OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Praenestina, Via

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​PRAENESTINA, VIA, an ancient road of Italy, leading from Rome E. by S. to Praeneste, a distance of 23 m., Gabii being situated almost exactly half-way. At the ninth mile the road crosses a ravine by the well-preserved and lofty Ponte di Nona, with seven arches, the finest ancient bridge in the neighbourhood of Rome. The line of the road is, considering the difficulty of the country beyond Gabii, very straight. In the stretch beyond Gabii it is only used as a track, and well preserved. Half-way between Gabii and Praeneste is the well-preserved single-arched bridge, known as Ponte Amato.
See T. Ashby in Papers of the British School at Rome, i. 149 sqq.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Praetorius, Michael

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​PRAETORIUS, MICHAEL (1571–1621), German .musical historian, theorist and composer, was born at Kreuzberg, in Thuringia, on the 15th of February 1571. His father's name was Michael Schultheis. While he was still quite young he visited the university of Frankfort on the Oder for three years. Here he studied philosophy, and on the death of his brother, on whose support he relied, he was given a post as organist in the town. He acted as kapellmeister at Lüneburg early in life, was engaged first as organist and later as kapellmeister and secretary to the duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel, and was eventually rewarded for his long services with the priory of Ringelheim, near Goslar. He died at Wolfenbüttel on the 15th of February 1621. Of his very numerous compositions copies are now very scarce. The most important are: Polyhymnia (15 vols.), Musae Sioniae (16 vols.), and Musa Aonia (9 vols), all written partly to Latin and partly to German words. But more precious than all these is the Syntagma musicum (3 vols. and a cahier of plates, 4to, Wittenberg and Wolfenbüttel, 1615–1620). In the original prospectus of the work four volumes were promised, but it is certain that no more than three were ever published. The fourth volume mentioned in Forkel's catalogue is clearly nothing but the cahier of plates attached to vol. ii.
The chief value of this very remarkable work lies in the information it gives concerning the condition of instrumental music in the early years of the 17th century. The plates include excellent representations of all the musical instruments in use at the time they were published, together with many forms even then treated only as antique curiosities. The work thus throws a light upon the earlier forms of instrumental music which to the historian is invaluable. In fact, without the information bequeathed to us by Praetorius it would be impossible to reconstruct in theory the orchestra of the earlier half of the 17th century, during which the opera and the oratorio both sprang into existence, or even to understand the descriptions left us by other less careful writers.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pragmatic Sanction

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​PRAGMATIC SANCTION (Lat. pragmatica sanctio, from the Gr. πρᾶγμα, business), originally a term of the later Roman law. It is found in the Theodosian and Justinian codes, together with such variants as a pragmaticum, pragmatica jussio, command; annotatio, an imperial rescript; constitutio, a regulation; and pragmaticum rescriptum. It was a decision of the state dealing with some interest greater than a question in dispute between private persons, and was given for some community (universitas hominum) and for a public cause. In more recent times it was adopted by those countries which followed the Roman law, and in particular by despotically governed countries where the rulers had a natural tendency to approve of the maxims and to adopt the language of the imperial Roman lawyers. A pragmatic sanction, as the term was used by them, was an expression of the will of the sovereign or “ the prince,” defining the limits of his own power, or regulating the succession. Justinian regulated the government of Italy after it had been reconquered from the Ostrogoths by pragmatic sanctions. In after ages the king of France, Charles VII., imposed limits on the claims of the popes to exercise jurisdiction in his dominions by the pragmatic sanction of Bourges in 1438. The emperor Charles VI. settled the law of succession for the dominions of the house of Habsburg by pragmatic sanction first published on the 19th of April 1713, and thereby prepared the way for the great war which ensued upon his death. Philip, V., the first of the Bourbon kings of Spain, introduced the Salic law by a pragmatic sanction, and his descendant, Ferdinand VII., revoked it by another. The term was not used in England even for such things as the will by which Henry VIII. regulated the succession to the throne, which would have been a pragmatic sanction in a country of the Roman law. The term and the thing signified by it have become obsolete owing to the spread of constitutional government in modern Europe.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Praetorians

