and which was doubtless distinct from all the rest, though no specimen of it is known to exist in any museum.[1] Another species, O. sylvestris, smaller and lighter in colour than any of the rest, was found in 1869 to linger yet in Lord Howe's Island (Proc. Zool. Society, 1869, p. 473, pl. xxxv.). Somewhat differing from Ocydromus, but apparently very nearly allied to it, is a little bird peculiar, it is believed, to the Chatham Islands (Ibis, 1872, p. 247), and regarded by Captain Hutton as the type of a genus Cabalus under the name of C. modestus, while other naturalists consider it to be the young of the rare Rallus dieffenbachi. So far the distribution of the Ocydromine form is wholly in accordance with that of most others characteristic of the New Zealand sub-region; but a curious exception is asserted to have been found in the Gallirallus lafresnayanus of New Caledonia, which, though presenting some structural differences, has been referred to the genus Ocydromus.
The chief interest attaching to the Ocydromes is their inability to use in flight the wings with which they are furnished, and hence an extreme probability of the form becoming wholly extinct in a short time. Of this inability there are other instances among the Rallidae (see Moor-Hen); but here we have coupled with it the curious fact that in the skeleton the angle which the scapula makes with the coracoid is greater than a right angle, a peculiarity shared only, so far as is known, among the Carinatae by the dodo. The Ocydromes are birds of dull plumage, and mostly of retiring habits, though the common species is said to show great boldness towards man, and, from the accounts of Cook and the younger Forster, the birds seen by them displayed little fear. They are extremely destructive to eggs and to any other birds they can master. (A. N.)
ODAENATHUS, or Odenatus (Gr. Όδαίναθος, Palm, איבה = “little ear”), the Latinized form of Odainath, the name of a famous prince of Palmyra, in the second half of the 3rd century A.D., who succeeded in recovering the Roman East from the Persians and restoring it to the Empire. He belonged to the leading family of Palmyra, which bore, in token of Roman citizenship, the gentilicium of Septimius; hence his full name was Septimius Odainath (Vogüé, Syrie centrale, Nos. 23, 28 = Cooke, North-Semitic Inscrr. Nos. 126, 130). It is practically certain that he was the son of Septimius Ḥairān the “senator and chief of Tadmor,” the son of Septimius Odainath “the senator” (N.S.I. p. 285). The year when he became chief of Palmyra is not known, but already in an inscription dated A.D. 258 he is styled “the illustrious consul our lord” (N.S.I. No. 126). He possessed the characteristic vigour and astuteness of the old Arab stock from which he sprang; and in his wife, the renowned Zenobia (q.v.), he found an able supporter of his policy. The defeat and captivity of the emperor Valerian (A.D. 260) left the eastern provinces largely at the mercy of the Persians; the prospect of Persian supremacy was not one which Palmyra or its prince had any reason to desire. At first, it seems, Odainath attempted to propitiate the Parthian monarch Shāpūr (Sapor) I.; but when his gifts were contemptuously rejected (Petr. Patricius, § 10) he decided to throw in his lot with the cause of Rome. The neutrality which had made Palmyra's fortune was abandoned for an active military policy which, while it added to Odainath's fame, in a short time brought his native city to its ruin. He fell upon the victorious Persians returning home after the sack of Antioch, and before they could cross the Euphrates inflicted upon them a considerable defeat. Then, when two usurping emperors were proclaimed in the East (A.D. 261), Odainath took the side of Gallienus the son and successor of Valerian, attacked and put to death the usurper Quietus at Emesa (Ḥömṣ), and was rewarded for his loyalty by the grant of an exceptional position (A.D. 262). He may have assumed the title of king before; but he now became “totius Orientis imperator,” not indeed joint-ruler, nor Augustus, but “independent lieutenant of the emperor for the East” (Mommsen, Provinces, ii. p. 103).[2] In a series of rapid and successful campaigns, during which he left Palmyra under the charge of Septimius Worod his deputy (N.S.I. Nos. 127-129), he crossed the Euphrates and relieved Edessa, recovered Nisibis and Carrhae, and even took the offensive against the power of Persia, and twice invested Ctesiphon itself, the capital; probably also he brought back Armenia into the Empire. These brilliant successes restored the Roman rule in the East; and Gallienus did not disdain to hold a triumph with the captives and trophies which Odainath had won (A.D. 264). While observing all due formalities towards his overlord, there can be little doubt that Odainath aimed at independent empire; but during his lifetime no breach with Rome occurred. He was about to start for Cappadocia against the Goths when he was assassinated, together with Herōdes his eldest son, by his nephew Maconius; there is no reason to suppose that this deed of violence was instigated from Rome. After his death (A.D. 266-267) Zenobia succeeded to his position, and practically governed Palmyra on behalf of her young son Wahab-allath or Athenodorus (see Palmyra). (G. A. C.*)
ODALISQUE, a slave-woman who is a member of an oriental harem, especially one in the harem or seraglio of the sultan of Turkey. The word is the French adaptation of the Turkish ōdaliq, formed from ōdah, chamber or room in a harem.
