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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oppian

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​OPPIAN (Gr. Ὀππιᾶνός), the name of the authors of two (or three) didactic poems in Greek hexameters, formerly identified, but now generally regarded as two different persons, (1) Oppian of Corycus (or Anabarzus) in Cilicia, who flourished in the reign of Marcus Aurelius (emperor A.D. 161–180). According to an anonymous biographer, his father, having incurred the displeasure of Lucius Verus, the colleague of Aurelius, by neglecting to pay his respects to him when he visited the town, was banished to Malta. Oppian, who had accompanied his father into exile, returned after the death of Verus (169) and went on a visit to Rome. Here he presented his poems to Aurelius, who was so pleased with them that he gave the author a piece of gold for each line, took him into favour and pardoned his father. Oppian subsequently returned to his native country, but died of the plague shortly afterwards, at the early age of thirty. His contemporaries erected a statue in his honour, with an inscription which is still extant, containing a lament for his premature death and a eulogy of his precocious genius. His poem on fishing (Halieutica), of about 3500 lines, dedicated to Aurelius and his son Commodus, is still extant. (2) Oppian of Apamea (or Pella) in Syria. His extant poem on hunting (Cynegetica) is dedicated to the emperor Caracalla, so that it must have been written after 211. It consists of about 2150 lines, and is divided into four books, the last of which seems incomplete. The author evidently knew the Halieutica, and perhaps intended his poem as a supplement. Like his namesake, he shows considerable knowledge of his subject and close observation of nature; but in style and poetical merit he is inferior to him. His versification also is less correct. The improbability of there having been two poets of the same name, writing on subjects so closely akin and such near contemporaries, may perhaps be explained by assuming that the real name of the author of the Cynegetica was not Oppian, but that he has been confounded with his predecessor. In any case, it seems clear that the two were not identical.
A third poem on bird-catching (Ixeutica, from ίξός, bird-lime), also formerly attributed to an Oppian, is lost; a paraphrase in Greek prose by a certain Eutecnius is extant. The author is probably one Dionysius, who is mentioned by Suïdas as the author of a treatise on stones (Lithiaca).
The chief modern editions are J. G. Schneider (1776); F. S. Lehrs (1846); U. C. Bussemaker (Scholia, 1849); (Cynegetica) P. Boudreaux (1908). The anonymous biography referred to above will be found in A. Westermann’s Biographi Graeci (1845). On the subject generally see A. Martin, Études sur la vie et les œuvres d’Oppien de Cilicie (1863); A. Ausfeld, De Oppiano et scriptis sub ejus nomine traditis (1876). There are translations of the Halieutica, in English by Diaper and Jones (1722), and in French by E. J. Bourquin (1877).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Optics

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​OPTICS, the science of light, regarded as the medium of sight (Gr. ὄψις). Generally the noun is qualified by an adjective so as to delimitate the principal groups of optical phenomena, e.g. geometrical optics, physical optics, meteorological optics, &c. Greek terminology included two adjectival forms—τὰ ὀπτικά, for all optical phenomena, including vision and the nature of light, and ἡ ὀπτική (sc. θεωρία), for the objective study of light, i.e. the nature of light itself and the theory of vision. See Light and Vision.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Option

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​OPTION (Lat. optio, choice, choosing, optare, to choose), the action of choosing or thing chosen, choice or power or opportunity of making a choice. The word had a particular meaning in ecclesiastical law, where it was used of a right claimed by an archbishop to select one benefice from the diocese of a newly appointed bishop, the next presentation to which would fall to his, the archbishop’s, patronage. This right was abolished by various statutes in the early part of the 19th century. As a term in stock-exchange operations, “option” is used to express the privilege given to conclude a bargain at some future time at an agreed-upon price (see Call and Stock Exchange). The phrase “local option” has been specifically used in politics of the power given to the electorate of a particular district to choose whether licences for the sale of intoxicating liquor should be granted or not. This form of “local option” has been also and more rightly termed “local veto” (see Liquor Laws).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oppeln

