OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Caracalla, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

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​CARACALLA (or Caracallus), MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS (186–217), Roman emperor, eldest son of the emperor Septimius Severus, was born at Lugdunum (Lyons) on the 4th of April 186. His original name was Bassianus; his nickname Caracalla was derived from the long Gallic tunic which he wore and introduced into the army. He further received the imperial title of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus at the time when his father declared himself the adopted son of M. Aurelius. After the death of Severus (211) at Eboracum (York) in Britain, Caracalla and his brother Geta, who had accompanied their father, returned to Rome as colleagues in the supreme power. In order to secure the sole authority, Caracalla barbarously murdered his brother in his mother’s arms, and at the same time put to death some 20,000 persons, who were suspected of favouring him, amongst them the jurist Papinianus. An important act of his reign (212) was the bestowal of the rights of Roman citizenship upon all free inhabitants of the empire, although the main object of Caracalla was doubtless to increase the amount of revenue derived from the tax on inheritances or legacies to which only Roman citizens were liable. His own extravagances and the demands of the soldiery were a perpetual drain upon his resources, to meet which he resorted to taxes and extortion of every description. He spent the remainder of his reign wandering from place to place, a mode of life to which he was said to have been driven by the pangs of remorse. Handing over the reins of government to his mother, he set out in 213 for Raetia, where he carried on war against the Alamanni; in 214 he attacked the Goths in Dacia, whence he proceeded by way of Thrace to Asia Minor, and in 215 crossed to Alexandria. Here he took vengeance for the bitter sarcasms of the inhabitants against himself and his mother by ordering a general massacre of the youths capable of bearing arms. In 216 he ravaged Mesopotamia because Artabanus, the Parthian king, refused to give him his daughter in marriage. He spent the winter at Edessa, and in 217, when he recommenced his campaign, he was murdered between Edessa and Carrhae on the 8th of April at the instigation of Opellius (Opilius) Macrinus, praefect of the praetorian guard, who succeeded him. Amongst the numerous buildings with which Caracalla adorned the city, the most famous are the thermae, and the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus in the forum.
Authorities.—Dio Cassius lxxvii., lxxviii.; Herodian iii. 10, iv. 14; lives of Caracalla, Severus and Geta, in Scriptores Historiae Augustae; Eutropius viii. 19-22; Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus, 20-23; Epit. 20-23; Zosimus i. 9-10; H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit (1883), 738 ff.; Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, ii. 2434 ff. (von Rohden).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Caracole

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​CARACOLE (a Fr. word, the origin of which is doubtful, meaning the wheeling about of a horse; in Spanish and Portuguese caracol means a snail with a spiral shell), a turn or wheeling in horsemanship to the left or right, or to both alternately, so that the movements of the horse describe a zig-zag course. The term has been used loosely and erroneously to describe any display of fancy riding. It is also used for a spiral staircase in a tower.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Carapegua

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​CARAPEGUA, an interior town of Paraguay, 37 m. S.E. of Asunción on the old route between that city and the missions. Pop. (est.) 13,000 (probably the population of the large rural district about the town is included in this estimate). The town (founded in 1725) is situated in a fertile country producing cotton, tobacco, Indian corn, sugar-cane and mandioca. It has two schools, a church and modern public buildings.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dasyure

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​DASYURE, a bookname for any member of the zoological family Dasyuridae. (See Marsupialia.) The name is better restricted to animals of the typical genus Dasyurus, sometimes called true Dasyures. These are mostly inhabitants of the Australian continent and Tasmania, where in the economy of nature they take the place of the smaller predaceous Carnivora, the cats, civets and weasels of other parts of the world. They hide themselves in the daytime in holes among rocks or in hollow trees, but prowl about at night in search of the small living mammals and birds which constitute their prey, and are to some extent arboreal in habit. The spot-tailed dasyure (D. maculatus), about the size of a cat, inhabiting Tasmania and Southern Australia, has transversely striated pads on the soles of the feet. These organs are also present in the North Australian dasyure (D. hallucatus) and the Papuan D. albopunctatus, and are regarded by Oldfield Thomas as indication of arboreal habits; in the common dasyure (D. viverrinus) from Tasmania and Victoria, and the black-tailed dasyure (D. geoffroyi) from South Australia, these feet-pads are absent, whence these species are believed to seek their prey on the ground. The ursine dasyure (Sarcophilus ursinus), often called the “Tasmanian Devil,” constitutes a distinct genus. In size it may be compared to an English badger; the general colour of the fur is black tinged with brown, with white patches on the neck, shoulders, rump and chest. It is a burrowing animal, of nocturnal habits, intensely carnivorous, and commits great depredations on the sheepyards and poultry-lofts of the settlers. In writing of this species Krefft says that one—by no means a large one—escaped from confinement and killed in two nights fifty-four fowls, six geese, an albatross and a cat. It was recaptured in what was considered a stout trap, with a door constructed of iron bars as thick as a lead pencil, but escaped by twisting this solid obstacle aside.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Darwen

