Lexicon, printed in 1524 by Froben.
CERCEAU, Jean Antoine du, born at Paris in 1670; died at Veret, near Tours, in 1730. Cerceau at eighteen became a jesuit. He showed some talent for literature, and published some Latin poems of no great merit. His next efforts were more successful. They were dramas, drawn up for educational purposes, and possessed the strange peculiarity of being without female characters. The parable of the Prodigal Son furnishes the subject of one of these plays; in another some scenes of Don Quixote were imitated. A prose work of his, "The Conspiracy of Rienzi," which was published, with some additions, by Brumoy, is greatly praised. His death was occasioned by the accidental discharge of a pistol in the hands of his pupil, the prince of Conti.—J. A. D.
CERDA: the name borne by Ferdinand, eldest son of Alfonso X. of Castile, and his descendants. It originated with this prince, who was so called on account of his having a mole on his shoulders. He was married in 1269 to Blanche, daughter of St. Louis, king of France, and died in 1275.—His two sons, Alfonso and Ferdinand, notwithstanding the great exertions of their mother Blanche, and their grandmother, wife of Alfonso X., to secure their succession to the crown of Castile, vainly combated the ambition of their paternal uncle, Sanchez, who, on the death of his brother, took possession of the throne. Alfonso, the eldest of these brothers, finally submitted to his uncle's son and successor, Ferdinand, receiving in exchange for an abnegation of his rights to the throne, the lordship of certain inconsiderable towns.—J. S., G.
CERDIC, the leader of a band of Saxons, who about the beginning of the sixth century landed in Britain, and after a protracted warfare of many years' duration with the native tribes, conquered Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and founded the kingdom of Wessex or West Sussex. He died about 534 a.d., and was succeeded by his son Cynric.—J. T.
CERDO, a Syrian heresiarch belonging to the school of gnostics known as that of Italy or Asia Minor, came from Syria to Rome in the time of Antoninus Pius about the year 141. The accounts of his doctrine are meagre and inconsistent, perhaps, because it varied with the necessities of his residence in a foreign city; but it seems at least certain that he, at one time, taught the existence of two opposite principles—one good and unknown God, the father of Jesus; and the other, evil and known, the Creator who spoke in the law and appeared to the prophets.
CERÉ, Jean-Nicolas, a French botanist, was born in 1737 in the Mauritius, where, after being educated in France, he became director of the royal botanic garden. He cultivated trees and shrubs with singular success, and earned the gratitude of European naturalists, both by the gifts of specimens which he made to various botanical societies, and by his contributions to their journals. He died in 1810.—J. S., G.
CEREZO, Matteo: this Spanish artist was born at Burgos in Andalusia in 1635. He was a pupil of Don Juan Correño at Madrid. He painted some fine works for the churches of Madrid and Valladolid, and was employed by Philip IV. on some of the decorations for the royal palace. His best work is his "Christ at Emmaus." He died in 1685. Bermudez considers some of his works as equal to those of Titian, and other applauders have dubbed him the Vandyck of Spain.—W. T.
CERINTHUS, a noted heretic of the first century, whose opinions it is not easy to comprehend or characterize. The early fathers are not consistent in their descriptions of his errors. Epiphanius seems to charge him with judaism; Eusebius pictures him as a sensual millennarian, and Irenæus expressly ascribes gnostic views to him. The latter account is entitled to credit, though probably he formed a connecting link between Ebionism and Gnosticism. Theodoret affirms that he was educated at Alexandria, and there was taught philosophy and theology. He maintained the existence of angels or emanations, by some of whom of the lowest grade the world was created; denied the supernatural conception of the Saviour, holding that the Æon called Logos, or Christ, descended on him at his baptism, but left him on the eve of his crucifixion. Cerinthus lived and taught in Asia Minor, and the tradition is, that the apostle John meeting him in a public bath hastily quitted it in terror lest the roof s hould fall on the malignant errorist. His followers, at least at a later period, denied Christ's resurrection and observed circumcision. There is no distinct proof that the fourth gospel was written in refutation of his tenets, though such a hypothesis has been plausibly maintained.—(Neander's Church History; Eusebius; Irenæus, &c.)—J. E.
CERISANTES, Mark Duncan, son of a Scotch physician settled at Saumur, was born there about the year 1600. He became preceptor to the marquis de Fors, son of the marquis de Vigeau, and was present with his pupil at the siege of Arras, where the young marquis was killed in 1640. He was afterwards sent as ambassador to Constantinople by Richelieu, and at a later period figured somewhat notoriously as Swedish envoy at Paris, where his vanity and insolence got him into endless troubles. From Paris he went to Rome, and then to Naples, where, having joined the duke of Guise in supporting an insurrection of the citizens, he was killed in 1648.—J. S., G.
CERQUOZZI, Michelangelo, commonly called Michelangelo delle Battaglie, from his skill in painting battles, was born in Rome, February 2, 1602. He was first the pupil of Giuseppe Cesari, and studied afterwards with a Flemish battle painter, known at Rome as Giacomo Fiammingo; and also with Pietro Paolo Bonsi, known as the Gobbo dei Carracci, an admirable flower painter. Cerquozzi painted battles, genre, flowers, all equally well; and from his skill as a genre painter, or imitator of Pieter Laer, was known likewise as Michelangelo delle Bambocciate. His colouring is forcible and effective; in this respect he followed the example of the tenebrosi, or imitators of