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​OPPELN (Polish, Oppolic), a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, lies on the right bank of the Oder, 51 m. S.E. of Breslau, on the railway to Kattowitz, and at the junction of lines to Beuthen, Neisse and Tarnowitz. Pop. (1905) 30,769. It is the seat of the provincial administration of Upper Silesia, and contains the oldest Christian church in the district, that of St Adalbert, founded at the dose of the 10th century. It has two other churches and a ducal 15th-century palace on an island in the Oder. The most prominent among the other buildings are the offices of the district authorities, the town hall, the normal seminary and the hospital of St Adalbert. The Roman Catholic gymnasium is established in an old Jesuit college. The industries of Oppeln include the manufacture of Portland cement, machinery, beer, soap, cigars and lime; trade is carried on by rail and river in cattle, grain and the vast mineral output of the district, of which Oppeln is the chief centre. The upper classes speak German, the lower Polish.
Oppeln was a flourishing place at the beginning of the 11th century, and became a town in 1228. It was the capital of the duchy of Oppeln and the residence of the duke from 1163 to 1532, when the ruling family became extinct. Then it passed to Austria, and with the rest of Silesia was ceded to Prussia in 1742.
See Idzikowski, Geschichte der Stadt Oppeln (Oppeln, 1863); and Vogt, Oppeln beim Eintritt in das Jahr 1900 (Oppeln, 1900).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oppius, Gaius

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​OPPIUS, GAIUS, an intimate friend of Julius Caesar. He managed the dictator’s private affairs during his absence from Rome, and, together with L. Cornelius Balbus, exercised considerable influence in the city. According to Suetonius (Caesar, 56), many authorities considered Oppius to have written the histories of the Spanish, African and Alexandrian wars which are printed among the works of Caesar. It is now generally held that he may possibly be the author of the last (although the claims of Hirtius are considered stronger), but certainly not of the two first, although Niebuhr confidently assigned the Bellum Africanum to him; the writer of these took an actual part in the wars they described, whereas Oppius was in Rome at the time. He also wrote a life of Caesar and the elder
For a discussion of the whole question, see M. Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Literatur, pt. i. p. 210 (2nd ed., 1898}; Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Literature (Eng. trans.), § 197; see also Cicero, Letters, ed. Tyrrell and Purser, iv. introd. p. 69.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oppert, Julius

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​OPPERT, JULIUS (1825–1905), German Assyriologist, was born at Hamburg, of Jewish parents, on the 9th of July 1825. After studying at Heidelberg, Bonn and Berlin, he graduated at Kiel in 1847, and in the following year went to France, where he was teacher of German at Laval and at Reims. His leisure was given to Oriental studies, in which he had made great progress in Germany, and in 1852 he joined Fresnel’s archaeological expedition to Mesopotamia. On his return in 1854 he occupied himself in digesting the results of the expedition in so far as they concerned cuneiform inscriptions, and published an important work upon them (Déchriffrement des inscriptions cunéiformes, 1861). In 1857 he was appointed professor of Sanscrit in the school of languages connected with the National Library in Paris, and in this capacity he produced a Sanscrit grammar; but his attention was chiefly given to Assyrian and cognate subjects, and he was especially prominent in establishing the Turanian character of the language originally spoken in Assyria. In 1869 Oppert was appointed professor of Assyrian philology and archaeology at the Collège de France. In 1865 he published a history of Assyria and Chaldaea in the light of the results of the different exploring expeditions. At a later period he devoted much attention to the language and antiquities of ancient Media, writing Le Peuple et la langue des Mèdes (1879). He died in Paris on the 21st of August 1905. Oppert was a voluminous writer upon Assyrian mythology and jurisprudence, and other subjects connected with the ancient civilizations of the East. Among his other works may be mentioned: Éléments de la grammar assyrienne (1868); L’Immortalité de l’âme chez les Chaldéens, (1875); Salomon et ses successeurs (1877); and, with J. Ménant, Doctrines juridiques de l’Assyrie el de la Chaldée (1877).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Poperinghe

