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CASINO CASPIAN SEA 57 for public use and defence; and thus he de- served the remark of an ancient historian, that he inherited Poland of wood and left it of stone. Agriculture, industry, and general wealth grad- ually increased under Casimir ; and the riches and liberality of the state were displayed on the occasion of the marriage of his granddaugh- ter with Charles IV., emperor of Germany, which was celebrated for 20 days at Cracow. But his reign had also its shades: unhappy marriages ; love affairs condemned by the peo- ple and the church ; an excommunication by the archbishop of Cracow ; a deadly revenge taken on its innocent announcer; the subsequent humiliation of the .king by the pope ; and a great defeat by the Wallachians. A fall from a horse ended the life of the most popular monarch of Poland. Among the objects of the love of Casimir was the Jewess Esther, the heroine of many romances, by whom he had several children, and who is supposed to have contributed greatly to the humane protection which he and his laws bestowed on her people in Poland, in the time of most barbarous per- secutions in other parts of Europe. IV. Born in 1427, died at Grodno in 1492. He was the son of Ladislas Jagiello, and brother and successor of Ladislas III., at whose death in 1444 Casimir was grand duke of Lithuania. He accepted, but hesitatingly, the call to the throne of Poland. His long reign is remark- able for several diets held at Lublin, Piotrk6w, &c. ; for a successful war of 14 years against the Teutonic knights, terminated in 1466 by the peace of Thorn, which gave to Poland the western part of Prussia and the suzerainty of the eastern ; and for the subsequent long period of general prosperity, luxury, and relaxation of the national spirit. The introduction of the Latin language into the schools and public life of Poland dates particularly from this reign. Of the six sons of Casimir, one was elected king of Bohemia and Hungary, three, John Albert, Alexander, and Sigismund, suc- ceeded each other on the throne of Poland, one became a cardinal, and one was canonized. V. See JOHN CASIMIK. CASINO, or Monte Casino, a celebrated Bene- dictine monastery, established by St. Benedict in 529, upon the mountain of the same name, in the Italian province of Caserta, over the town of San Germane, the ancient Casinum, 48 m. N. N. W. of Naples, in former times the seat of a famous castle, and of a temple of Apollo. The beauty of the spot attracted many visitors to the abbey, and the medical skill of the friars many invalids, while pilgrims re- sorted there from all parts of the world, as the Benedictines were deemed to possess miracu- lous balms derived from Mount Zion. The monastery is a massive pile, more like a palace than a convent. The church, erected by St. Benedict, was destroyed in the 6th century by the Lombards, rebuilt in the 8th, destroyed by the Saracens in the 9th, restored at the be- ginning of the 10th, ravaged by the Normans and rebuilt in the llth ; ruined by an earth- quake in 1349, and restored in 1365 ; fell down in 1649, and was rebuilt as it now stands, and consecrated by Pope Benedict XIII. in 1727. Its interior surpasses in beauty and costliness of decoration every church in Italy except St. Peter's. In our times the abbey presents many intellectual attractions, as its inmates have es- tablished a press and published a variety of valuable works. < ASOKI A, a town of Italy, 5 m. N. E. of Na- ples; pop. about 7,000. It is the birthplace of the painter Pietro Martino. It has four churches, and produces quantities of silk. CASPiRI, Carl Paul, a German theologian, born at Dessau, Feb. 8, 1814. He studied in Leipsic and Berlin, and in 1857 became profes- sor of divinity at the university of Christiania in Norway. He has written a number of crit- ical works on Biblical subjects, including trea- tises on Obadiah, Isaiah, Micah, Daniel, and the apostolic symbols, and has been active as joint editor of the Lutheran Tidskrift of Copenha- gen. A third edition of his Grammatica Ara- bica appeared in 1866. CASPE, a town of Spain, in the province and 50 m. S. E. of Saragossa, near the conflu- ence of the Guadalupe with the Ebro ; pop. in 1867, 9,402. It has a castle, several con- vents, and four hospitals. In the neighborhood are extensive plantations of olive and mulberry trees. In 1412 a congress was held here of the'Aragonians, Catalonians, and Valencians, to settle the succession to the throne. CASPIAN SEA (called by the Kussians also the sea of Astrakhan ; anc. Mare Caspium or Hyr- canum; Gr. Kaprr/a 6dl.aaaa), an inland sea, lying between Europe and Asia, between lat. 36 30' and 47 30' N., and Ion. 46 48' and 54 25' E. ; grellest length from N. to S., 760 m. ; greatest breadth, 300 m. ; average breadth about 200 m. ; area, according to Berghaus, 156,800 sq. m. It is bounded N. W., N., and N. E. by Kussia, S. and S. W. by Persia," and E. by Tur- kistan. It has few bays, the most important being, on the Asiatic side, Emba bay, Mertvoi gulf. Karasu inlet, Manghishlak gulf, bay of Alexander, Kenderlinsk gulf, Kara-Bugaz bay, and Balkan bay; on the European side, Kizil Agatch and Kuma gulfs, and several smaller in- dentations. At the S. extremity of the sea is Astrabad bay. The Emba river, which enters the bay of its own name by several mouths, and the Atrek, are almost the only considerable rivers which it receives on the E. side, though the Oxus, or Amoo, which now enters the sea of Aral, is supposed to have once flowed into it. On the N. and W. its basin is far more exten- sive. The Ural, the Volga, the Kuma, the Terek, and the Kur here pour their waters into it, and most of them are constantly bringing accumulations of sand, which in some instances, as at the mouth of the Volga, form little islands, projecting several miles from the coast. All this part of the coast, as far S. as the Sulak, is of alluvial formation ; thence S. to the penin-