the muscles or cover various parts or organs in the body, and in zoology, and particularly in ornithology, to bands or stripes of colour. In architecture the word is used of the bands into which the architrave of the Ionic and Corinthian orders is subdivided; their origin would seem to have been derived from the superimposing of two or more beams of timber to span the opening between columns and to support a superincumbent weight; the upper beam projected slightly in front of the lower, and similar projections were continued in the stone or marble beam though in one block. In the Roman Corinthian order the fasciae, still projecting one in front of the other, were subdivided by small mouldings sometimes carved. The several bands are known as the first or upper fascia, the second or middle fascia and the third or lower fascia. The term is sometimes applied to flat projecting bands in Renaissance architecture when employed as string courses. It is also used, though more commonly in the form “facia,” of the band or plate over a shop-front, on which the name and occupation of the tradesman is written.
FASCINATION (from Lat. fascinare, to bewitch, probably connected with the Gr. βασκαίνειν, to speak ill of, to bewitch), the art of enchanting or bewitching, especially through the influence of the “evil eye,” and so properly of the exercise of an evil influence over the reason or will. The word is thus used of the supposed paralysing attraction exercised by some reptiles on their victims. It is also applied to a particular hypnotic condition, marked by muscular contraction, but with consciousness and power of remembrance left. In a quite general sense, fascination means the exercise of any charm or strong attraction.
FASCINE (from the Lat. fascina, fascis, a bundle of sticks), a large faggot of brushwood used in the revetments of earthworks and for other purposes of military engineering. The British service pattern of fascine is 18 ft. long; it is tied as tightly as possible at short intervals, and the usual diameter is 9 in. Similar bundles of wood formed part of the foundations of the early lake-dwellings, and in modern engineering fascines are used in making rough roads over marshy ground and in building river and sea walls and breakwaters.
FASHION (adapted from Fr. façon, Lat. factio, making, facere, to do or make), the action of making, hence the shape or form which anything takes in the process of making. It is thus used in the sense of the pattern, kind, sort, manner or mode in which a thing is done. It is particularly used of the common or customary way in which a thing is done, and so is applied to the manner or custom prevalent at or characteristic of a particular period, especially of the manner of dress, &c., current at a particular period in any rank of society, for which the French term is modes (see Costume).
FASHODA (renamed, 1904, Kodok), a post on the west bank of the Upper Nile, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, in 9° 53′ N., 32° 8′ E., 459 m. S., by river, of Khartum. It is the headquarters of the mudiria (province) of the Upper Nile. The station is built on a flat peninsula connected by a narrow strip of land with a ridge which runs parallel with the river. The surrounding country is mostly deep swamp and the station is most unhealthy; mosquitoes are present in millions. The climate is always damp and the temperature rarely below 98° in the shade. The government offices are well-built brick structures. In front of the station is a long low island, and when the Nile is at its lowest this channel becomes dry. Several roads from Kordofan converge on the Nile at this point, and near the station is the residence of the mek, or king, of the Shilluk tribe, whose designation of the post was adopted when it was decided to abandon the use of Fashoda. At Lul, 18 m. farther up stream, is an Austrian Roman Catholic mission station.
An Egyptian military post was established at Fashoda in 1865. It was then a trading station of some importance, slaves being the chief commodity dealt in. In 1883–1884 the place fell into the hands of the Mahdists. On the 10th of July 1898 it was occupied by a French force from the Congo under Commandant J. B. Marchand, a circumstance which gave rise to a state of great tension between Great Britain and France. On the 11th of December following the French force withdrew, returning home via Abyssinia (see Africa, § 5, and Egypt: History, and Military Operations).
FAST AND LOOSE, a cheating game played at fairs by sharpers. A strap, usually in the form of a belt, is rolled or doubled up with a loop in the centre, and laid edgewise on a table. The swindler then bets that the loop cannot be caught with a stick or skewer as he unrolls the belt. As this looks to be easy to do the bet is often taken, but the sharper unrolls the belt in such a manner as to make the catching of the loop practically impossible. Centuries ago it was much practised by gipsies, a circumstance alluded to by Shakespeare in Anthony and Cleopatra (iv. 12):
“Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose, |
From this game is taken the colloquial expression “to play fast and loose.” At the present day it is called “prick the garter” or “prick the loop.”
FASTI, in Roman antiquities, plural of the Latin adjective fastus, but more commonly used as a substantive, derived from fas, meaning what is binding, or allowable, by divine law, as opposed to jus, or human law. Fasti dies thus came to mean the days on which law business might be transacted without impiety, corresponding to our own “lawful days”; the opposite of the dies fasti were the dies nefasti, on which, on various religious grounds, the courts could not sit. The word fasti itself then came to be used to denote lists or registers of various kinds, which may be divided into two great classes.
1. Fasti Diurni, divided into urbani and rustici, a kind of official year-book, with dates and directions for religious ceremonies, court-days, market-days, divisions of the month, and the like. Until 304 B.C. the lore of the calendaria remained the exclusive and lucrative monopoly of the priesthood; but in that year Gnaeus Flavius, a pontifical secretary, introduced the custom of publishing in the forum tables containing the requisite information, besides brief references to victories, triumphs, prodigies, &c. This list was the origin of the public Roman calendar, in which the days were divided into weeks of eight days each, and indicated by the letters A-H. Each day was marked by a certain letter to show its nature; thus the letters F., N., N.P., F.P., Q. Rex C.F., C., EN., stood for fastus, nefastus, nefastus in some unexplained sense, fastus priore, quando rex (sacrorum) comitiavit fastus, comitialis and intercisus. The dies intercisi were partly fasti and partly nefasti. Ovid’s Fasti is a poetical description of the Roman festivals of the first six months, written to illustrate the Fasti published by Julius Caesar after he remodelled the Roman year. Upon the cultivators fewer feasts, sacrifices, ceremonies and holidays were enjoined than on the inhabitants of cities; and the rustic fasti contained little more than the ceremonies of the calends, nones and ides, the fairs, signs of zodiac, increase and decrease of the days, the tutelary gods of each month, and certain directions for rustic labours to be performed each month.
2. Fasti Magistrales, Annales or Historici, were concerned with the several feasts, and everything relating to the gods, religion and the magistrates; to the emperors, their birthdays, offices, days consecrated to them, with feasts and ceremonies established in their honour or for their prosperity. They came to be denominated magni, by way of distinction from the bare calendar, or fasti diurni. Of this class, the fasti consulares, for example, were a chronicle or register of time, in which the several years were denoted by the respective consuls, with the principal events which happened during their consulates. The fasti triumphales and sacerdotales contained a list in chronological order of persons who had obtained a triumph, together with the name of the conquered people, and of the priests. The word fasti thus came to be used in the general sense of “annals” or “historical records.” A famous specimen of the same class are the fasti Capitolini, so called because they were deposited in the Capitol by Alexander Farnese, after their excavation from the Roman forum in 1547. They are chiefly a nominal list of statesmen, victories, triumphs, &c., from the expulsion of the kings to the death of Augustus. A considerable number of fasti