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​DARWEN, a municipal borough in the Darwen parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 20 m. N.W. from Manchester by the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway. Pop. (1891) 34,192; (1901) 38,212. It lies on the river Darwen, which traverses a densely populated manufacturing district, and is surrounded by high-lying moors. Darwen is a centre of the cotton trade and has also blast furnaces, and paper-making, paper-staining and fire-clay works. In the neighbourhood are collieries and stone quarries. The market hall is the chief public building; there are technical schools, a free library, and two public parks. Darwen was incorporated in 1788. The corporation consists of a mayor, six aldermen and eighteen councillors.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Daráb

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​DARÁB (originally Darábgerd), a district of the province of Fars in Persia. It has sixty-two villages, and possesses a hot climate, snow being rarely seen there in winter. It produces a great quantity of dates and much tobacco, which is considered the best in Persia. The town Daráb, the capital of the district, is situated in a very fertile plain, 140 m. S.E. of Shiraz. It has a population of about 5000, and extensive orchards of orange and lemon trees and immense plantations of date-palms. Legend ascribes the foundation of the city to Darius, hence its name Daráb-gerd (Darius-town). In the neighbourhood there are various remains of antiquity, the most important of which 31/2 m. S., is known as the Kalah i Daráb, or citadel of Darius, and consists of a series of earthworks arranged in a circle round an isolated rock. Nothing, however, remains to fix the date or explain the history of the fortification. Another monument in the vicinity is a gigantic bas-relief, carved on the vertical face of a rock, representing the victory of the Sassanian Shapur I. (Sapor) of Persia over the Roman emperor Valerian, A.D. 260.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dasent, Sir George Webbe

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​DASENT, SIR GEORGE WEBBE (1817–1896), English writer, was born in St Vincent, West Indies, on the 22nd of May 1817, the son of the attorney-general of that island. He was educated at Westminster school, King’s College, and Oxford, where he was a contemporary of J. T. Delane (q.v.), whose friend he had become at King’s College. On leaving the university in 1840 he was appointed to a diplomatic post in Stockholm. Here he met Jacob Grimm, and at his suggestion first interested himself in Scandinavian literature and mythology. In 1842 he published the results of his studies, a version of The Prose or Younger Edda, and in the following year he issued a Grammar of the Icelandic or Old-Norse Tongue, taken from the Swedish. Returning to England in 1845, he became assistant editor of The Times under Delane, whose sister he married; but he still continued his Scandinavian studies, publishing translations of various Norse stories. In 1853 he was appointed professor of English literature and modern history at King’s College, London. In 1861–1862 he visited Iceland, and subsequently published Gisli the Outlaw and other translations from the Icelandic. In 1870 he was appointed a civil service commissioner and consequently resigned his post on The Times. In 1876 he was knighted. He retired from the public service in 1892, and died at Ascot on the 11th of June 1896. In addition to the works mentioned above, he published The Story of Burnt Njal, from the Icelandic of the Njals Saga (1861).
See the Life of Delane (1908), by Arthur Irwin Dasent.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Charles III. (King of Navarre)

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​CHARLES III. (1361–1425), called The Noble, king of Navarre and count of Evreux, was the eldest son of Charles II. the Bad, king of Navarre, by his marriage with Jeanne, daughter of John II., king of France, and was married in 1375 to Leonora (d. 1415), daughter of Henry II., king of Castile. Having passed much of his early life in France, he became king of Navarre on the death of Charles II. in January 1387, and his reign was a period of peace and order, thus contrasting sharply with the long and calamitous reign of his father. In 1393 he regained Cherbourg, which had been handed over by Charles II. to Richard II. of England, and in 1403 he came to an arrangement with the representatives of Charles VI. of France concerning the extensive lands which he claimed in that country. Cherbourg was given to the French king; certain exchanges of land were made; and in the following year Charles III. surrendered the county of Evreux, and was created duke of Nemours and made a peer of France. After this his only interference in the internal affairs of France was when he sought to make peace between the rival factions in that country. Charles sought to improve the condition of Navarre by making canals and rendering the rivers navigable, and in other ways. He died at Olite on the 8th of September 1425 and was buried at Pampeluna. After the death of his two sons in 1402 the king decreed that his kingdom should pass to his daughter Blanche (d. 1441), who took for her second husband John, afterwards John II., king of Aragon; and the cortes of Navarre swore to recognize Charles (q.v.), prince of Viana, her son by this marriage, as king after his mother’s death.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Charles I. and II. (Kings of France)

