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66 GASSING CASSIUS in his hand, or any cards whose combined spots equal the number of spots on any card in his hand. Thus, a 10 in the player's hand will take a 10 from the board, or any number of cards which can be made to combine into 10. The name of the play is derived from the societies' rooms iu Italy, and continental Eu- rope generally, under the name of casinos, where probably the name originated. CASSINO, Monte. See CASINO. CASSIODORUS, Magnns Anrelins, an Italian statesman, author, and ascetic, born at Scyla- cium about 468, died about 560. He was of an ancient and wealthy Roman family. In his youth he distinguished himself by his talents, and was appointed to high offices by Odoacer, king of the Heruli, the first barbarian king of Italy. After Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, had overcome and supplanted Odoacer, Cassio- dorus for many years, and under various titles, was prime minister of the Gothic kingdom. When Theodoric in his old age began to perse- cute the leading Latins in his service, Cassio- dorus resigned his situation and dignities, and retired to his estates. After the death of Theo- doric he was recalled to power, and served with distinction and fidelity Amalasontha, Athalaric, Theodatus, and Vitiges. Upon the temporary triumph of the emperors of the East, being now 70 years of age, he retired again to the monastery of Viviers which he had founded in Galabria. In this retreat he passed the remain- der of his days, which were prolonged until he was nearly a century old. His career as a historian and man of letters began when his career as a statesman ended. He taught his monks to labor in the fields as husbandmen, and to devote themselves to the copying of ancient manuscripts, then perishing rapidly under the effects of barbarian ascendancy and Roman neglect. This monastery was taken as a model for others founded in all parts of Christian Europe. His arrangement of the branches of a liberal education into grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics (the trivium), and arith- metic, geometry, astronomy, and music (the quadrivium), was accepted throughout the mid- dle ages, and long after, as the only true pro- gramme of a liberal education. His writings on education form a considerable part of his literary remains. His history of the Goths in 12 books has not survived, but the epitome of the same by Jornandes is extant, and is an in- valuable authority. Equally important in a critical point of view are his state papers in 12 books, which are the chief authority upon the internal condition and government of Italy during the period of Ostrogothic rule. The style isvery florid and affected, the language very corrupt. He also wrote a universal his- tory down to 519, and an ecclesiastical history from the era of Constantino down to the time of Theodosius the Younger. These works en- joyed great consideration during the middle ages, but since the revival of learning have fallen into oblivion. *Fhe first edition of his works was published at Paris in 1584; the latest and best is that published by D. Garet at Rouen (2 vols. folio, 1679), and reprinted at Venice (1729). There are three biographies of Cassiodorus : one in Latin, prefixed to Caret's edition of his works ; one in French by Saint- Marthe, Paris, 1695; and one in German by De Buat, in the first volume of the transactions of the royal academy of Munich. CASSIOPEIA, a northern constellation, easily recognized by the form, a letter W, on the op- posite side of the pole from the Great Bear ; named from the wife of Cepheus, king of Ethi- opia, and mother of Andromeda. The con- stellation was distinguished in 1572 by a bril- liant temporary star which shone for 18 months and then disappeared. CASSIQ11IARE, or Cassiqniarl, a remarkable river of Venezuela, deep and extremely rapid, which serves as the connecting link between the Orinoco and the Rio Negro. It furnishes the only example in the world of a bifurcation forming in the very heart of a continent a natu- ral water communication between two great river valleys. It leaves the Orinoco about 20 m. W. of Esmeralda, and is at first scarcely 250 ft. broad ; and after a S.W. course of near- ly 130 m. it joins the Negro near the little town of San Carlos, its breadth having there reached over 1,500 ft. By means of the Cassiquiare canoes can penetrate with facility from the south of Brazil, from Peru and Bolivia, and even from the Argentine Republic, to Caracas through the Amazon and Orinoco and their various affluents. CASSIS, in conchology, the name of a genus of univalve shells, including the species known as helmets. (See HELMET SHELL.) CASSITERIDES, or the Tin Islands of the Greek and Roman writers, are supposed with much probability to be the modern Scilly isl- ands near the coast of Cornwall, England. The Phanicians, who discovered these islands and who kept the knowledge of them for a long time from other nations, traded there for tin with the inhabitants of the neighboring penin- sula of Cornwall, where the tin was produced from mines, and was brought to the islands and sold to the foreign merchants. The islands themselves produced no tin. By a natural con- fusion of ideas the term Cassiterides or tin isl- ands came in time to be applied to Cornwall itself, at least before the Roman settlement in Britain, when the true situation of the tin mines became known. (See SCILLY ISLANDS.) CASSIUS. I. Longlnns Cains, the leader of the conspiracy against Caesar, died in 42 B. C. In 53 he was quaestor in the campaign against the Parthians, and distinguished himself by mili- tary skill, particularly after the death of Cras- sus, in the defeat at Carrhaa. Having col- lected the remains of the army, he defended Syria, and won in the next two years two vic- tories over the Parthians. After his return to Rome he was tribune of the people, embraced the party of the senate at the outbreak of the