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SALIMBENE—SALISBURY, EARLS OF
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a second college of twelve, Salii Agonales or Collini, said to have been added by Tullus Hostilius; the Palatini were consecrated to Mars, the Collini to Quirinus. All the members were patricians, vacancies being filled by co-optation from young men whose parents were both living; membership was for life, subject to certain exceptions. The officials of the college were the magister, the praesul, and the vates (the leaders in dance and song).

Each college had the care of twelve sacred shields called ancilia. According to the story, during the reign of Numa a small oval shield fell from heaven, and Numa, in order to prevent its being stolen, had eleven others made exactly like it. They were the work of a smith named Mamurius Veturius, probably identical with the god Mamers (Mars) himself. These twelve shields (amongst which was the original one) were in charge of the Salii Palatini. The greater part of March (the birth-month of Mars), beginning from the 1st, on which day the ancile was said to have fallen from heaven and the campaigning season began, was devoted to various ceremonies connected with the Salii. On the 1st, they marched in procession through the city, dressed in an embroidered tunic, a brazen breastplate and a peaked cap; each carried a sword by his side and a short staff in his right hand, with which the shield, borne on the left arm, was struck from time to time. A halt was made at the altars and temples, where the Salii, singing a special chant, danced a war dance. Every day the procession stopped at certain stations (mansiones), where the shields were deposited for the night, and the Salii partook of a banquet (see Horace, Odes, i. 37. 2). On the next day the procession passed on to another mansio; this continued till the 24th, when the shields were replaced in their sacrarium. During this period the Salii took part in certain other festivities: the Equirria (Ecurria) on the 14th, a chariot race in honour of Mars on the Campus Martius (in later times called Mamuralia, in honour of Mamurius), at which a skin was beaten with staves in imitation of hammering; the Quinquatrus on the 19th, a one-day festival, at which the shields were cleansed; the Tubilustrium on the 23rd, when the trumpets of the priests were purified. On the 19th of October, at the Armilustrium or purification of arms, the ancilia were again brought out and then put away for the winter. The old chant of the Salii, called axamenta, was written in the old Saturnian metre, in language so archaic that even the priests themselves could hardly understand it.

See Quintilian, Instit. i. 6. 40; also J. Wordsworth, Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin (1874). The best account of the Salii generally will be found in Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, iii. (1885) pp. 427-433.


SALIMBENE, or more usually Salimbene of Parma (1221–c. 1290), the name taken by the Italian writer, Ognibene di Guido di Adamo. The son of a crusader, Gui di Adamo, and born at Parma on the 9th of October 1221, Ognibene entered the order of the Minorites in 1238, and was known as brother Salimbene. He passed some years in Pisa and other Italian towns; then in 1247 he was sent to Lyons, and from Lyons he went to Paris, returning through France to Genoa, where he became a priest in 1249. From 1249 to 1256 he resided at Ferrara, engaged in writing and in copying manuscripts, but later he found time to move from place to place. His concluding years were mainly spent in monastic retirement in Italy, and he died soon after 1288.

Salimbene was acquainted with many of the important personages of his day, including the emperor Frederick II., the French king St Louis and Pope Innocent IV.; and his Chronicon, written after 1281, is a work of unusual value. This covers the period 1167–1287. Salimbene is a very discursive and a very personal writer, but he gives a remarkably vivid picture of life in France and Italy during the 13th century. The manuscript of the chronicle was found during the 18th century, and passed into the Vatican library, where it now remains. The part of the Chronicon dealing with the period between 1212 and 1287 was edited by A. Bertani and published at Parma in 1857. This edition, however, is very defective, but an excellent and more complete one has been edited by O. Holder-Egger, and is printed in Band xxxii. of the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores (Hanover, 1905).

See U. Balzani, Le Croniche italiane nel medio evo (Milan, 1884); L. Clédat, De fratre Salimbene et de ejus chronicae auctoritate (Paris, 1878); E. Michael, Salimbene und seine Chronik (Innsbruck, 1889); A. Molmier, Les Sources de l’histoire de France, tome iii. (1903); D. W. Duthie, The Case of Sir John Fastolf and other Historical Studies (1907); G. G. Coulton, From St Francis to Dante (1906).