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​CHARLES I. and II., kings of France. By the French, Charles the Great, Roman emperor and king of the Franks, is reckoned the first of the series of French kings named Charles (see Charlemagne). Similarly the emperor Charles II. the Bald (q.v.) is reckoned as Charles II. of France. In some enumerations the emperor Charles III. the Fat (q.v.) is reckoned as Charles II. of France, Charlemagne not being included in the list, and Charles the Bald being styled Charles I.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Charles III. (King of France)

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​CHARLES III., the Simple (879–929), king of France, was a posthumous son of Louis the Stammerer and of his second wife Adelaide. On the deposition of Charles the Fat in 887 he was excluded from the throne by his youth; but during the reign of Odo, who had succeeded Charles, he succeeded in gaining the recognition of a certain number of notables and in securing his coronation at Reims on the 28th of January 893. He now obtained the alliance of the emperor, and forced Odo to cede part of Neustria. In 898, by the death of his rival (Jan. 1), he obtained possession of the whole kingdom. His most important act was the treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte with the Normans in 911. Some of them were baptized; the territory which was afterwards known as the duchy of Normandy was ceded to them; but the story of the marriage of their chief Rollo with a sister of the king, related by the chronicler Dudo of Saint Quentin, is very doubtful. The same year Charles, on the invitation of the barons, took possession of the kingdom of Lotharingia. In 920 the barons, jealous of the growth of the royal authority and discontented with the favour shown by the king to his counsellor Hagano, rebelled, and in 922 elected Robert, brother of King Odo, in place of Charles. Robert was killed in the battle of ​Soissons, but the victory remained with his party, who elected Rudolph, duke of Burgundy, king. In his extremity Charles trusted himself to Herbert, count of Vermandois, who deceived him, and threw him into confinement at Château-Thierry and afterwards at Péronne. In the latter town he died on the 7th of October 929. In 907 he had married Frederona, sister of Bovo, bishop of Chalons. After her death he married Eadgyfu (Odgiva), daughter of Edward the Elder, king of the English, who was the mother of Louis IV.
See A. Eckel, Charles le Simple (Paris, 1899).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Charles II. (Duke of Lorraine)

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​CHARLES II. (d. 1431), duke of Lorraine, called The Bold, is sometimes referred to as Charles I. A son of Duke John I., he succeeded his father in 1390; but he neglected his duchy and passed his life in warfare. He died on the 25th of January 1431, leaving two daughters, one of whom, Isabella (d. 1453), married René I. of Anjou (1409–1450), king of Naples, who succeeded his father-in-law as duke of Lorraine.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Basti

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​BASTI, a town and district of British India, in the Gorakhpur division of the United Provinces. The town, a collection of villages, is on the river Kuana, 40 m. from Gorakhpur by railway. The population in 1901 was 14,761. It has no municipality. The district has an area of 2792 sq. m. It stretches out in one vast marshy plain, draining towards the south-east, and traversed by the Rapti, Kuana, Banganga, Masdih, Jamwar, Ami and Katneihia rivers. The tract lying between these streams consists of a rich alluvial deposit, more or less subject to inundations, but producing good crops of rice, wheat and barley. In 1901 the population was 1,846,153, showing an increase of 3% in the decade. A railway from Gorakhpur to Gonda runs through the district, and the river Gogra is navigable. A large transit trade is conducted with Nepal. The export trade of the district itself is chiefly in rice, sugar and other agricultural produce.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bassville, Nicolas Jean Hugon de

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​BASSVILLE, or Basseville, NICOLAS JEAN HUGON DE (d. 1793), French journalist and diplomatist, was born at Abbeville on the 7th of February 1753. He was trained for the priesthood, taught theology in a provincial seminary and then went to Paris. Here in 1784 he published Éléments de mythologie and some poems, which brought him into notice. On the recommendation of the prince of Condé he became tutor to two young Americans travelling in Europe. With them he visited Berlin, made the acquaintance there of Mirabeau, and became a member of the Berlin Academy Royal. At the outbreak of the Revolution he turned to journalism, becoming editor of the Mercure international. Then, through the Girondist minister Lebrun-Tondu, he entered the diplomatic service, went in May, 1792, as secretary of legation to Naples and was shortly afterwards sent, without official status, to Rome. Here his conduct was anything but diplomatic. He at once announced himself as the protector of the extreme Jacobins in Rome, demanded the expulsion of the French émigrés who had taken refuge there, including the “demoiselles Capet,” and ordered the fleur-de-lys on the escutcheon of the French embassy to be replaced by a picture of Liberty painted by a French art student. He talked at large of the “purple geese of the Capitol” and met the remonstrances of Cardinal Zelada, the papal secretary of state, with insults. This enraged the Roman populace; a riot broke out on the 13th of January 1793, and Bassville, who was driving with his family to the Corso, was dragged from his carriage and so roughly handled that he died. The affair was magnified in the Convention into a deliberate murder of the “representative of the Republic” by the pope’s orders. In 1797 by an article of the treaty of Tolentino the papal government agreed to pay compensation to Bassville’s family. Among his writings we may also mention Mémoires historiques, critiques et politiques sur la Révolution de France (Paris 1790; English trans. London, 1790).
See F. Masson, Les Diplomates de la Révolution (Paris, 1882); Silvagni, La Corte e la Società romana nei secoli XVIII. e XIX. (Florence, 1881).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bastarnae