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​PRAETORIANS. In the early Roman republic, praetor (q.v.) meant commander of the army: in the later republic praetor and propraetor were the usual titles for provincial governors with military powers. Accordingly, the general's quarters in a camp came to be called praetorium and one of the gates porta praetoria, and the general's bodyguard cohors praetoria, or, if large enough to include several cohorts, cohortes praetoriae. Under the empire the nomenclature continued with some changes. In particular cohortes praetorian now designated the imperial bodyguard. This, as founded by Augustus, consisted of nine cohorts, each 1000 strong, some part of which was always with the emperor, whether in Rome or elsewhere. In A.D. 23 his successor Tiberius concentrated this force on the eastern edge of Rome in fortified barracks: hence one cohort in turn, clad in civilian garb, was sent to the emperor's house on the Palatine, and large detachments could be dispatched to foreign wars. The men were recruited voluntarily, in Italy or in Italianized districts, and enjoyed better pay and shorter service than the regular army: they were under praefecti praetorio (usually two; later, sometimes three, rarely only one), who during most of the empire might not be senators. This force was the only body of troops in Rome (save a few cohortes urbanae, a fire brigade, and some non-Roman personal guards of the emperor), or, indeed, anywhere near the capital. Accordingly it could make or unmake emperors in crises—at the accession of Claudius in A.D. 41, in 68–69, and again late in the second century. But its normal influence was less than is often asserted. Moreover, its prefects, since they were two and liable to be disunited, and since they could not be senators, neither combined with the ​senators to restore an oligarchy nor themselves aspired as pretenders to the throne. These prefects were at first. soldiers, but later mostly lawyers who relieved the emperors of various civil and criminal jurisdiction. In the second century the praetorian cohorts became ten in number, and at the end of it Septimius Severus reorganized them so that they consisted practically of barbarian soldiers and held constant conflict with the people of Rome. At the end of the third century the praefecti praetorio were reconstituted as four officers, each ruling one quarter of the now divided empire. In 312 the Praetorian Guard was suppressed by Constantine. Their barracks at Rome covering a rectangle of 39 acres (1210 by 1410 ft.), were included by Aurelian in the walls of Rome, and three sides of the enceinte can still be seen near the Porta Pia, with brickwork as old as Tiberius: the interior (now barracks for the Italian army) is archaeologically less interesting.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Praetuttii

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​PRAETUTTII (also called Πραιτεττιοί), a tribe of ancient Italy inhabiting the south of Picenum. Their territory lay between the rivers Vomanum and Tessinnus (Pliny iii. § 110), and therefore included Castrum Novum, Interamnia and the Truentus, as well as probably the original of Hadria. From this name was derived the medieval form A prutium (quoted by Kiepert in his Alte Geographie), and hence the modern Abruzzo (more commonly in the plural gli Abruzzi), denoting the whole central mountain land of Italy. We have no evidence, except their name, and that throws no light on their language, for separating them from the other inhabitants of Picenum (q.v.)  (R. S. C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nyiregyháza

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​NYIREGYHÁZA, the capital of the county of Szabolcs, in Hungary, 169 m. E.N.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900) 31,875. It is a busy railway junction, and its inhabitants are engaged in agriculture, wine-growing and the manufacture of soda, matches and saltpetre. About 20 m. to the N.W. lies the famous wine-producing district of Tokaj (Tokay).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nyköping