SALINA, a city and the county-seat of Saline county, Kansas, U.S.A., on the Smoky Hill river, near the mouth of the Saline river, about 100 m. W. of Topeka. Pop. (1905) 7829; (1910) 9688. It is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Missouri Pacific and the Union Pacific railways. Salina has a Carnegie library, and is the seat of Kansas Wesleyan University (Methodist Episcopal; chartered in 1885, opened in 1886) and of St John’s Military School (Protestant Episcopal). The city is the see of a Protestant Episcopal bishop. Salina is the central market of a fertile farming region. Power is furnished by the river, and among the manufactures are flour, agricultural implements, foundry products and carriages. The first settlement on the site of Salina was made in 1857. Its first railway, the Union Pacific, came through in 1867. Salina was first chartered as a city in 1870.


SALINA CRUZ, a seaport of Mexico, in the state of Oaxaca, at the southern terminus of the Tehuantepec National Railway. It is situated near the mouth of the Tehuantepec river, on the open coast of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and has no natural harbour. There was only a small Indian village here before Salina Cruz was chosen as the Pacific terminus of the railway. Since then a modern town has been laid out and built on adjacent higher ground. The new port was opened to traffic in 1907 and in 1909 its population was largely composed of labourers. A costly artificial harbour has been built by the Mexican government to accommodate the traffic of the Tehuantepec railway. It is formed by the construction of two breakwaters, the western 3260 ft. and the eastern 1900 ft. long, which curve toward each other at their outer extremities and leave an entrance 635 ft. wide. The enclosed space is divided into an outer and inner harbour by a double line of quays wide enough to carry six great warehouses with electric cranes on both sides and a number of railway tracks. Connected with the new port works is one of the largest dry docks in the world—610 ft. long and 89 ft. wide, with a depth of 28 ft. on its sill at low water. The works were planned to handle an immense volume of transcontinental freight, and before they were finished four steamship lines had arranged regular calls at Salina Cruz; this number has since been largely increased.


SALINS, a town-of eastern France, in the department of Jura, on a branch line of the Paris-Lyon railway. Pop. (1906) 4293. Salins is situated in the narrow valley of the Furieuse, between two fortified hills, while to the north rises Mont Poupet (2798 ft.). The town possesses an interesting Romanesque church (which has been well restored) and an hôtel de ville of the 18th century. A Jesuit chapel of the 17th century contains a library (established in 1593) and a museum. Salins owes its name to its saline waters, used for bathing and drinking. There are also salt workings and gypsum deposits.

The territory of Salins, which was enfeoffed in the 10th century by the abbey of Saint Maurice in Valais to the counts of Mâcon, remained in possession of their descendants till 1175. Maurette de Salins, heiress of this dynasty, left the lordship to the house of Vienne, and her granddaughter sold it in 1225 to Hugh IV., duke of Burgundy, who ceded it in 1237 to John of Chalon (d.1267) in exchange for the count ship of Chalon-sur-Saône. John’s descendants—counts and dukes of Burgundy, emperors and kings of the house of Austria—bore the title of sire de Salins. In 1477 Salins was taken by the French and temporarily made the seat of the parlement of Franche-Comté by Louis XI. In 1668 and 1674 it was retaken by the French and thenceforward remained in their power. In 1825 the town was almost destroyed by fire. In 1871 it successfully resisted the German troops.


SALISBURY, EARLS OF. The title of earl of Salisbury was first created about 1149, when it was conferred on Patrick de Salisbury (sometimes from an early date called in error Patrick Devereux), a descendant of Edward de Salisbury, mentioned in Domesday as vicecomes of Wiltshire. His granddaughter Isabella became countess of Salisbury suo jure on the death of her father, William the 2nd earl, without male heirs, in 1196, and the title was assumed by her husband, William de Longespée (d. 1226), illegitimate son of King Henry II. possibly by Rosamond Clifford (“The fair Rosamond”). Isabella survived her husband, and outlived both her son and grandson, both called Sir William de Longespée, and on her death in 1261 her great-granddaughter Margaret (d. 1310), wife of Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, probably became suo jure countess of Salisbury; she transmitted the title to her daughter Alice, who married Thomas Plantagenet, earl of Lancaster. Lancaster having been attainted and beheaded in 1322, the countess made a surrender of her lands