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POPERINGHE, an ancient town of West Flanders, 12 m. W. of Ypres, Pop. (1904), 11,680. It contains a fine church of the 11th century, dedicated to St Betin. In the 14th century it promised to be one of the principal communes in Flanders; but having incurred the resentment of Ypres on a matter of trade rivalry it was attacked and captured by the citizens of that place, who reduced it to a very subordinate position. There are extensive hop gardens, bleaching grounds and tanneries in the neighborhood of the town.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Popham, Sir John

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​POPHAM, SIR JOHN (c. 1531–1607), English judge, was born at Huntworth, in Somerset, about 1531. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and called to the bar at the Middle Temple. Concerning his early life little is known, but he was probably a member of the parliament of 1558. He was recorder of Bristol, and represented that city in parliament in 1571 and from 1572 to 1583. He was elected Speaker in 1580, and in 1581 became attorney-general, a post which he occupied until his appointment as lord chief justice in 1592. He presided at the trials of Sir Walter Raleigh and Guy Fawkes. Towards the end of his life Popham took a great interest in colonization, and was instrumental in procuring patents for the London and Plymouth companies for the colonization of Virginia. Popham was an advocate, too, of transportation abroad as a means of punishing rogues and vagabonds. His experiment in that direction, the Popham colony, an expedition under the leadership of his brother George (c. 1550–1608), had, however, but a brief career in its settlement (1607) on the Kennebec river. Popham died on the 10th of June 1607, and was buried at Wellington, Somerset.
See Foss, Lives of the Judges; J. Winsor, History of America, vol. iii.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pope-Joan

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​POPE-JOAN, a round game of cards, named after a legendary female Pope of the 9th century. An ordinary pack is used, from which the eight of diamonds has been removed, and a special round board in the form of eight compartments, named respectively Pope-Joan, Matrimony, Intrigue, Ace, King, Queen, Knave and Game (King, Queen and Knave are sometimes omitted). Each player—any number can play—contributes a stake, of which one counter is put into the divisions Ace, King, Queen, Knave and Game, two into Matrimony and Intrigue, and the rest into Pope-Joan. This is called “dressing the board.” The cards are dealt round, with an extra hand for “stops,” i.e. cards which stop, by their absence, the completion of a suit; thus the absence of the nine of spades stops the playing of the ten. The last card is turned up for trumps. Cards in excess may be dealt to “stops,” or an agreed number may be left for the purpose, so that all players may have an equal number of cards. If an honour or “Pope” (nine of diamonds) is turned up, the dealer takes the counters in the compartment so marked. Sometimes the turning-up of Pope settles the hand, the dealer taking the whole pool. The Ace is the lowest card, the King the highest. The player on the dealer’s left plays a card and names it; the player who has the next highest then plays it, till a stop is played, i.e. a card of which no one holds the next highest. All Kings are of course stops, also the seven of diamonds; also the cards next below the dealt stops, and the cards next below the played cards. After a stop the played cards are turned over, and the player of the stop (the card last played) leads again. The player who gets rid of all his cards first takes the counters in “Game,” and receives a counter from each player for every card left in his hand, except from the player who may hold Pope but has not played it. The player of Ace, King, Queen or Knave of trumps takes the counters from that compartment. If King and Queen of trumps are in one hand, the holder takes the counters in “Matrimony”; if a Queen and Knave, those in “Intrigue”; if all three, those in the two compartments; if they are in different hands these counters are sometimes divided. Unclaimed stakes are left for the next pool. Pope is sometimes considered a universal “stop.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Poplin