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​NYKÖPING, a seaport of Sweden, chief town of the district (län) of Södermanland, 98 m. S.W. of Stockholm by a branch from the Stockholm-Malmö railway. Pop. (1900) 7375. It lies at the head of the Byfjord, an inlet of the Baltic. The ruins of its once famous castle, the town hall (1662), and the district governor’s residence, are notable buildings. The port, together with that of Oxelösund (10 m. S.E.) at the mouth of the bay, which is seldom closed in winter, exports iron and zinc ore, timber, wood-pulp and oats.
Nyköping (i.e. New-Market, Latinized as Nicopia) begins to appear as a town early in the 13th century. Its castle was the seat of the kings of Södermanland, and after those of Stockholm and Kalmar was the strongest in Sweden. The death of Waldemar in 1293, the starving to death of Dukes Waldemar and Eric in 1318, the marriage and the deaths both of Charles IX. and his consort Christina of Holstein, the birth of their daughter Princess Catherine and in 1622 the birth of her son Charles X. are the main incidents of which it was the scene. Burned down in 1665 and again damaged by fire in 1719, it still remained the seat of the provincial authorities till 1760. The town was burned by Albert of Mecklenburg’s party in 1389, by an accidental conflagration in 1665, and by the Russians in 1719.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nymphaeum

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​NYMPHAEUM (Gr. νύμφαιον, νυμφαῖον), in Greek and Roman antiquities, a monument consecrated to the nymphs (q.v.), especially those of springs. These monuments were originally natural grottoes, which tradition assigned as habitations to the local nymphs. They were sometimes so arranged as to furnish a supply of water. Subsequently, artificial took the place of natural grottoes. The nymphaea of the Roman period were borrowed from the constructions of the Hellenistic east. The majority of them were rotundas, and were adorned with statues and paintings. They served the threefold purpose of sanctuaries, reservoirs and assembly-rooms. A special feature was their use for the celebration of marriages. Such nymphaea existed at Corinth, Antioch and Constantinople; the remains of some twenty have been found at Rome and of many in Africa. The so-called exedra of Herodes Atticus (which answers in all respects to a nymphaeum in the Roman style), the nymphaeum in the palace of Domitian and those in the villa of Hadrian at Tibur (five in number) may be specially mentioned. The term nymphaeum was also applied to the fountains of water in the atrium of the Christian basilica, which according to Eusebius (x. 4) were symbols of purification.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nymphs

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​NYMPHS, in Greek mythology, the generic name of a large number of female divinities of inferior rank, personifications of the creative and fostering activities of nature. The word is possibly connected with the root of νέφος, nubes (“cloud”), and originally meant “veiled,” referring to the custom of a bride being led veiled from her home to that of the husband: hence, a married woman, and, in general, one of marriageable age. Others refer the word (and also Lat. nubere and the Ger. Knospe) to a root expressing the idea of “swelling” (according to Hesychius, one of the meanings of νύμφη is “rose-bud”). The home of the nymphs is on mountains and in groves, by springs and rivers, in valleys and cool grottoes. They are frequently associated with the superior divinities, the huntress Artemis, the prophetic Apollo, the reveller and god of trees Dionysus, and with rustic gods such as Pan and Hermes (as the god of shepherds).
The nymphs were distinguished according to the different spheres of nature with which they were connected. Sea nymphs were Oceanids or Nereïds, daughters of Oceanus or Nereus. Naiades (from Gr. νάειν, flow, cf. νᾶμα, “stream ”) presided over springs, rivers and lakes. Oreades (ὄρος, mountain) were nymphs of mountains and grottoes, one of the most famous of whom was Echo. Napaeae (νάπη, dell) and Alseïdes (ἄλσος, grove) were nymphs of glens and groves. Dryades (q.v.) or Hamadryades were nymphs of forests and trees.
The Greek nymphs, after the introduction of their cult into Latium, gradually absorbed into their ranks the indigenous Italian divinities of springs and streams (Juturna, Egeria, Carmentis, Fons), while the Lymphae (originally Lumpae), Italian water-goddesses, owing to the accidental similarity of name, were identified with the Greek Nymphae. Among the Romans their sphere of influence was restricted, and they appear almost exclusively as divinities of the watery element.
F. G. Ballentine, “Some Phases of the Cult of the Nymphs” in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, xv. (1904).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nylstroom