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​BASTARNAE, the easternmost people of the Germanic race, the first to come into contact with the ancient world and the Slavs. Originally settled in Galicia and the Bukovina, they appeared on the lower Danube about 200 B.C., and were used by Philip V. of Macedon against his Thracian neighbours. Defeated by these the Bastarnae returned north, leaving some of their number (hence called Peucini) settled on Peuce, an island in the Danube. Their main body occupied the country between the eastern Carpathians and the Danube. As allies of Perseus and of Mithradates the Great, and lastly on their own account, they had hostile relations with the Romans who in the time of Augustus defeated them, and made a peace, which was disturbed by a series of incursions. In these the Bastarnae after a time gave place to the Goths, with whom they seem to have amalgamated, and we last hear of them as transferred by the emperor Probus to the right bank of the Danube. Polybius and the authors who copy him regard the Bastarnae as Galatae; Strabo, having learned of the Romans to distinguish Celts and Germans, first allows a German element; Tacitus expressly declares their German origin but says that the race was degraded by intermarriage with Sarmatians. The descriptions of their bodily appearance, tribal divisions, manner of life and methods of warfare are such as are applied to either race. No doubt they were an outpost of the Germans, and so had absorbed into themselves strong Getic, Celtic and Sarmatian elements. (E. H. M.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bassus, Aufidius

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​BASSUS, AUFIDIUS, a Roman historian, who lived in the reign of Tiberius. His work, which probably began with the civil wars or the death of Caesar, was continued by the elder Pliny, who, as he himself tells us, carried it down at least as far as the end of Nero’s reign. The Bellum Germanicum of Bassus, which is commended, may have been either a separate work or a section of his general history. The elder Seneca speaks highly of him as an historian, but the fragments preserved in that writer’s Suasoriae (vi. 23) relating to the death of Cicero, are characterized by an affected style.
Pliny, Nat. Hist., praefatio, 20; Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus, 23; Quintilian, Instit. x. 1. 103.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bassus, Cassianus

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​BASSUS, CASSIANUS, called Scholasticus (lawyer), one of the geoponici or writers on agricultural subjects. He lived at the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 7th century A.D. He compiled from earlier writers a collection of agricultural literature (Geoponica) which was afterwards revised by an unknown editor and published about the year 950, in the reign of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, to whom the work itself has been ascribed. It contains a full list of the authorities drawn upon, and the subjects treated include agriculture, birds, bees, horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, fishes and the like.
Complete Editions.—Needham (1704), Niclas (1781), Beckh (1895); see also Gemoll in Berliner Studien, i. (1884); Oder in Rheinisches Museum, xlv. (1890), xlviii. (1893), and De Raynal in Annuaire de l’Assoc. pour l’Encouragement des Études Grecques, viii. (1874).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bassus, Caesius

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​BASSUS, CAESIUS, a Roman lyric poet, who lived in the reign of Nero. He was the intimate friend of Persius, who dedicated his sixth satire to him, and whose works he edited (Schol. on Persius, vi. 1). He is said to have lost his life in the eruption of Vesuvius (79). He had a great reputation as a poet; Quintilian (Instit. x. 1. 96) goes so far as to say that, with the exception of Horace, he was the only lyric poet worth reading. He is also identified with the author of a treatise De Metris, of which considerable fragments, probably of an abbreviated edition, are extant (ed. Keil, 1885). The work was probably originally in verse, and afterwards recast or epitomized in prose form to be used as an instruction book. A worthless and scanty account of some of the metres of Horace (in Keil, Grammatici Latini, vi. 305), bearing the title Ars Caesii Bassi de Metris is not by him, but chiefly borrowed by its unknown author from the treatise mentioned above.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bassus, Saleius

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​BASSUS, SALEIUS, Roman epic poet, a contemporary of Valerius Flaccus, in the reign of Vespasian. Quintilian credits him with a vigorous and poetical genius (Instit. x. 1. 90) and Julius Secundus, one of the speakers in Tacitus Dialogus de Oratoribus (5; see also 9) styles him a perfect poet and most illustrious bard. He was apparently overtaken by poverty, but was generously treated by Vespasian, who made him a present of 500,000 sesterces. Nothing from his works has been preserved; the Laus Pisonis, which has been attributed to him, is probably by Titus Calpurnius Siculus (J. Held, De Saleio Basso, 1834).