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POPLIN, or Tabinet, a mixed textile fabric consisting of a silk warp with a weft of worsted yarn. As the weft is in the form of a stout cord the fabric has a ridged structure, like rep, which gives depth and softness to the lustre of the silky surface. Poplins are used for dress purposes, and for rich upholstery work. The manufacture is of French origin; but it was brought to England by the Huguenots, and has long been specially associated with Ireland. The French manufacturers distinguish between popelines unies or plain poplins and popelines à dispositions or Écossaises, equivalent to Scotch tartans, in both of which a large trade is done with the United States from Lyons.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pope, Sir Thomas

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​POPE, SIR THOMAS (c. 1507–1559), founder of Trinity College, Oxford, was born at Deddington, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, probably in 1507, for he was about sixteen years old when his father, a yeoman farmer, died in 1523. He was educated at Banbury school and Eton College, and entered the court of chancery. He there found a friend and patron in the lord chancellor Thomas Audley. As clerk of briefs in the star chamber, warden of the mint (1534–1536), clerk of the Crown in Chancery (1537), and second officer and treasurer of the court for the settlement of the confiscated property of the smaller religious foundations, he obtained wealth and influence. In this last office he was superseded in 1541, but from 1547 to 1553 he was again employed as fourth officer. He himself won by grant or purchase a considerable share in the spoils, for nearly thirty manors, which came sooner or later into his possession, were originally church property. “He could have rode,” said Aubrey, “in his owne lands from Cogges (by Witney) to Banbury, about 18 miles.” In 1537 he was knighted. The religious changes made by Edward VI. were repugnant to him, but at the beginning of Mary’s reign he became a member of the privy council. In 1556 he was sent to reside as guardian in Elizabeth’s house. As early as 1555 he had begun to arrange for the endowment of a college at Oxford, for which he bought the site and buildings of Durham College, the Oxford house of the abbey of Durham, from Dr George Owen and William Martyn. He received a royal charter for the establishment and endowment of a college of the “Holy and Undivided Trinity” on the 8th of March 1556. The foundation provided for a president, twelve fellows and eight scholars, with a schoolhouse at Hooknorton. The number of scholars was subsequently increased to twelve, the schoolhouse being given up. On the 28th of March the members of the college were put in possession of the site, and they were formally admitted on the 29th of May 1556. Pope died at Clerkenwell on the 29th of January 1559, and was buried at St Stephen’s, ​Walbrook; but his remains were subsequently removed to Trinity College, where his widow erected a semi-Gothic alabaster monument to his memory. He was three times married, but left no children. Much of his property was left to charitable and religious foundations, and the bulk of his Oxfordshire estates passed to the family of his brother, John Pope of Wroxton, and his descendants, the viscounts Dillon and the earls of Guilford and barons North.
The life, by H. E. D. Blakiston, in the Dict. Nat. Biog., corrects many errors in Thomas Warton’s Life of Sir Thomas Pope (1772). Further notices by the same authority are in his Trinity College (1898), in the “College Histories” Series, and in the English Historical Review (April, 1896).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Popilia, Via

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​POPILIA (or Popillia), VIA, the name of two ancient roads in Italy. (1) A highroad running from the Via Appia at Capua to Regium, a distance of 321 m. right along the length of the peninsula, and the main road through the interior of the country, not along the coast. It was built in 159 B.C. by the censor M. Popilius Laenias or in 132 B.C. by the consul P. Popilius. (2) A ​highroad from Ariminum to Aquileia along the Adriatic coast. It no doubt originally came into use when Aquileia was founded as a frontier fortress of Italy in 181 B.C., and Polybius gives the distance correctly as 178 m. In 132 it was reconstructed (munita) by the consul P. Popilius, one of whose milestones has been found near Atria. It ran along the shore strip (Lido) from Ariminum to Ravenna (33 m.), where it was usual in imperial times for travellers to take ship and go by canal to Altinum (q.v.), and there resume their journey by road, though we find the stations right through on the Tabula Peutingeriana, and Narses marched in 552 from Aquileia to Ravenna. (T. As.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Popinjay