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​NYLSTROOM, a town of the Transvaal, South Africa, capital of the Waterberg district, and 81 m. N. of Pretoria by rail; altitude 4250 ft. Pop. (1904) 599. It was founded about 1860 and owes its name to the belief of the early Boer trekkers that the river which they had discovered was the head stream of the Nile. The Waterberg gold-fields are 20 m. N.N.E. of the town.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nägelsbach, Carl Friedrich

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​NÄGELSBACH, CARL FRIEDRICH (1806–1859), German classical scholar, was born at Wöhrd near Nuremburg on the 28th of March 1806. After studying at Erlangen and Berlin, he accepted in 1827 an appointment at the Nuremberg gymnasium, and was professor of classics at Erlangen from 1842 till his death on the 21st of April 1859. Nägelsbach is chiefly known for his excellent Lateinische Stilistik (1846, 9th ed. by Ivan Müller, 1905). Two other important works by him are Die Homerische Theologie (1840; 3rd ed. by G. Autenrieth, 1886) and Die Nachhomerische Theologie (1857).
See J. L. Doederlein, Gedächtnissrede für Herrn K. F. Nägelsbach (1859); article by G. Autenrieth in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, xxiii. (1886).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nykjöbing

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​NYKJÖBING, a seaport of Denmark, in the amt (county) of Maribo, on the west shore of the island of Falster, 94 m. S.S.W. of Copenhagen by rail. Pop. (1901) 7345. Its church contains a genealogical tree of the Mecklenburg ducal family, with portraits, dating from 1627 or earlier. Here is the house occupied by Peter the Great of Russia in 1716, restored in 1898. A railway runs south to Gjedser (14 m.), from which the sea-passage (29 m.) to Warnemünde links the fastest route between Copenhagen and Berlin.
Other towns of the name of Nykjöbing in Denmark are (1) on Limfjord in Thisted amt (pop. 4492); and (2) in Zealand, Holbaek amt (pop. 2000).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nymphenburg

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​NYMPHENBURG, formerly a village, but since 1899 an incorporated suburb of Munich, in the kingdom of Bavaria. It has a palace, built about the middle of the 17th century, on the model of that at Versailles, and long a favourite residence of the Bavarian elector, Maximilian Joseph. The famous china manufactory of Nymphenburg, founded in 1754 at Neudeck by a potter named Niedermeyer, was shortly afterwards removed hither and, after being long under royal patronage, is now a private undertaking. The elector Charles Albert of Bavaria was reputed to have made a treaty with Louis XV. of France in May 1741 at the beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession for the division of Austria, and this was called the treaty of Nymphenburg. It has, however, been conclusively proved a forgery. But a treaty was concluded here on the 28th of May 1741, between Bavaria and Spain, and another between Bavaria and the Rhenish Palatinate in 1766.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Náchod

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​NÁCHOD, a town of Bohemia, Austria, 109 m. E.N.E. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 9899, mostly Czech. It is situated on the Mettau river, at the entrance of the Lewin-Nachod pass. The old castle contains a collection of historical paintings and archives, and there are several old churches, of which that of St Lawrence is mentioned as the parish church in 1350. The town originally gathered round the castle of Náchod, of which the first lord was a member of the powerful family of Hron, in the middle of the 13th century. It suffered much during the Hussite Wars, and in 1437 was captured by the celebrated robber knight Kolda of Žampach, and retaken by George of Podebrad in 1456 and included in his estates. It was sold in 1623, and in 1634 given to Ottavio Piccolomini; finally, after many changes of ownership, the castle and titular lordship came in 1840 to the princes of Schaumburg-Lippe. The important engagements fought near the town on the 27th and 28th of June 1866 opened Bohemia to the victorious Prussians.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nádasdy, Tamás I.