ODD (in middle English odde, from old Norwegian oddi, an angle of a triangle; the old Norwegian oddamann is used of the third man who gives a casting vote in a dispute), that which remains over after an equal division, the unit in excess of an even number; thus in numeration the word is used of a number either above or below a round number, an indefinite cardinal number, as “eighty and odd,” or “eighty odd.” As applied to individuals, the sense of “one left after a division” leads to that of “solitary,” and thus of “uncommon” or “strange.” In the plural, “odds” was originally used to denote inequalities especially in the phrase “to make odds even.” The sense of a difference in benefit leads to such colloquialisms as “makes no odds,” while that of variance appears in the expression “to be at odds.” In betting “the odds” is the advantage given by one person to another in proportion to the supposed chances of success.
ODDE, or Odda, a village of Norway, in South Bergenhus amt (county), on the Sör Fjord, a head-branch of the great Hardanger Fjord. It is 48 m. directly S.E. of Bergen, but 123 by water (to Eide), road (to Vossevangen), and rail thenceforward, or about the same distance by water alone. It is one of the principal tourist-centres in southern Norway, being at the end of the road from Breifond (27 m.) near which the routes join from Stavanger by Sand, Lake Suldal, and the Bratlandsdal, and from the south-eastern coast towns by the Telemark. This road, descending from the Horrebraekke, passes through the gorge of Seljestadjuvet, passes the Espelandsfos and Lotefos falls, and skirts the Sandven lake. Odde is also a centre for several favourite excursions, as to the Buarbrae, one of the glaciers descending from the great Folgefond snowfield, situated in a precipitous valley (Jordal) to the west of Sandven lake; to the Skjaeggedalsfos, a magnificent fall (525 ft.); or across the Folgefond to Suldal, a station on the Mauranger branch of the Hardanger fjord. Touring steamers and frequent local steamers from Bergen call at Odde, and there are several large hotels.
- ↑ The younger Forster remarked that the birds of Norfolk Island, though believed by the other naturalists of Cook's ship to be generally the same as those of New Zealand, were distinguished by their brighter colouring (see also Nestor). There can be no doubt that all the land-birds were specifically distinct. It is possible that Sparrman's R. australis, which cannot very confidently be referred to any known species of Ocydromus, may have been from Norfolk island.
- ↑ The late Roman chronicler Trebellius Pollio goes further and asserts “Odenatus rex Palmyrenorum optinuit totius Orientis imperium. . . . Gallienus Odenatum participato imperio Augustum vocavit,” Hist. Aug. xxiii. 10 and 12, This is not borne out by the evidence. The highest rank claimed for him by his own people is recorded in an inscription dated 271 (N.S.I. No. 130) set up by the two generals of the Palmyrene army; Odainath is styled “king of kings and restorer of the whole city”; but this does not mean that he ever held the title of Augustus, and the inscription was set up after his death and during the revolt of Palmyra.