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​POPINJAY (O. Fr. papegai, or popinjay, onomatopoeic, original), an old name for a parrot. Except in its transferred sense of a dressed-up, vain or conceited, empty-headed person, the word is now only used historically of a representation or image of a parrot swinging from a high pole and used as a mark for archery or shooting matches. This shooting at the popinjay (see Archery) was formerly a favourite sport. “Popinjay” is still the proper heraldic term for a parrot as a bearing or charge.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Poplar (borough)

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​POPLAR, an eastern metropolitan borough of London, England, bounded N. by Hackney, S. by the river Thames, and W. by Stepney and Bethnal Green, and extending E. to the boundary of the county of London. Pop. (1901), 168,822. The river Lea, which the eastern boundary generally follows, is believed to have been crossed towards the north of the modern borough by a Roman road, the existence of which is recalled by the district-name of Old Ford; while Bow (formerly Stratford-le-Bow or Stratford-atte-Bowe) was so named from the “bow” or arched bridge which took the place of the ford in the time of Henry II. South of these districts lies Bromley; in the south-east the borough includes Blackwall; and a deep southward bend of the Thames here embraces the Isle of Dogs. Poplar falls within the great area commonly associated with a poor and densely crowded population under the name of the “East End.” It is a district of narrow, squalid streets and mean houses, among which, however, the march of modern improvement may be seen in the erection of model dwellings, mission houses and churches, and various public buildings. In the north a part of Victoria Park is included. In Blackwall and the Isle of Dogs streets give place to the extensive East and West India Docks (opened in 1806) and Millwall Dock, with shipbuilding, engineering, chemical and other works along the river. Blackwall has been a shipping centre from early times. From the south of the Isle of Dogs (the portion called Cubitt Town) a tunnel for foot-passengers (1902) connects with Greenwich on the opposite shore of the Thames, and lower down the river is the fine Blackwall tunnel, carrying a wide roadway, completed by the London County Council in 1897 at a cost, inclusive of incidental expenses, of £1,383,502. Among institutions the Poplar Accidents Hospital may be mentioned. Near the East India Docks is the settlement of St Frideswide, supported by Christ Church, Oxford. In Canning Town, which continues this district of poverty across the Lea, and so outside the county of London, are Mansfield House, founded from Mansfield College, Oxford; and a Women's Settlement, especially notable for its medical work. The metropolitan borough of Poplar includes the Bow and Bromley and the Poplar divisions of the Tower Hamlets parliamentary borough, each returning one member. The borough council consists of a mayor, 7 aldermen and 42 councillors. Area, 2327·7 acres.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Stofflet, Jean Nicolas

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​STOFFLET, JEAN NICOLAS (1751–1796), Vendean general, was born at Luneville, the son of a miller. Long a private soldier in a Swiss regiment in France, and afterwards gamekeeper to the comte de Colbert-Maulevrier, he joined the Vendéans when they rose against the Revolution to defend their religious and royalist principles. During the war in La Vendée he served first under Gigot d'Elbée, fought at Fontenay, Cholet and Saumur, and distinguished himself at the battles of Beaupréau, Laval and Antrain. He was appointed major-general of the royalist army, and in 1794 succeeded La Rochejaquelein as commander-in-chief. But his quarrels with another Vendean leader, F. A. Charette, and the reverses sustained by the Vendéan arms, led him to give in his submission and to accept the terms of the treaty of La Jaunaie (May 2, 1795). He, however, soon violated this treaty, and at the instigation of royalist agents took arms in December 1795 on behalf of the count of Provence (the future Louis XVIII.), from whom he had received the rank of maréchal-de-camp. This last attempt of Stofflet's failed completely. He was taken prisoner by the republicans, condemned to death by a military commission, and shot at Angers on the 23rd of February 1796.
See General d'Andigné, Mémoires, edited by E. Biré (1900–1901); C. Loyer, "Cholet sous la domination de Stofilet," in L’Anjou historique, vol. iii. (1902–1903).