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​NÁDASDY, TAMÁS I., Count, called the great palatine (1498–1562), Hungarian statesman, was the son of Francis I. Nádasdy and was educated at Graz, Bologna and Rome. In 1521 he accompanied Cardinal Cajetan (whom the pope had sent to Hungary to preach a crusade against the Turks) to Buda as his interpreter. In 1525 he became a member of the council of state and was sent by King Louis II. to the diet of Spires to ask for help in the imminent Turkish war. During his absence the Mohacs catastrophe took place, and Nádasdy only returned to Hungary in time to escort the queen-widow from Komárom to Pressburg. He was sent to offer the Hungarian crown to the archduke Ferdinand, and on his Coronation (Nov. 3rd, 1527) was made commandant of Buda. On the capture of Buda by Suleiman the Magnificent, Nádasdy went over to John Zapolya. In 1530 he successfully defended Buda against the imperialists. In 1533 his jealousy of the dominant influence of Ludovic Gritti caused him to desert John for Ferdinand, to whom he afterwards remained faithful. He was endowed with enormous estates by the emperor, and from 1537 onwards became Ferdinand’s secret but most influential counsellor. Subsequently, as ban of Croatia-Slavonia, he valiantly defended that border province against the Turks. He did his utmost to promote education, and the school which he founded at Ûj-Sziget, where he also set up a printing-press, received a warm eulogy from Philip Melanchthon. In 1540 Nádasdy was appointed grand-justiciar; in 1547 he presided over the diet of Nagyszombat, and finally, in 1559, was elected palatine by the diet of Pressburg. In his declining years he aided the heroic Miklós Zrinyi against the Turks.
See Mihály Horvath, The Life of Thomas Nádasdy (Hung.) (Buda, 1838); T. Nádasdy, Family correspondence of Thomas Nádasdy (Hung.) (Budapest, 1882). (R. N. B.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ossian

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​OSSIAN, Ossin or Oison, the legendary Irish 3rd-century hero of Celtic literature, son of Finn. According to the legend embodied in the Ossianic or Ossinic poems and prose romances which early spread over Ireland and Scotland, Ossian and his Fenian followers were defeated in 283 at the battle of Gabhra by the Irish king Carbery, and Ossian spent many years in fairyland, eventually being baptized by St Patrick. As Oisin he was long celebrated in Irish song and legend, and in recent years the Irish literary revival has repopularized the Fenian hero. In Scotland the Ossianic revival is associated with the name of James Macpherson (q.v).
See Celt: Literature; also Nutt’s Ossian and the Ossianic Literature (1899).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Osroes

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​OSROES (also Osdroes or Chosroes), the Greek form of the Persian name Khosrau (see Chosroes). The form Osroes is generally used for a Parthian king who from his coins appears to have reigned from about A.D. 106–129, as successor of his brother Pacorus. But during all this time another king, Vologaeses II. (77–147) maintained himself in a part of the kingdom. Osroes occupied Armenia, and placed Exedares, a son of Pacorus, and afterwards his brother Parthamasiris on the throne. This encroachment on the Roman sphere led to the Parthian war of Trajan. In 114 Parthamasiris surrendered to Trajan and was killed. In Mesopotamia a brother of Osroes, Meherdates (Mithradates IV.), and his son Sanatruces II. took the diadem and tried to withstand the Romans. Against them Trajan united with Parthamaspates, whom he placed on the throne, when he had advanced to Ctesiphon (116). But after the death of Trajan (117) Hadrian acknowledged Osroes and made Parthamaspates king of Edessa (Osroene); he also gave back to Osroes his daughter who had been taken prisoner by Trajan (Dio Cass. 68, 17, 22. 33, Malalas, p. 270 ff.; Spartian, Vita Hadr. 5. 13; Pausan. v. 12, 6). But meanwhile Vologaeses II. had regained a dominant position; his coins begin again in 122 and go on to 146, whereas after 121 we have no coins of Osroes except in 128.
By Procopius, Pers. i. 17, 24, the name of the territory of Osroene is derived from a dynast Osroes, but this is a false etymology (see Osroene). (Ed. M.)