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CESPEDES CETTE 217 deciphered. In the temple at Golgos alone Cesnola found 34 inscriptions, and his whole collection contains about 100. In some re- spects the preservation and discovery of these Cypriote remains is more remarkable than in the case of those of Assyria. The latter were buried in the destruction of the palaces where they were found, the sites of which have been uninhabited almost ever since. But in Cyprus the sites of the tombs have been for many centuries covered over by inhabited towns, and scores of generations have lived and died on the spot, never dreaming of the treasures which lay buried a few feet below. The dis- covery of the buried temple of Venus at Gol- gos was in every way remarkable. It was known very nearly where it must have stood. Between 1817 and 1864 French archaBologists expended several hundred thousand francs in excavating for it ; but they dug a few miles away, and only found the site of the ancient city, now occupied by a small village. In 1866 Cesnola excavated in the same place, and of course unsuccessfully. In the winter of 1869- '70 he thought he had found the site of the necropolis, but on digging down came upon the famous temple itself, with its rich collection of antiquities. After that he purchased the ground of the village of Kuklia, 60 m. S. W. of Lar- naka, which he had satisfied himself was the site of the ancient Paphos, close by the spot where Venus is said to have risen from the sea, and where was the chief seat of her worship. Here he hoped, not without reason, that he should come upon some of the famous works of Praxiteles and Lysippus, when his hopes were blasted by the edict from the sultan forbidding all further excavations in Cyprus. But the value of what he had already accomplished is beyond all price. Only a single collection of the kind at all approaches his, and that is the famous Kertch collection of Greek antiques, formed, it is said, by the royal collector Mithri- dates the Great, which has found a resting place in the imperial museum of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg. CESPEDES, Carlos Manuel de, president of the revolutionary republic of Cuba, born in Baya- mo, April 18, 1819. His education commenced in the Dominican convent of his native city, and was completed at the university of Havana, in which city he was admitted to the bar. Before entering upon the practice of his pro- 'fession he travelled in Europe, and a previously acquired knowledge of several languages ena- bled him to study advantageously the customs and institutions of other countries. During his stay in Spain some remarks offensive to his country and countrymen, by a Spanish military officer, led to a duel in which his opponent was killed. When in Madrid, Cespedes was implicated with Gen. Prim in a conspiracy for the overthrow of the government, in conse- quence of which he was forced to leave the country. On his return to his native city in 1844 his talents and popularity soon gained for him a large legal practice, and his influence and his outspoken censure of the Spanish colo- nial system at once rendered him a subject of suspicion to Spanish officials. The revolution- ary expeditions of Lopez, and the uprisings of Agiiero and others in Camaguey, were warmly sympathized in by Cespedes, in consequence of which he was put in prison, then forced to leave Bayamo, and reside in Manzanillo and subsequently in Baracoa. When the revolu- tionary movement broke out in 1868, he was chosen its supreme chief. One of his first acts was to liberate the numerous slaves upon his valuable sugar estate Demajagua ; and on Oct. 10, 1868, at the head of a few poorly armed followers, he proclaimed the indepen- dence of Cuba on the field of Yara, a place rendered historic 300 years before by the exe- cution of the Cuban cacique Hatuey by the Spaniards. On the formal organization of the republic of Cuba at Guimaro, in fche Central department of the island, on April 10, 1869, Cespedes was elected president under the con- stitution then adopted. CESPEDES, Pablo de, a Spanish artist and author, born in Cordova in 1538, died there in 1608. He studied the works of Michel Angelo and the great Italian colorists, and during the pontificate of Gregory XIII. ac- quired distinction as a painter. About the year 1577 he returned to Cordova, and became prebendary of the cathedral. He spent his vacations at Seville, where he established a museum of ancient art. Cespedes was one of the best colorists in Spain, and a successful imitator of Correggio. He was an accom- plished scholar, left a poem on painting and some essays on art, and had a considerable reputation as a sculptor and architect. CESTUS (Gr. /ceerrdf, embroidered), with the ancients, a band or tie of any kind, particularly applied to the embroidered zone or girdle of Venus, famed for its power of awakening love. By this (/ce<7T<5? Ifi&c), according to Homer, Ve- nus captivated Mars, and Juno borrowed it in order to win the affections of Jupiter. The Romans applied the term also to the thongs or bands of leather tied around the hands of a class of boxers, from them called cestuarii. The Greeks used different kinds of cestus under different names. The cestus of the Roman boxers was often loaded with lead or iron, and the word in this sense is supposed by some to be a modified form of ccestus, and derived from ccedere, to kill. CETIGNE. See CETTIGNE. CETTE, a fortified seaport of France, in the department of He>ault, 17 m. S. W. of Mont- pellier; pop. in 1866, 24,177. It is built on the slope and at the foot of a hill (anc. Mom Setius), on a tongue of land between the lake of Thau and the Mediterranean, which are united by a canal that traverses the town and terminates in the harbor. Next to Marseilles, Cette is the most important commercial port in S. France. It is an outlet of the southern wine